This paper opens by reviewing Aristotle’s conception of the natural slave and then familiar treatments of the internal conflict between the ruling and subject parts of the soul in Aristotle and Plato; I highlight especially the figurative uses of slavery and servitude when discussing such problems pertaining to incontinence and vice—viz., being a ‘slave’ to the passions. Turning to Campanella, features of the City of the Sun pertaining to slavery are examined: in sketching his ideal city, Campanella both rejects Aristotle’s (...) natural slave and is critical of the European institutions of slavery. The fact that slavery has no place in the City of the Sun takes on added significance when complemented with Campanella’s remarks on dominion and servitude in his Quaestiones de politiciis: I show that Campanella’s conception of slavery is intimately bound to sin, and consider whether his employment of the trope of slavery within the context of vice diverges from familiar usage. (shrink)

Jakob Boehme (1575-1624) is the most important German mystic and theosophist of modern times. His influence in Germany and the world is manifold. The article briefly examines the sources (visions and inspirations) of Boehme’s mysticism and theosophy. Subsequently, it offers an outline of the principles of his sophiology: God as the will of wisdom and wisdom as his revelation; the role of divine wisdom or the eternal wisdom on the noble Virgin Sophia in the creation of the world and man; (...) and finally their participation in the salvation and rebirth of humankind. (shrink)

The article examines the sources of Boehme’s mysticism and theosophy. Subsequently, it offers an outline of the principles of his sophiology: God as the will of wisdom and wisdom as his revelation; the role of divine wisdom or the eternal wisdom on the noble Virgin Sophia in the creation of the world and man; and finally their participation in the salvation and rebirth of humankind.

The ArgumentAlexandre Koyré is one of the most important historians of philosophic and scientific though since the thirties. Research on the Scientific Revolution, on Galileo, Descartes, Newton, as well as on Paracelsus and Boehme has deeply changed under his influential method: it has been a model for Kuhn's methodology of paradigms and revolutions in the histroy of science. Whereas Koyré used to be considered opposed in his ideology and method to sociological approaches, he has recently been characterized by Yehuda Elkana (...) as a sociologist of knowledge. In fact, until now one of the main sources of his method had not been identified: it is only by acknowledging the influence of Lucien Lévy-Bruhl on Koyré that it is possible to explain how the latter wrote his thesis on Boehme's mystical thought just before his Etudes galiléennes. Lucien Lévy-Bruhl was teaching history of philosophy at the Sorbonne, and Koyré was strongly influenced by his idea of “prelogical thinking” as a universel phenomenon and in a general way by the sociological school of Durkheim. Conceptual analysis deriving from Husserl, collective representations and attitude mentale, came together in Alexandre Koyrè's method. (shrink)