Edelheit, Amos
(2009)
Francesco Patrizi’s two books on space: geometry, mathematics, and dialectic beyond Aristotelian science.
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 40.
pp. 243-257.
ISSN 0039-3681
Abstract
Francesco Patrizi was a competent Greek scholar, a mathematician, and a Neoplatonic thinker, well
known for his sharp critique of Aristotle and the Aristotelian tradition. In this article I shall present, in
the first part, the importance of the concept of a three-dimensional space which is regarded as a body,
as opposed to the Aristotelian two-dimensional space or interval, in Patrizi’s discussion of physical space.
This point, I shall argue, is an essential part of Patrizi’s overall critique of Aristotelian science, in which
Epicurean, Stoic, and mainly Neoplatonic elements were brought together, in what seems like an original
theory of space and a radical revision of Aristotelian physics. Moreover, I shall try to show Patrizi’s dialectical
method of definition, his geometrical argumentation, and trace some of the ideas and terms used
by him back to Proclus’ Commentary on Euclid. This text of Proclus, as will be shown in the second part of
the article, was also important for Patrizi’s discussion of mathematical space, where Patrizi deals with the
status of mathematics and redefines some mathematical concepts such as the point and the line according
to his new theory of space.
| Item Type: |
Article
|
| Keywords: |
Francesco Patrizi;
Space;
Geometry;
Mathematics;
Aristotle;
Proclus; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Arts & Humanities > Philosophy |
| Item ID: |
11929 |
| Depositing User: |
Dr. Amos Edelheit
|
| Date Deposited: |
26 Nov 2019 15:23 |
| Journal or Publication Title: |
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science |
| Publisher: |
Elsevier Masson |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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