Early Modern Aristotle

On the Making and Unmaking of Authority

Eva Del Soldato

• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780812296822
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Renaissance History
• Index: History

A reassessment of how the legacy of ancient philosophy functioned in early modern Europe In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle affirms that despite his friendship with Plato, he was a better friend of the truth. With this statement, he rejected his teacher's authority, implying that the pursuit of philosophy does not entail any such obedience. Yet over the centuries Aristotle himself became the authority par excellence in the Western world, and even notorious anti-Aristotelians such as Galileo Galilei preferred to keep him as a friend rather than to contradict him openly. In Early Modern Aristotle, Eva Del Soldato contends that because the authority of Aristotle—like that of any other ancient, including Plato—was a construct, it could be tailored and customized to serve agendas that were often in direct contrast to one another, at times even in open conflict with the very tenets of Peripatetic philosophy.Arguing that recourse to the principle of authority was not merely an instrument for inculcating minds with an immutable body of knowledge, Del Soldato investigates the ways in which the authority of Aristotle was exploited in a variety of contexts. The stories the five chapters tell often develop along the same chronological lines, and reveal consistent diachronic and synchronic patterns. Each focuses on strategies of negotiation, integration and rejection of Aristotle, considering both macro-phenomena, such as the philosophical genre of the comparatio (that is, a comparison of Aristotle and Plato's lives and doctrines), and smaller-scale receptions, such as the circulation of legends, anecdotes, fictions, and rhetorical tropes ("if Aristotle were alive..."), all featuring Aristotle as their protagonist. Through the analysis of surprisingly neglected episodes in intellectual history, Early Modern Aristotle traces how the authority of the ancient philosopher—constantly manipulated and negotiated—shaped philosophical and scientific debate in Europe from the fifteenth century until the dawn of the Enlightenment.

CHAPTER 1

Comparing Philosophers

How to Elevate or Undermine an Authority

A comparatio, generally speaking, is a discussion of the characteristics or merits of at least two elements, including both abstract entities (such as love and fortune, forms of arts, and types of political regimes) and people (living or dead). Different expressions of this literary form can be traced in classic literature, but the agonistic culture of early modern Europe favored this kind of composition, which was still very much alive in the eighteenth century.¹

Yet, from the second half of the fifteenth century until the end of the seventeenth, the comparationes between Plato and Aristotle met with a special success and wide circulation, emerging as a distinct genre. Prominent and less prominent thinkers put considerable effort into demonstrating the harmony between Plato and Aristotle or in affirming the superiority of one of the two. Although most notable in Italy, this practice occurred elsewhere as well and was present in nearly all cultural spheres: courts, convents, academies, and universities.² Consequently, as the products of different contexts, comparationes took many forms, such as dialogues, treatises, commentaries, and university lectures, covering the entire doctrines of Plato and Aristotle or focusing only on selected aspect of their writings.³ But why precisely did comparationes between Plato and Aristotle become so popular during that period?

The practice of comparing Plato’s and Aristotle’s philosophies occasionally emerged in the Latin West during the Middle Ages. Boethius (475/7–526?), for instance, announced a far-reaching plan of translating into Latin, and commenting on, all of Plato and Aristotle’s works. This endeavor was made all the more ambitious by his goal of proving the substantial harmony (“in plerisque et his in philosophia maximis”) between their doctrines (“in unam quodammodo revocare concordiam”).⁴ Boethius most likely never composed his comparatio. A similar and equally unsuccessful project of Bernard of Chartres (twelfth century) and his students was mockingly dismissed by John of Salisbury, who believed it absurd to reconcile two long-dead philosophers who even while alive could never be brought into agreement.⁵ A very partial comparatio entitled Disputatio Platonis et Aristotelis, an apocryphal dialogue between the two philosophers on medical matters, including their opposing views on the localization of the soul, was produced in northern Europe around the ninth century.⁶ Comparisons between the two philosophers in nuce, although limited to a few lines, can be detected in Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), Henri Bate (1246–after 1310), Petrarch (1304–1374), and Leonardo Bruni (1370–1444). Both Thomas and Bate borrowed arguments from Simplicius (c. 490–c. 560), the Greek commentator on Aristotle recently translated by William of Moerbecke. Yet Thomas claimed that Aristotle had only criticized his teacher’s doctrines to prevent people from being deceived by Plato’s symbolic language. Thomas labeled Plato’s teaching style as obscure and also quoted other interpreters, such as Alexander of Aphrodisias (fl. 200), another Greek commentator on Aristotle, to reject agreement between the philosophers.⁷ Petrarch, on the other hand, resolutely asserted the superiority of Plato, whose piety he praised in contrast to the philosophy of Aristotle, which he believed did not contribute to moral improvement.⁸ Finally, Leonardo Bruni—although claiming to accept the general agreement between the two philosophers because Aristotle was a student of Plato’s—endorsed Aristotelian doctrines, which, in his opinion, were better suited to human custom and allowed readers to gain a better knowledge of things, whereas many of Plato’s theories were “presented rather than demonstrated” (“prolata magis … quam probata”).⁹ Another common motif in late medieval texts deplored the preference granted to Aristotle in that period, in spite of the opinion of the ancients, who favored Plato. Yet, this was essentially a rhetorical topos.¹⁰

Thus, for about ten centuries, the Latin West knew comparationes of Plato and Aristotle only as failed initiatives or occasional digressions in larger works. And it could not have been otherwise. Platonism, as a tradition, did not disappear during the medieval period in the Latin world and particularly via the writings of St. Augustine exercised a notable influence, yet firsthand knowledge of Plato proved difficult given the scarcity of his translated works.¹¹ In the Middle Ages solely the Meno and the Phaedo were available in complete Latin translations. The Timaeus and the Parmenides were only partially known, through commentaries by Calcidius and Proclus (the latter of which was translated by William of Moerbecke). Those like Bruni, who in the first half of the fifteenth century translated other Platonic works, usually did not have adequate philosophical expertise to appreciate the theoretical and stylistic complexity of the texts, and for this reason their versions were defective and deceptive.¹² Latinate readers were certainly more familiar and at ease with Aristotle—available in Latin since the twelfth century and whose complete encyclopedia of knowledge, expressed in a plain, dry writing style had resulted in the Philosopher’s becoming the central authority in the Schools’ curriculum (from which Plato has already disappeared in the early thirteenth century).¹³

By contrast, in antiquity, the teaching of philosophy was centered on Plato, and Aristotle’s works were generally less read and known.¹⁴ Antiochus of Ascalona (120–67 BC), for example, considered Plato’s philosophy a “disciplina perfectissima,” which could only be further developed by his students, such as Aristotle.¹⁵ Antiochus’s opinion, according to which Platonists and Aristotelians disagree in words but not in substance, was made famous by his pupil Cicero and would be repeatedly quoted in early modern comparationes.¹⁶ Nonetheless, even though his position was probably more nuanced, there is no evidence that Antiochus was directly familiar with Aristotle’s writings.¹⁷ A more systematic approach to Plato and Aristotle was attempted by Alcinous (second century) in his handbook entitled Didascalicos. This work was intended as an introduction to Plato’s original doctrines, which are described as the source of several Aristotelian tenets.¹⁸ By the time Alcinous had composed his work, it was seemingly a common opinion, among both Platonists and Aristotelians, that Aristotle’s writings could help one obtain a better understanding of Plato’s philosophy.¹⁹ As Antiochus had already suggested, Aristotle was believed to have preserved and perfected genuine Platonic teachings—mostly regarding logic—originally conceived by his teacher in an asystematic form.²⁰ Once Aristotle’s essential agreement with Plato was accepted, the plain and organized order of the Philosopher’s writings could grant young practitioners of philosophy easier access to doctrines expressed by Plato in a convoluted style. For this reason, comparationes between the two philosophers were likely introduced as a sort of didactic tool. And although none of these ancient and late antique comparisons has survived (the earliest was probably composed by Calvenus Taurus in the second century), they make it evident that, in gaining access to Plato’s views, a certain reliance upon Aristotle was common. Affirming Plato and Aristotle’s agreement did not, however, serve the purpose of flattening the respective philosophies of the two thinkers. Aside from highlighting cases in which Aristotle was believed to have misunderstood Plato, the conciliatory nature of these ancient works hinted at the complementarity of the two philosophers, by acknowledging the distinct realms in which they cultivated their doctrines.²¹ Plato, the theologian, and Aristotle, the natural philosopher, “divine” Plato and “demonic” Aristotle, appear to be in contrast only because Plato spoke of the superior realities and Aristotle of the physical world.²² This line of argument, proffered by Porphyry (234 to early fourth century) in his lost comparationes, implied a hierarchization of the two philosophers, and ultimately bolstered Plato’s superiority.²³ For this reason, we find a similar distinction between a divine Plato and a natural Aristotle employed even already by Platonists who, like Atticus (second century), were opposed to their reconciliation and consequently hostile to the didactic use of Aristotle.²⁴ This interpretation was most famously advocated in the sixth century by Simplicius, who was instead particularly interested in proving the harmony between Plato and Aristotle in reaction to the “Christian charges of contradictions in pagan philosophy.”²⁵

The hierarchical-conciliatory tradition no doubt influenced the composition of The Harmonization of the Two Opinions of the Two Sages: Plato the Divine and Aristotle, the earliest surviving comparatio, attributed to the Arab philosopher Al-Farabi (d. 950), though its authorship continues to be debated.²⁶ The Harmonization argued for the agreement of the two thinkers, in order to defend philosophy from the attacks of those who considered it impious. To achieve this goal, Al-Farabi also built on an apocryphal text, the Theologia, attributed to Aristotle that was in reality Plotinian (this kind of apocrypha was still presented as proof of agreement between the two philosophers in early modern comparationes).

In the Christian Byzantine context of the following centuries, comparationes abandoned their primarily pedagogical-exegetical character in favor of an apologetic approach, which had been prefigured in Eusebius’s Praeparatio evangelica (fourth century). Eusebius was among those who highlighted the contradictions between pagan philosophers, made clear by their conflicting doctrines. Yet in Eusebius Plato is singled out among the other pagans, particularly Aristotle, for having defended the view of a God creator of the world, in accordance with Mosaic wisdom.²⁷ The preference for Plato over Aristotle and the other pagans, stemming from theological reasons, was not lost in the following centuries. In their comparative readings of Plato and Aristotle’s philosophies, Theodorus Metochites (1270–1332) and Nikephoros Gregoras (1291/2–1360) were primarily concerned with understanding which of the two thinkers was more in agreement with Christian teachings.²⁸ Their accounts—informed by fideism and distrust of the epistemological possibilities of natural philosophy—were especially biased against the physicus Aristotle.

Boethius, who was, as mentioned, the first Latin to conceive the idea of composing a comparatio, was likely inspired by the Greek Porphyry.²⁹ In the same vein, though in a different context, it is quite revealing that the first early modern comparatio of Plato and Aristotle composed in the Western world was written in Greek by a Byzantine philosopher—Gemistus Pletho—at the time of the Council of Ferrara-Florence. The council—which achieved a short-lived reunification of the Greek and Roman Churches—has always been identified, sometimes with providentialist undertones, as a decisive moment for the reintroduction of Plato and his philosophy into the Latin world.³⁰ The Greek mediation permitted the Latin world to rediscover Plato and become acquainted with ways of interpreting him vis-à-vis the until-then unchallenged philosophical authority in the West, Aristotle. It has been rightly stated that no other debate in the history of philosophy was characterized by such polarization as the fifteenth century Plato-Aristotle controversy.³¹ With Aristotle’s supremacy at its apogee, Plato’s return gave rise to new questions. Comparationes were the perfect instrument for providing answers, giving form to the exchanges and the clashes of two cultures, Greek and Latin, while also expressing theological, political, and philosophical anxieties.

Yet even decades after the council comparing Plato with Aristotle maintained a certain significance. A comparatio compelled one to take a stance and commit to a decision on which of the two philosophers was supreme, with all the corollaries this entailed, such as defending traditions or dismantling them. Sometimes Plato had the upper hand, sometimes Aristotle. On occasion, the purpose of a comparatio was to demonstrate the harmony between Plato and his student.³² Proclaiming the agreement of the two philosophers did not, however, exclude—as we have seen—the establishment of a hierarchy between the two of them. Comparationes were not neutral works, nor were they dull, idle, academic discussions of the philosophies of two ancient thinkers. The need to endorse either Plato or Aristotle or demonstrate their agreement was geared toward the promotion of immediate, even pressing, agendas. When the authors of comparationes attempted to justify their contributions, claiming that the works of their predecessors were neither correct nor definitive, their dissatisfaction can rarely be taken at face value. Often their writings hid ideological and philosophical biases that required them to reject an earlier comparatio because it promoted a different, and conceivably opposed, cultural program. For the “subgenre” aimed at demonstrating the harmony between Plato and Aristotle was dissatisfaction with predecessors more firmly grounded. Beginning with Boethius, promises to demonstrate the agreement between the two philosophers were often made but ultimately never achieved. Not surprisingly, therefore, promising to prove the illusive concordia between the two philosophers could become, in some cases, an instrument for impressing powerful patrons.

Comparationes in the Western world generally followed consistent patterns, which were largely prefigured in the ancient and Byzantine phases of the genre’s circulation. On the whole, in fact, early modern comparationes of Plato and Aristotle can be divided in two distinct typologies: the first focused on their respective compatibilities with the Christian religion, the second on philosophical, didactic, and exegetical concerns. Both approaches, of course, entailed the superseding or the legitimization of one of the two think...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Chronology
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. Comparing Philosophers: How to Elevate or Undermine an Authority
• Chapter 2. Comparationes and External Aids
• Chapter 3. Learning, Protecting, Advertising: Comparationes in University Halls
• Chapter 4. Customizing Authorities: Legends, Anecdotes, Fictions
• Chapter 5. If Aristotle Were Alive, or the Paradoxes of Authority
• Epilogue
• Appendix A. Preface by Alfonso Pandolfi to His Comparatio
• Appendix B. Federico Pendasio’s Comparatio
• Appendix C. Skeptical Attitudes Toward Philosophical Concordiae
• Appendix D. Francesco Vimercato’s De Dogmatibus
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Acknowledgments