The primary objective of this study is to provide a description of the major ideas about void space within and beyond the world that were formulated between the fourteenth and early eighteenth centuries. The second part of the book - on infinite, extracosmic void space - is of special significance. The significance of Professor Grant's account is twofold: it provides the first comprehensive and detailed description of the scholastic Aristotelian arguments for and against the existence of void space; and it (...) presents (again for the first time) an analysis of the possible influence of scholastic ideas and arguments on the interpretations of space proposed by the nonscholastic authors who made the Scientific Revolution possible. The concluding chapter of the book is unique in not only describing the conceptualizations of space proposed by the makers of the Scientific Revolution, but in assessing the role of readily available scholastic ideas on the conception of space adopted for the Newtonian world. (shrink)

Placing Bruno—both advanced philosopher and magician burned at the stake—in the Hermetic tradition, Yates's acclaimed study gives an overview not only of Renaissance humanism but of its interplay—and conflict—with magic and occult practices. "Among those who have explored the intellectual world of the sixteenth century no one in England can rival Miss Yates. Wherever she looks, she illuminates. Now she has looked on Bruno. This brilliant book takes time to digest, but it is an intellectual adventure to read it. Historians (...) of ideas, of religion, and of science will study it. Some of them, after reading it, will have to think again.... For Miss Yates has put Bruno, for the first time, in his tradition, and has shown what that tradition was."—Hugh Trevor-Roper, _New Statesman_ "A decisive contribution to the understanding of Giordano Bruno, this book will probably remove a great number of misrepresentations that still plague the tormented figure of the Nolan prophet."—Giorgio de Santillana, _American Historical Review_ "Yates's book is an important addition to our knowledge of Giordano Bruno. But it is even more important, I think, as a step toward understanding the unity of the sixteenth century."—J. Bronowski, _New York Review of Books_. (shrink)

This study considers the contribution of Francesco Patrizi da Cherso to the development of the concepts of void space and an infinite universe. Patrizi plays a greater role in the development of these concepts than any other single figure in the sixteenth century, and yet his work has been almost totally overlooked. I have outlined his views on space in terms of two major aspects of his philosophical attitude: on the one hand, he was a devoted Platonist and sought always (...) to establish Platonism, albeit his own version of it, as the only currect philosophy; and on the other hand, he was more determinedly anti-Aristotelian than any other philosopher at that time. Patrizi's concept of space has its beginnings in Platonic notions, but is extended and refined in the light of a vigorous critique of Aristotle's position. Finally, I consider the influence of Patrizi's ideas in the seventeenth century, when various thinkers are seeking to overthrow the Aristotelian concept of place and the equivalence of dimensionality with corporeality. Pierre Gassendi , for example, needed a coherent concept of void space in which his atoms could move, while Henry More sought to demonstrate the reality of incorporeal entities by reference to an incorporeal space. Both men could find the arguments they needed in Patrizi's comprehensive treatment of the subject. (shrink)

Petrarch In exactly a hundred years had passed since Jacob Burckhardt published his famous essay The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, ...

The purpose of this article is to give an account of Franceso Patrizi da Cherso's criticism and eventual refutation of the Aristotelian principles of form, privation, and matter, as it can be found in his voluminous anti-Aristotelian treatise, the Discussziones Peripateticae. His refutation of these three concepts is informed by two convictions: that Aristotle's theory is inconsistent, and can therefore not be taken seriously as a relevant contribution to philosophical discussion; that Aristotle's theory, whether consistent or not, is either unoriginal (...) or unintelligible, and must therefore be rejected by philosophers worthy of this name anyway. Patrizi's argumentation is conducted with great philological care and philosophical acumen. He tries to prove that there is no need for principles to be finite; that they cannot be everlasting; that they cannot be generated from one another; and that there is no need for them to be contraries. He further tries to show that neither privation nor form can be principles, the rejection of form including the notions of form as universal, as particular, as individual, and as generic, as well as those of form as nature and of form as cause. Patrizi concludes that forms must be accidents. Although prime matter is retained as a principle, it is severely qualified; this is here interpreted with reference to Patrizi's own theory of principles in the Nova de universis philosophia. The article concludes with a brief outlook on the influence of Patrizi's discussion and suggests one possible explanation for it. (shrink)