Lexicon Philosophicum: International Journal for the History of Texts and Ideas
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DANIEL ERNST JABLONSKI: EIN BRÜCKENBAUER IM EUROPA DER FRÜHEN NEUZEIT
Full text linkThe biography of Daniel Ernst Jablonski (1660-1741), bishop of the Moravian Brethren in Poland and at the same time a most influential Prussian court preacher, reflects the relationships between East-, Central- and Western Europe during the Early Enlightenment. Both, his Grandfather, Jan Amos Comenius, and his father, were bishops of a church, which had been exiled from Czechia to Poland, where Daniel Ernst Jablonski was born. He studied in Frankfurt (Oder), and at the Christ Church College in Oxford, where he became friend with several prominent members of the Anglican Church. He was an outstanding member in the European respublica literaria in different fields, Orientalistic, i.e. Jewish and biblical studies, and he was highly esteemed as a scholar in Old Slav church history. These were good preconditions for making him a bridge builder between nations and ideas. Side by side with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) he worked at the foundation of the later-on famous Prussian Academy of Sciences and over decades he worked at the union of the separated Protestant churches. For his lifelong commitment to the religious tolerance and to the rights of religious minorities, along with his scientific work, he deserves to be considered a representative (if in a moderate way) of the European Enlightenment
GERMANA ERNST INTERPRETE DI GIROLAMO CARDANO
Full text linkGermana Ernst, an international authority on Tommaso Campanella’sphilosophy, was also a fine interpreter of Girolamo Cardano, whose work she investigatedin many of its wide-ranging dimensions. The figure who emerges from Ernst’s analysis isan open-minded explorer of natural marvels and human foibles. Ernst has written seminalstudies on topics related to Cardano’s work in the areas of astrology, witchcraft andautobiography. It is especially with respect to his autobiographical account that Ernst hasgiven us illuminating pages on the most troubling aspects of Cardano’s life: the death ofhis firstborn son, his imprisonment and his unsettling experiences of mental pain
DIOGENE DI BABILONIA E ARISTONE NEL PHERC. 1004 ([FILODEMO], [SULLA RETORICA], LIBRO INCERTO) PARTE SECONDA*
Full text linkThe main evidence about the lost treatise On Rhetoric by the Stoic philosopher Diogenes of Babylon (c. 230-150/140 B.C.) is represented by large passages coming from Philodemus’ On Rhetoric Book 3 and Unknown Book (PHerc. 1004). Here Diogenes condemns professional rhetoric and rhetors with arguments which are either coincident or very similar to those used by an unknown Aristo in the final section of the same book. In particular, according to Philodemus, Diogenes drew from some enigmatic hypomnemata by this philosopher for his own treatise On Rhetoric. Now, attacks against traditional rhetors, though different in kind and intensity, are attested in antiquity for only two philosophers by this name: the Peripatetic Aristo the Younger, pupil of Critolaus, and the Stoic Aristo of Chius, disciple of Zeno and the author of a polemical pamphlet Against the Rhetors. Both chronological and philosophical arguments compel us to exclude the former and strongly point to the latter
COSCIENZA E SINDERESI IN GOFFREDO DI FONTAINES
Full text linkIn q. 2 of Quodlibet XII, discussed in 1295, the secular master of Theology Godfrey of Fontaines poses the question whether an erroneous conscience if acting against binds us to commit a mortal sin. As a matter of fact, it is one of the few texts in which the master from Liège deals with two fundamental concepts of medieval ethics, i.e., conscience and synderesis. Both are unanimously agreed by medieval philosophers to be the two inclinations of the soul that allow human beings to pursue the good and just and avoid evil. According to Godfrey, synderesis works on an universal level and, as habit of natural intellect, like the speculative principles, is innate, inextinguishable, and cannot be overcome by sin. Conscience is defined as a kind of practical knowledge (notitia) regarding particular decisions and as the result of a moral syllogism that takes its start from the will and ends in the will. However, because the will chooses always, according to Godfrey, based on the judgement of reason, conscience concerns mostly the way how reason acts. From the Godfreydian texts about conscience and synderesis emerges an optimistic view of the human being and his moral life, typical of many medieval authors. Although someone may be vicious and yield to sin, he remains, according to Godfrey, master (dominus) of his acts, owing to his psychic inclinations essentially related to reason. Thus Godfrey’s clearly betrays ‘intellectualistic traits’ in his ethics; possessing and exercising right reason, the human being can better develop his moral virtues
LÖCHER IM NETZ. ZWISCHEN DEN ZEILEN DER LEIBNIZ-KORRESPONDENZ
Full text linkThis article investigates the ‘gaps’ in the learned correspondences of the early modern respublica literaria in Europe by the example of the huge correspondence of the philosopher and universal scholar Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716). It shows that intentionally non-written letters, being a lack of answer or an explicite silence, have to be interpreted as a part of the epistolary relation between the members of the republic of letters. Although these unwritten and unspoken messages are hard to be detected and can not be published in any edition they belong to a correspondence network as well as a written letter or a given answe
ARCHAIC THOUGHT AND SOPHISTRY IN HERODOTUS’ HISTORIES 3.38.1 SOME REMARKS ON THE CONCEPT OF ΝΟΜΟΣ*
Full text linkThe concepts of νόμος and φύσις were key to sophistical thinking. The sophistical opposition between the two concepts exerted a great influence in the fifth century BC. The objective of this contribution is to identify the presence of sophistical elements in Herodotus’ Histories, taking a historical perspective. The approach will include an analysis of the notion of νόμος (‘custom’). This examination is intended to demonstrate the thesis that Herodotus uses intellectual discussions from the fifth century BC but also transposes the concept of sophistry in order to restore an archaic conception of νόμος
