Grisogono and Petrić – Two Worlds of Renaissance Philosophy
191-1911112-1100
Project Director dr. sc. Mihaela Girardi-Karšulin
Summary:
Frane Petrić’s work Discussiones peripateticae is frequently mentioned, yet relatively under-researched. An urgent comprehensive study of Petrić’s interpretation of Aristotle in the development of Petrić’s system of Nova de universis philosophia, also including those moments that led to the listing of Nova de universis philosophia on the Index of forbidden books, was facilitated by the publication of Petrić’s Emendationes – the texts he wrote in defence of Nova de universis philosophia – in 1993. This research aims to examine Petrić’s Neo-Platonic philosophy in the horizon of his critique of Aristotle and Renaissance Neo-Platonism, an indispensable ring in the chain of the development of modern philosophy as a reinterpretation of classical philosophical concepts and problems. The starting hypothesis is that Petrić’s interpretation of Aristotle is essential in the development of his Neo-Platonic system, and that his interpretation is indirectly important for the reinterpretation of the philosophical concepts and problems which – through the crisis of Aristotelianism and Platonism – induced novel problem networks. The results of philosophical research are tested in philosophical discussions. The research proposed is crucial as an interpretation of the philosophical thought of one of the greatest Croatian philosophers, but also as a fundamental study of a turning point in the development of philosophical thought, i.e. the Renaissance, and its transformation into modern thought. Grisogono is a thinker less known than Petrić, yet his discussions on the concept of parallels – published in Speculum astronomicum – are famed. He is interesting philosophically speaking since, on the threshold of modern thought, he advocates the precedence of a (then) mathematical discipline (i.e. astrology) over metaphysics, and since he holds mathematical propositions to be the greatest contribution to science. Unlike Petrić, Grisogono advocates the congruity of Aristotle and Plato’s philosophies, and opposes nominalism claiming that it cancels the possibility of mathematics as a science. Grisogono’s thought is syncretistic like Petrić’s, though his syncretism is of an entirely different type and unites Plato, Aristotle, Stoicism and mathematics. Petrić and Grisogono are significantly different and frequently opposed, they are ‘two worlds’, though each represents a critique of traditional philosophy and points to the direction of modern thought in their own unique ways.
Project assistants:
Erna Banić-Pajnić
Luka Boršić
Tomislav Ćepulić
Mihaela Girardi-Karšulin
Boris Kalin
Franjo Zenko