Bochumer Philosophisches Jahrbuch für Antike und Mittelalter - Volume 17, Issue 1, 2014

Cassirer proclaimed the human as ‘animal symbolicum’. Language, art and religion are manifestations of an symbolic and symbol-creating awareness. The symbols are caused by a movement which is to be characterized as tropical. A symbol can be generated as a metonymic term, based on the principle of contiguity, but also as an metaphoric term, corresponding to the principle of similarity. The perception of these tropical movements draws the attention to the origination of a symbolic term as well as to the changes of already existing terms. The history of the ancient symbolic speech is a history of permanent creations, but also of mutations of meaning. This history is noticeable in Greece for the first time in Homer. His figurative speech is influenced by the mythical contiguity, which yields to a metaphorization and allegorization of the symbols in lyrics and philosophy in the following period, but still remains present in the religious literature. Finally, the symbolic speech of the new Christianity is situated in the non-solvable tension between the principles of contiguity and similarity. A recognition of this history of the ancient symbolic speech is required for its subsequent analysis, which is especially important for Christianity, for whom the ancient symbolism is normative, as well as for the philosophy, which desires to recognize its own history.

This paper attempts at showing the basic principles according to which the Neoplatonist philosopher Proclus (412–485) formulated his theory on time. The argumentation basically focuses on his methodology, since whatever is included in this analysis is used by the Neoplatonist philosopher in almost all his references to the notion of time. His basic position is that time is not simply a cosmological factor, but possesses properties which connect it closely with the metaphysical world. Also, that it is essential to examine its relation with the Soul, as an ontological factor which connects the metaphysical with the natural world, and that this examination is necessary, so that the production of the natural world can be clarified with due exactness. The topics dealt with are included in Proclus’ treatise In Platonis Timaeum, i.e. his extensive commentary on the Platonic dialogue Timaeus, on the basis of the new scientific and philosophical finds, which had became available since the time of Plato.

Some contemporary readings of Averroes put special emphasis on the philosophical and critical character of the work of the Muslim theologian and mystic al-Ġazālī, who is also known as the “Proof of Islam”. They even regard him as some pioneer of Enlightenment thought. This paper therefore investigates the thesis of Averroes as a critical philosopher. It sets forth that one can indeed find some essential elements of critical thought in al-Ġazālī’s writings: for example Ġazālī’s critique of reason and especially his rejection of تقليد (taqlīd), which means the nonreflective imitation of a teacher, authority or tradition, especially in matters pertaining to religion. Nevertheless, comparing him to both, Kant and Descartes, we will try to show that his thought falls short of critical thinking and even of philosophy itself. To this end we will proceed as follows: First, we analyze his critique of taqlīd. Secondly, we investigate his critique of Aristotelian Arabic philosophy as a variety of taqlīd. Thirdly, we consider his skeptical suspension of reason in favor of immediate prophetic perception. Fourthly, we look upon the relationship between the super-rational perception and reason. Fifthly, we show that Ġazālī dismisses the idea of autonomous reason.

Was the Byzantine thinker Nicephorus Blemmydes (1197–1272) directly influenced in his views about human “proairesis” by the Stoic Epictetus (50–138 AD) or did he take over his views from the Neoplatonic Simplicius? After exploring Blemmydes’ reception of Epictetus, one can say that Blemmydes drew elements in a brief treatise under the title “De virtute et ascesi” from the mainly Neoplatonic Simplicius, who commented on the handbook by the Stoic Epictetus (50–138 AD). Blemmydes, following Simplicius identifies “ἐφ’ ἡμῖν” with “aftexousion” and he designates “proairesis” as an activity, which emanates from “aftexousion”. Blemmydes shows the moral power of “proairesis” as a transforming factor of human existence and the mediatory factor to the dialectical relation between man and God. For the completion of the study, the following sources have been used: Blemmydes’ De virtute et ascesi, Epictetus’ Handbook, and Neoplatonic Simplicius’ commentaries on the Handbook. I specifically focus on the views of Aristotle, Epictetus, and Neoplatonic Simplicius about “proairesis” and compare the views of Blemmydes to Simplicius’ ideas. I conclude that Blemmydes drew ideas from Simplicius, with regard to human “proairesis” and in the context of the practising and cultivating virtues in everyday life.

This paper examines Siger of Brabant’s doctrine of universals in light of Siger’s critical discussion of two highly influential philosophers on the issue of universals in the Middle Ages, Avicenna and Albert the Great. Although Siger unequivocally rejects Albert’s views on universals – rightly so, given Albert’s commitment to a rather robust form of realism –, he is far less hostile to Avicenna’s ideas on the subject than he is to Albert’s. The paper examines Siger’s contrasting attitudes to both authors, highlights Siger’s perspicuity as a reader and interpreter of the works of other philosophers, and shows how Siger uses the doctrines of Albert and Avicenna to sharpen his own position.

In the corollaries to Book I, Chapter 5 of De causa Dei, Thomas Bradwardine assumes the existence of an actual, infinite, God-filled extramundane void. Thomas Buckingham, Bradwardine’s former student, develops in the unedited Question 23 of his Quaestiones theologicae a rejection of the void’s existence precisely in opposition to the theory of his master. His argumentation is not only remarkable in its own; it also allows us to reassess essential concepts from Bradwardine’s De causa Dei, such as divine power, causality and ubiquity. This paper first presents the Aristotelian notion of the void in rendering it in the context of the philosophy of nature at fourteenth-century Oxford; it is then dedicated to the analysis of the chapter in question from De causa Dei along with Buckingham’s answer. It is accompanied by a critical edition of Question 23 from Buckingham’s Quaestiones theologicae, »Utrum sit necesse ponere Deum esse extra mundum in situ seu vacuo imaginario infinito«.

In his essay the author draws attention to two 16th century humanists who engaged in the debate on Cicero the Man (as distinguished from Cicero the Orator, or Cicero the Philosopher). In 1534, Ortensio Lando (1519–1552), a man of letters, published Cicero relegatus & Cicero revocatus, which was a collection of objections to Cicero’s character and habits brought forward in an imaginary conversation, as well as of arguments in his defence proposed in an equally fictitious public hearing, thus producing an apparent equilibrium. Lando, however, did not leave us guessing about his meaning, but gave us hints about his own attitude to Cicero. In 1537, Sebastiano Corrado (1512–1556), an editor and commentator of various Ciceronian writings, published In M. T. Ciceronem Quaestura, a collection of textual emendations to his œuvres. In order to make it more attractive reading, he wrote it in dialogue form and called the readings he approved of, ‘gold coins’, those he rejected, ‘false coins’, thus building a stock of allegedly reliable readings. The coin metaphor recurred in Corrado’s Egnatius, sive Quaestura (1555) which was an attempt to lay, in form of dialogue, the foundations of a reliable biography of Cicero. Here three scholars discuss all the information provided by Cicero himself, his contemporaries and later sources on his life and work. Information they approve of is treasured as gold coin, the rest is rejected as false coin. It turns out, however, that Corrado was strongly prejudiced against Greek sources shedding an unfavourable light on Cicero. The result was an apology rather than a biography of Cicero.

Mysticism played an important role in the works of Schelling, not only after 1806, that is not only after he went to Munich and came into contact with Franz von Baader, but already at the beginning of his literary career in the 1790s. It seems that he already knows Meister Eckhart’s German Sermons in 1795, namely as he writes the Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism (Philosophische Briefe über Dogmatismus und Kritizismus), because he uses the concepts ‘grundlos’ and ‘unmittelbar’ in a way we also find in Eckhart’s works. The Mystical thought is crucial to understand not only Schelling’s Identity philosophy, but even his reception of Kant, Spinoza and Fichte’s Doctrine of Science. Yet, these conclusions do not show that Eckhart’s mysticism had paved the way for modern thought, but rather that German Idealism means an attempt at redefinition of modernity, which has his roots in mystical thought.