Neoplatonism by Dragos Calma
This third (and last) volume gathers contributions on key concepts of the Platonic tradition (Pro... more This third (and last) volume gathers contributions on key concepts of the Platonic tradition (Proclus, Plotinus, Porphyry or Sallustius) inherited and reinterpreted by Arabic (e.g. Avicenna, the Book of Causes), Byzantine (e.g. Maximus the Confessor, Ioane Petritsi) and Latin authors (e.g. Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Berthold of Moosburg, Marsilio Ficino etc.). Two major themes are presently studied: causality (in respect to the One, the henads, the self-constituted substances and the first being) and the noetic triad (being-life-intellect).
https://brill.com/view/title/61293
full book available at https://brill.com/view/title/34819
Reading Proclus and the Book of Causes... more full book available at https://brill.com/view/title/34819
Reading Proclus and the Book of Causes, published in three volumes, is a fresh, comprehensive understanding of the history of Neoplatonism from the 9th to the 16th century. The impact of the Elements of Theology and the Book of Causes is reconsidered on the basis of newly discovered manuscripts and evidences. This second volume revises widely accepted hypotheses about the reception of the Proclus' text in Byzantium and the Caucasus, and about the context that made possible the composition of the Book of Causes and its translations into Latin and Hebrew. The contributions offer a unique, comparative perspective on the various ways a pagan author was acculturated to the Abrahamic traditions.
Reading Proclus and the Book of Causes (5th-16th Centuries). Vol. 1: Western Scholarly Networks and Debates, Brill, 2019
hard copy and FREE online access at: https://brill.com/view/title/34818
[courtesy of ANR and EPHE... more hard copy and FREE online access at: https://brill.com/view/title/34818
[courtesy of ANR and EPHE-PSL, Paris]
One of the most important texts in the history of medieval philosophy, the "Book of Causes" was c... more One of the most important texts in the history of medieval philosophy, the "Book of Causes" was composed in Baghdad in the 9th century mainly from the Arabic translations of Proclus' "Elements of Theology". In the 12th century, it was translated from Arabic into Latin, but its importance in the Latin tradition was not properly studied until now, because only 6 commentaries on it were known. Our exceptional discovery of over 70 unpublished Latin commentaries mainly on the "Book of Causes", but also on the "Elements of Theology", prove, for the first time, that the two texts where widely disseminated and commented on throughout many European universities (Paris, Oxford, Erfurt, Krakow, Prague), from the 13th to the 16th century. These two volumes provide 13 editions (partial or complete) of the newly-discovered commentaries, and yields, through historical and philosophical analyses, new and essential insights into the influence of Greek and Islamic Neoplatonism in the Latin philosophical traditions.
One of the most important texts in the history of medieval philosophy, the "Book of Causes" was c... more One of the most important texts in the history of medieval philosophy, the "Book of Causes" was composed in Baghdad in the 9th century mainly from the Arabic translations of Proclus' "Elements of Theology". In the 12th century, it was translated from Arabic into Latin, but its importance in the Latin tradition was not properly studied until now, because only 6 commentaries on it were known. Our exceptional discovery of over 70 unpublished Latin commentaries mainly on the "Book of Causes", but also on the "Elements of Theology", prove, for the first time, that the two texts where widely disseminated and commented on throughout many European universities (Paris, Oxford, Erfurt, Krakow, Prague), from the 13th to the 16th century. These two volumes provide 13 editions (partial or complete) of the newly-discovered commentaries, and yields, through historical and philosophical analyses, new and essential insights into the influence of Greek and Islamic Neoplatonism in the Latin philosophical traditions.
Moosburg on Proclus’ Elements of Theology. The breadth of its vision surpasses every other known ... more Moosburg on Proclus’ Elements of Theology. The breadth of its vision surpasses every other known commentary on the Elements of Theology, for it seeks to present a coherent account of the Platonic tradition as such (unified through the concord of Proclus and Dionysius) and at the same time to consolidate and transform a legacy of metaphysics developed in the German-speaking lands by Peripatetic authors (like Albert the Great, Ulrich of Strassburg, and Dietrich of Freiberg). This volume aims to provide a basis for further research and discussion of this unduly overlooked commentary, whose historical-philosophical importance as an attempt to refound Western metaphysics is beginning to be recognized.
This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license. * Dragos ... more This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license. * Dragos Calma was responsible for drafting section 1 and 3; Evan King for section 2. The section 4 was jointly written. This research was undertaken within the framework of the erc research project CoG_NeoplAT 771640. 1 ms Vat. lat. 2419 , f. 105va: Procly dyadochy lycii platonici phylosophi Elementatario (!) theologica explicit capitulum 211. Completa fuit translatio huius operis Viterbii a fratre G⟨uillelmo⟩ de Morbecca ordinis fratrum predicatorum XV Kalendis Iunii anno domini millesimo CC°LX°octavo. The same colophon can be read in ms Cambridge, Peterhouse, 121 , f. 202rb. Cf. L. Miolo , "Le Liber de causis et l'Elementatio theologica dans deux bibliothèques anglaises: Merton College (Oxford) et Peterhouse (Cambridge)", in D. Calma (ed.), Reading Proclus and the Book of Causes. Vol. 1. Western Scholarly Networks and Debates (Leiden: Brill, 2019), p. 120-150. 2 It is worth recalling that there are (at least) four other translations into Latin of the Elements of Theology: one by Franciscus Patricius (Procli Lycii diadochi platonici philosophi eminentissimi Elementa theologica, et physica opus omnis admiratione prosequendum, Ferrara, Apud Dominicum Mamarellum, 1583); one by Aemilius Portus , who published it together with the Greek text, preceded by the bilingual (Latin-Greek) texts of the Theologia platonica and Marinus ' Vita, and followed by the 55 Conclusiones on the Elements by Pico della Mirandola (Procli successoris platonici philosophi Institutio Theologica quae continet capita 211 [Hamburg: Apud Rulandios, 1618], p. 415-502). The bilingual edition and translation of Aemilius Portus is reprinted (with adjustments) and dedicated to Hegel by F. Creuzer in 1823 (Frankfurt a.M.: In o���cina Broenneriana). One should also consider that the Elements is extensively cited by Nicholas of Methone in his Refutation, which was translated into Latin twice: by an anonymous translator from the sixteenth century (ms Milan, Ambr. Lat., P 63) and by Bonaventura Vulcanius (d. ca. 1614), the autograph being preserved in ms Leiden, b.p.l., 47. Marsilio Ficino famously claimed that he translated the Elements, but there is no clear evidence for it. On this topic see D. Robichaud , "Fragments of Marsilio Ficino's Translations and Use of Proclus '
Arabic sciences and philosophy, 2021
Abstract. This article proposes a first systematic approach to the manuscript tradition of the Li... more Abstract. This article proposes a first systematic approach to the manuscript tradition of the Liber de causis. It studies both the manuscript variants and the doctrinal difficulties raised by the transliteration of the Arabic al-ʿaql preserved in the Latin translation. Some authors (such as Albert the Great) interpreted this transliteration as a concept forged by Arab philosophers without an equivalent in Latin. Other authors (such as Thomas Aquinas and Giles of Rome) do not mention it because they probably knew a different branch of the manuscript tradition. By examining one hundred and ten Latin manuscripts of the Liber de causis (out of two hundred and sixty-five currently known), the article establishes a list of the numerous variations regarding the presence of this transliteration in the text and its forms or spellings (alatyr, alachili, adlahic etc.). This analysis enables a better understanding of both Albert’s position and the hitherto unsuspected diversity of the transmission of the Liber de causis in the Latin West.
Reading Proclus and the Book of Causes, vol. 1
This paper examines the medieval history of a seminal debate on occasionalism originated in Averr... more This paper examines the medieval history of a seminal debate on occasionalism originated in Averroes' and Maimonides' arguments against Al-Ghazali. Siger of Brabant uses the same arguments to criticize Aquinas' philosophical explanation of Eucharist. With Siger, one can see an important change in the Western interpretation of the first proposition of the Book of Causes: "plus influere" (the first cause infuses its effect more powerfully than its secondary cause ) is deliberately understood as "sine secundaria" (the first causes produces the effect without the secondary). The article presents the reception of Siger's argument in several medieval commentaries on the Book of Causes, and its impact on theories on God's will and knowledge of particulars, but also on the theory of emanation ("ab uno nisi unum").
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Reading Proclus and the Book of Causes, vol. 1, 2019
This paper analysis and publishes John Krosbein's (fl. 14th c.) commentary on the 'Book of Causes... more This paper analysis and publishes John Krosbein's (fl. 14th c.) commentary on the 'Book of Causes'. He commentend upon all the works of Aristotle, and judging by the number of manuscripts, he was read in numerous schools in the Holly Roman Empire (today Germany and Poland). How can one explain the success of Krosbein’s commentaries? His undertaking is characterised by a concise and very synthetic explication of the text, unlike the endeavours of Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas which were far too detailed to function as brisk introductions to Aristotle’s works, the pseudepigraphal treatises ('Liber de causis', 'De proprietatibus elementorum') and the 'Elements of Theology'. Krosbein’s method for reducing the length of his commentary consists mainly in selecting passages which seem important to him; in the case of the 'Book of Causes' and the 'Elements of Theology', he comments chiefly on the theorems and rarely appeals to secondary propositions. Within the academic system Krosbein’s paraphrases played a very useful role. Suitable for propaedeutic instruction in philosophy, they familiarised students with texts and doctrines which could be further developed over the course of their studies at the university. These commentaries likely functioned as successful introductory volumes, similar to the Handbook of or Companion to of our time.
Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales 85(1), 71-108
Scholars have examined a commentary on the Book of Causes attributed to Adam
of Bocfeld for almo... more Scholars have examined a commentary on the Book of Causes attributed to Adam
of Bocfeld for almost a century. Yet little progress has been made regarding its
dating, authenticity, and doctrines. This paper tackles some of these issues arguing
that the commentary (1) was most probably written between 1251 and
1263/1265, (2) has striking similarities with some works attributed to Roger
Bacon, and (3) contains an interesting discussion of Averroes’ doctrine of the
unity of the intellect. The article also indicates the influence of this commentary
on fifteenth-century authors and offers a partial edition of its question 1.
In this paper we examine and publish the entire commentary on the 'Book of Causes' attributed to ... more In this paper we examine and publish the entire commentary on the 'Book of Causes' attributed to John of Mallignes, arguably the same person as the proctor of University of Paris who defended the masters of arts before Pope Martin IV. In a very complex and detailed analysis of the 'Book of Causes', John of Mallignes uses several Parisian authors (Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Siger of Brabant) and he argues agains the idea that God alone created all realities; the reason for this is that it is in God's nature to refuse solitary causality and to share with other separated substances (or causes) the production of the world and all its beings.
This paper analysis and partially edits an anonymous commentary preserved in the MS Augsburg Staa... more This paper analysis and partially edits an anonymous commentary preserved in the MS Augsburg Staats und Stadtbibliothek 4° Cod. 68. The commentary is filled with implicit and explicit citations. The principal importance of the text lies in its relationship to the exegetical tradition of the Liber de causis, and, more precisely, in the manner in which it creates a dialogue between the theses of its predecessors, with a clear preference for Albert the Great, while he mentions Thomas Aquinas much less often and criticises him openly.
This article analyses and publishes the commentary on the Book of Causes by an anonymous author f... more This article analyses and publishes the commentary on the Book of Causes by an anonymous author from the University of Paris from the last decades of the 13th century. He knew and used the commentaries on the Book of Causes by Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Siger of Brabant and Giles of Rome and he extensively cited Averroes. The anonymous propounded a noetics based on a double relation between substance, potency and body, arguing for the possibility of the priority of the operational union between mind and body compared to their substantial union. Interpreting the 4th proposition of the Book of Causes, the anonymous authors claims that prime matter was created ex nihilo and immediately by the first cause. The understanding of the 4th proposition of the Book of Causes in relation with the doctrine of the prime matter occurs (only) in the later reading of John Wyclif.
The questio studied and edited in this paper is transmitted by two manuscripts; it was publicly d... more The questio studied and edited in this paper is transmitted by two manuscripts; it was publicly disputed by the Rector of the University of Erfurt, Henry of Gheismar in 1414. The article analyses the literary genre of questio de quolibet developed in Central Europe at the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century; and presents some of the most important features of Henry's doctrines on cause and causality. Henry of Geismar chooses to go back to the tradition predating Albert the Great's commentary and to treat the Neoplatonic model of causality according to the model of Aristotelian causality. Henry compares the different causes within a genus to each other (as does Thomas Aquinas) and introduces a new analysis by comparing the causes of different genera to one another (for example the formal cause to the material, the efficient cause to the final). He also considers the possibility of a primary cause in a genus which influences more (plus) than a secondary cause of another genus.
The newly discovered commentaries prove that there is no gap between the reception of Greek and I... more The newly discovered commentaries prove that there is no gap between the reception of Greek and Islamic Neoplatonism in the West with the Latin translation of 'Liber de causis' by Gerard of Cremona († 1187) and the commentary of Ambrogio Fiandino († 1532), one of the last authors whose commentary is still extant. It seems possible to demonstrate that these texts are not a mass of commentaries disconnected from one another, but rather an exegetical tradition constituted primarily around the 'Liber de causis' (the 'Elements of Theology' is commented on much less often).
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Neoplatonism by Dragos Calma
https://brill.com/view/title/61293
Reading Proclus and the Book of Causes, published in three volumes, is a fresh, comprehensive understanding of the history of Neoplatonism from the 9th to the 16th century. The impact of the Elements of Theology and the Book of Causes is reconsidered on the basis of newly discovered manuscripts and evidences. This second volume revises widely accepted hypotheses about the reception of the Proclus' text in Byzantium and the Caucasus, and about the context that made possible the composition of the Book of Causes and its translations into Latin and Hebrew. The contributions offer a unique, comparative perspective on the various ways a pagan author was acculturated to the Abrahamic traditions.
[courtesy of ANR and EPHE-PSL, Paris]
free download at https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004395114/BP000011.xml
[courtesy of ANR and EPHE-PSL]
of Bocfeld for almost a century. Yet little progress has been made regarding its
dating, authenticity, and doctrines. This paper tackles some of these issues arguing
that the commentary (1) was most probably written between 1251 and
1263/1265, (2) has striking similarities with some works attributed to Roger
Bacon, and (3) contains an interesting discussion of Averroes’ doctrine of the
unity of the intellect. The article also indicates the influence of this commentary
on fifteenth-century authors and offers a partial edition of its question 1.
https://brill.com/view/title/61293
Reading Proclus and the Book of Causes, published in three volumes, is a fresh, comprehensive understanding of the history of Neoplatonism from the 9th to the 16th century. The impact of the Elements of Theology and the Book of Causes is reconsidered on the basis of newly discovered manuscripts and evidences. This second volume revises widely accepted hypotheses about the reception of the Proclus' text in Byzantium and the Caucasus, and about the context that made possible the composition of the Book of Causes and its translations into Latin and Hebrew. The contributions offer a unique, comparative perspective on the various ways a pagan author was acculturated to the Abrahamic traditions.
[courtesy of ANR and EPHE-PSL, Paris]
free download at https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004395114/BP000011.xml
[courtesy of ANR and EPHE-PSL]
of Bocfeld for almost a century. Yet little progress has been made regarding its
dating, authenticity, and doctrines. This paper tackles some of these issues arguing
that the commentary (1) was most probably written between 1251 and
1263/1265, (2) has striking similarities with some works attributed to Roger
Bacon, and (3) contains an interesting discussion of Averroes’ doctrine of the
unity of the intellect. The article also indicates the influence of this commentary
on fifteenth-century authors and offers a partial edition of its question 1.
largely unpublished metaphysical treatise, the Colliget principiorum. This paper analyses only some of these references, especially in relation to the creation of the world, which Heymeric understands in two stages : first as a creation in thought by the Father in the Son, and then as an outflow from the Trinity through the participation of the Holy Spirit. To better situate this position in the medieval context, the paper shows that some authors associate the thesis of creation in the Word with the archetypal world of Plato’s Timaeus, while others reject it, such as Albert the Great. Heymeric de Campo chooses an intermediate path : he accepts that creation in the Son is the archetypal world, but he stresses that the latter neither exists nor acts outside the Trinity. This can be interpreted as a reaction against the Prague realists (Jerome of Prague and John Hus) condemned at the Council of Constance. Heymeric draws on Albert’s interpretation of Proposition IV of the Liber de causis shows that God’s going out from the Trinity is through a particular type of flow of the first created being. This first created being is a third kind of being, neither that of the Creator nor that of the creature, but creation. It is passage and becoming, that by which God manifests himself and allows himself to be known. Heymeric calls it quid neutrum and quo fit, an indeterminate being, simple but filled with forms, both finite and infinite, a form without form, but informing and transporting forms (in an inchoative manner). Yet it is the subject of metaphysics, and that opens a different perspective from that of the onto‑theology to which we are accustomed.
par Giacomo Gambale, dans Medioevo latino, 33 (2012) p. 1251, nr 14143 ; Speculum, 87.02 (April 2012) 631-632.
This conference aims to investigate some of the most influential theories on causality developed during the Middle Ages as a result of the encounter between two divergent manners to think about causality: one inherited from Aristotle, and the other from Greek and Arabic Neoplatonism.
2. Translation, Transmission, Adaptation (12th and 13th of February 2016)
3. Doctrines and Ideas: (i) Cause and Causality / (ii) Esse - Vivere - Intelligere (14th - 15th - 16th of April 2016)
***
13.30: Olga Weijers (IRHT, Paris / Huygens Instituut, The Hague), Dragos Calma (EPHE, Paris), Adam of Bocfeld's unedited commentaries on Aristotle: "De anima" and "De causis"
14.15: Cecilia Trifogli (All Souls College, Oxford), Geoffrey of Aspall on Nature
15.00: Silvia Donati (Albertus Magnus Institut, Köln), Geoffrey of Aspall's (+ 1287) literary production: Some problems of attribution
15.45: Coffee break
16.15: Emmanuelle Kuhry (IRHT, Paris), Les sources anglaises de la "Compilatio de libris naturalibus Aristotelis" ou "Compendium philosophie" : l'exemple de la "glosa anglicana"
17.00: Charles Burnett (Warburg Institute, London), John Marenbon (Trinity College, Cambridge), Cecilia Trifogli (All Souls College, Oxford), Rod Thomson's "Catalogue of Medieval Manuscripts of Latin Commentaries on Aristotle in British Libraries"
17.30: Conclusions
Depuis l’Antiquité la philosophie se fait et progresse en dialoguant avec son passé. Lors de notre rencontre nous aimerions examiner ce que les médiévaux pensent et disent des traditions philosophiques, des raisons qui les obligent à admettre ou à rejeter une ou plusieurs traditions, du phénomène de l’école doctrinale par rapport à la tradition. Et enfin, comment la tradition philosophique est abordée et traitée dans l’historiographie philosophique.
Looking forward to receiving proposals!
The new series proposes synthetic studies touching on various subjects related to the Faculty of Arts. In fact, most scholars (historians of philosophy in general, historians of theology, of the sciences, students of intellectual history or the history of ideas, etc.) cannot fully appreciate the importance of the Arts Faculty without a broader picture in which to situate it.
The volumes are meant in the first place for an educated public, curious about little known fields of history, but they could also be of interest to advanced students. The volumes will have a smaller format, so that they will be easy to read and to carry around. Instead of footnotes they will have in-text references to a substantial or annotated bibliography.