Science and Authority in Giacomo Zabarella

Randall J. H. Jr , “The development of the scientific method in the school of Padua”, Journal of the history of ideas, i (1940), 177–206; idem, The school of Padua and the emergence of modern science (Padua, 1961); and Edwards William F. , “The logic of Jacopo Zabarella (1533–1589)”, Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1960. More recently, for example, cf. Wallace W. , “Galileo and the continuity thesis”, Philosophy of science, li (1984), 1984–10; Lennox J. G. , “Aristotle, Galileo, and mixed sciences”, in Wallace W. (ed.), Reinterpreting Galileo (Washington, DC, 1986), 29–52; Laird W. Roy , “The scientiae mediae in medieval commentaries on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics”, Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto, 1983; idem, Galileo and the mixed sciences, in Di Liscia D. Kessler E. Methuen C. (eds), Method and order in Renaissance philosophy of nature (Aldershot, 1997), 253–70; and Eastwood Bruce S. , “On the continuity of Western science from the Middle Ages: Crombie's A. C. Augustine to Galileo”, Isis, lxxxiii (1992), 1992–99.

In my opinion, the most thorough discussion, and clear refutation, of the Randall thesis is to be found in Jardine N. , “Galileo's road to truth and the demonstrative regress”, Studies in history and philosophy of science, vii (1976), 277–318. Cf. also South James B. , “Zabarella, prime matter, and the theory of regressus”, Graduate Faculty philosophy journal, xxvi (2005), 2005–98, who comes to interesting conclusions even though his focus is still on Zabarella's logical methodology. In South's opinion, “Zabarella's philosophical creativity is better viewed in this light than in any purported imperfect foreshadowing of subsequent thinkers” (ibid., 94), with an obvious reference, I think, to Randall's theses. Cf. Poppi Antonino , La dottrina della scienza in Giacomo Zabarella (Padua, 1972), especially pp. 22, 133; idem, “Zabarella, or Aristotelianism as a rigorous science”, in Pozzo Riccardo (ed.), The impact of Aristotelianism on modern philosophy (Washington, DC, 2004), 35–63, originally in Antonino Poppi, Ricerche sulla teologia e la scienza nella scuola padovana del cinque e seicento (Soveria Mannelli, Catanzaro, 2001), 125–52; and Schmitt Charles , L'Aristotelismo nel veneto e le origini della scienza moderna: Alcune considerazioni sul problema della continuità, in Olivieri L. (ed.), Aristotelismo veneto e scienza moderna (2 vols, Padua, 1983), i, 79–103, pp. 95–96. See also Vasoli Cesare , Introduction, in Zabarella G. , De methodis libri quator, Liber de regressu (Bologna, 1985), pp. xi–xxviii; and Bottin Francesco , Giacomo Zabarella: La logica come metodologia scientifica, in Piaia Gregorio (ed.), La presenza dell' Aristotelismo padovano nella filosofia della prima modernità (Rome and Padua, 2002), 33–55.

Schmitt Charles , “Experience and experiment: A comparison of Zabarella's view with Galileo's in De motu”, Studies in the Renaissance, xvi (1969), 80–138, p. 126. Another recent study which shifts the focus off Zabarella's methodology is Mikkeli Heikki , An Aristotelian response to Renaissance humanism: Jacopo Zabarella on the nature of arts and sciences (Helsinki, 1992).

Schmitt , “Experience” (ref. 3). Baroncini Gabriele , Forme di esperienza e rivoluzione scientifica (Florence, 1992), 39–62, has discussed Schmitt's paper, pointing out reservations about Schmitt's interpretation of some passages by Zabarella. These concerns, however, in my view, do not call into question the substance of Schmitt's conclusions.

Zabarella Giacomo , De rebus naturalibus, In Aristotelis libros de anima (Frankfurt, 1966; facsimile of edn publ. Frankfurt, 1606–7), 3 (note that numbers refer to columns rather than pagination).

Randall , “The development” (ref. 1), 177.

Lohr Charles , Latin Aristotle commentaries: II. Renaissance authors (Florence, 1988).

“… la vita di quei professori non era che per la scuola: Per essa ed in essa si esauriva la loro vita. La scuola allora era quasi indivisa dalla vita cittadina, era una gran vita; ed un professore restava soddisfatto vivendo in essa. Perciò non vi erano studi che, per per quanto alti e superiori potevano essere, non si riferissero all scuola”, in Ragnisco Pietro , “Giacomo Zabarella il filosofo: Una polemica di logica nell'Università di Padova nelle scuole di B. Petrella e di G. Zabarella”, Atti del R. Istituto Veneto, ser. 6, iv (1885/86), 463–502, p. 467. Cf. also idem, “Giacomo Zabarella il filosofo: La polemica tra Francesco Piccolomini e Giacomo Zabarella nella Università di Padova”, ibid., 1217–52.

The printing press made it easier for this to happen; for instance, Charles Schmitt has noted that access to Averroes's commentaries was greatly improved by the printing-press entrepreneurs who made his massive corpus of writings available in the multi-volume Giunti edition of 1550–52. Schmitt , “L' Aristotelismo” (ref. 2), 89.

For instance, Johannes Lorinus (1559–1635), Benedictus Pererius (1535–1610), Paulus Vallius (1561–1622), Mutius Vitelleschi (1563–1645), and many others active there at various times in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth centuries. Paulus Vallius's Logica, for example, was influenced by Zabarella most extensively. Indeed the theory of regressus demonstrativus, expounded by Vallius in the Logica, is appropriated from Zabarella's De regressu, as, on the other hand, Vallius himself acknowledges. Cf. Vallius Paulus , Logica, ii (Lyon, 1622), 340–50; and Zabarella , De methodis (ref. 2), 145–57. Cf. Edwards, The logic (ref. 1), 256ff., for a penetrating analysis of Zabarella's theory of regressus.

Cf. Baldini Ugo , Saggi sulla cultura della Compagnia di Gesù (secoli XVI—XVIII) (Padua, 2000), especially 239ff., on the continuity of the teaching of physica (i.e., Aristotle's Physica, De caelo, De generatione et corruptione, Meteorologica, De anima) within the Jesuit schools, from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Scientiam tradere in the production of these professors, especially before the impact of Galilean mathematical physics, took the typical form of the commentario, and that of the manuale or trattato, the latter two differing only in size, and usually consisting of abbreviated commentaries. The commentario contained both explanations of the Aristotelian text and quaestiones. In the case of the Jesuit professors we also need to make allowance for a further element of self-regulation to do with the cultural policies of the Society of Jesus. It took the form of an internal censorship articulated at many levels. This phenomenon's impact on the professors' production, especially in relation to the regimentation of tendencies to deviate from the Aristotelian norm, has been lucidly investigated by Ugo Baldini. Cf. Ugo Baldini, Legem impone subactis: Studi su filosofia e scienza dei Gesuiti in Italia, 1540–1632 (Rome, 1992). See especially pp. 75ff.

A battle broke out against the attempt by the Jesuits to establish an independent college in Padua, in competition with the university, during which Cesare Cremonini, professor of philosophy at the university, was called upon to lead the charge against the intruders. Cf. Favaro Antonio , “Lo studio di Padova e la Compagnia di Gesù sul finire del secolo decimosesto”, Atti del R. Istituto Veneto, ser. 5, iv (1877/78), 401–535; Mabilleau Léopold , Étude historique sur la philosophie de la Renaissance en Italie (Cesare Cremonini) (Paris, 1881), 17ff.; and Cremonini Cesare “Orazione contro i Gesuiti a favore dello Studio di Padova”, in Le orazioni, ed. by Poppi A. (Padua, 1998), 53ff., and the Jesuits' responses, in Sangalli Maurizio , “Apologie dei Padri Gesuiti contro Cesare Cremonini. 1592”, Atti e Memorie dell' Accademia Patavina di Scienze, Lettere, ed Arti, cx (1997–98), 241–355. Cf. also Sangalli Maurizio , Cultura, politica, e religione nella Repubblica di Venezia tra Cinque e Seicento (Venice, 1999), particularly pp. 187ff., and Università accademie Gesuiti: Cultura e religione a Padova tra cinque e seicento (Trieste, 2001). A lot of students, according to Poppi, had left the venerable Studium for the fledgling Jesuit college.

It is hard to miss this emotional investment when reading, for instance, Zabarella's De rebus naturalibus, where he repeatedly addresses other traditores, who oppose Aristotle's texts, with the verb audere (to dare, to venture).

Such an innovative tendency in Zabarella was seen by Pietro Ragnisco, though Ragnisco was ultimately unable to detach his appreciation of the Paduan professor from a precursory interpretation that pointed to the advent of Galilean science. In fact we might say that Ragnisco preceded Randall by more than half a century, though the former was (rightly, in my view) steadfast in always and clearly distinguishing between the two forms of scientific practice. Cf. the still unsurpassed studies by Ragnisco , “Giacomo Zabarella il filosofo: Pietro Pomponazzi e Giacomo Zabarella nella Questione dell'anima”, Atti del R. Istituto Veneto, ser. 6, vi (1886/87), 949–96; “Giacomo Zabarella il filosofo. Una polemica di logica” (ref. 8); “Giacomo Zabarella il filosofo: La polemica” (ref. 8); and “Da Giacomo Zabarella a Claudio Berigardo ossia prima e dopo Galileo nell' Università di Padova”, Atti del R. Istituto Veneto, ser. 7, v (1893/94), 474–518.

Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 201.

Zabarella , as is well known, was involved in fierce controversies but never accused of withdrawing allegiance from Aristotle (so far as I have be able to ascertain). Cf. Ragnisco, “Giacomo Zabarella il filosofo: Pietro Pomponazzi” (ref. 14); idem, “Giacomo Zabarella il filosofo: Una polemica di logica” (ref. 8); idem, Giacomo Zabarella il filosofo: La polemica tra Francesco Piccolomini” (ref. 8); and idem, “Da Giacomo Zabarella a Claudio Berigardo” (ref. 14).

Cf. Dal Pra M. (ed.), “Una ‘oratio’ programmatica di G. Zabarella”, Rivista critica di storia della filosofia, xxi (1967), 286–90; and Bouillon Dominique (ed.), “Un discours inédit de Iacopo Zabarella préliminaire à l'exposition de la ‘Physique’ d'Aristote (Padoue 1568)”, Atti e memorie dell' Accademia Galileiana di Scienze, Lettere, ed Arti in Padova, cx/1 (1998–99), 119–27. The first document has already been used, for different purposes, by Jardine N. (“Keeping order in the School of Padua: Jacopo Zabarella and Francesco Piccolomini on the offices of philosophy”, in Di Liscia Kessler Methuen (eds), Method and order in Renaissance philosophy of nature (ref. 1), 183–209). The second, so far as I know, has not been used in relation to Zabarella's natural philosophy (although its editor has published an interesting commentary to the text).

Pra Dal , “Una ‘oratio’” (ref. 17), 288.

Bouillon , “Un discours” (ref. 17), 124–5. Cf. Berti E. , “Metafisica e dialettica nel ‘Commento’ di G. Zabarella agli ‘Analitici posteriori’”, Giornale di metafisica, n.s., xiv (1992), 225–44.

“… quibus quaestiones, quae ab Aristotelis interpretibus hodie tractari solent, accurate discutiuntur”, cf. Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), title page.

Parts of the De rebus were discussed, for instance, by Schmitt , “Experience” (ref. 3); Kessler E. , in “The intellective soul”, in Schmitt C. Skinner Q. (eds), The Cambridge history of Renaissance philosophy (Cambridge, 1988), 530–4; Baroncini , Forme di esperienza (ref. 4); and in the various studies by Ragnisco (refs 8, 14). A study of the massive book as a whole is still lacking.

Lohr Charles , “The sixteenth-century transformation of the Aristotelian natural philosophy”, in Kessleer E. Lohr C. Sparn W. (eds), Aristotelismus und Renaissance. In memoriam Charles B. Schmitt (Wiesbaden, 1988), 89–99, p. 99.

Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 133, 231, 253, 307, 541, 856–7, 915, 979–80.

“… aliquod me operae pretium facturum existimavi, si arduas, quae hac de re [i.e., prime matter] existunt, quaestiones, magnasque difficultates; quae negotium facessere omnibus solent, pro viribus explicare tentavero; et ea, quae ipse philosophando excogitare potui, in commune conferens, aliisque expedenda, relinquens, nisus fuero veritatem, et Aristotelis de prima materia sententiam (si possim) reddere clariorem.” Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 133.

“… in primis Naturalis scientiae naturam, et fabricam a me hoc libello explicatam, tamquam praeludii, ac praeparationis loco cunctis Aristotelicae theoriae studiosis exhibeo.” Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 2.

Note that this tract, which Zabarella inserted in the collection upon the request of students and friends, is not about natural science but about a metaphysical question, as he points out (De rebus (ref. 5), 367).

Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 269, 374–5, 435–6, 582, 728, 765, 831, 1007–8.

“… ut nunc alios omittam, Petrus Pomponatius, qui duobus a se editis libris diligentissime, et optime de accretione disputavit, non solum se in eius cognitione non acquiscere, palam, et ingenue confessus est, sed etiam asseverare ausus, nullum esse mortalium, qui possit asserere sibi in huiusce rei intelligentia esse plene satisfactum. Hoc ego considerans, et illius viri, cuius eruditionis atque iudicium plurimi facio, exemplo et authoritate ductus; neque detrectandam mihi propter difficultatem esse hanc disputationem existimavi, quod pusillanimi, ac philosophia indignis homini esset; neque eo animo hanc scribendi provinciam suscipere constitui quod me ad plenam veritatis notitiam pervenisse putans, perfectam eius declarationem polliceri me posse considerem, quod quidem arrogantiam fortasse, ac temeritatem prae se ferret: Sed … niterer, quantum per me fieri possit, prope ad veritatem accedere, ac si ipsam non prorsus attingere, saltem ad eam inveniendam alios magis excitare….” Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 765.

“Hunc itaque ordinem in hac nostra disputatione servabimus: Primum de tota anima secundum suam substantiam; postea de totam secundum suam quantitatem et extensionem; ac demum de tota secundum facultates suas, quid iuxta Aristotelis mentem sentiendum sit, considerabimus.” Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 728.

Cf. a fascinating essay “ad mentem Galilaei“by Viviani, entitled “Sopra i principii del Signor Baliani”. It is preserved at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence, among the folios of Ms. Gal. 74 [Div. 2a — Parte Va, t. 4], a collection of adespota, and can be consulted online, at http://www.bncf.firenze.sbn.it/. The attribution of authorship to Viviani was put forward by Raffaello Caverni, who published the writing, in Storia del metodo sperimentale in Italia (6 vols, Florence, 1891–1900), iv, 313–14.

Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 394, 453, 556–8, 684–5, 1043.

“Coelestia corpora in hoc mundo inferiore calore producere ita manifestum est, ut nulla probatione indigere videatur: De modo autem et ratione ambigitur. … de solo calore a coelestibus producto, dicendum nobis proposuimus … quomodo ergo producant, quum calida non sint, id nobis in praesentia considerandum proponitur.” Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 556–8.

Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 131.

Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 131–2.

Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 333ff.

Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 333–8.

Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 338–341.

Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 341–2.

“Nullum ergo in hoc discrimen est inter elementa et mista, quatenus gravia vel levia sunt; singulis enim assignatus est in mundo locus naturalis, ad quem moventur ex omnibus aliis locis, isque vel magis, vel minus a Coelo remotus pro maiore cuiusque gravitate, vel levitate.” Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 351.

Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 979–1006.

Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 979–80.

Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 993. Artificium naturae is Zabarella's own expression. 43. Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 993–4.

Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 1004.

Zabarella , De methodis (ref. 2), 151ff.

Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 260.

Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 261–2.

Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 263–4. Cf. De methodis (ref. 2), 151ff., where Zabarella explains in detail the stages of the regressus method applied by Aristotle to the demonstration of the eternal motors.

Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 569.

Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 569.

“haec enim dicere volui, non ut Aristotelis sententiam impugnarem …”, in Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 569.

Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 571–4.

In a sense, Zabarella implemented in De rebus a programme that he had already put forward in his De tribus praecognitis, where he had argued that the opinion is false of those who claim that all sciences are subalternated to metaphysics. For, since the subjects of the sciences are distinguished by their different ways of proceeding, there cannot be any hierarchical subalternation. The metaphysician contemplates ens quatenus ens, whereas the natural philosopher contemplates ens quatenus habens propensionem ad motum. Zabarella Giacomo , Opera logica, 3rd edn (Cologne, 1597), 528. The Opera logica was published by Zabarella before the De rebus.

“Ma lo Zabarella ammetteva l' eterno moto? … Qui si trova nello Zabarella, a mio modo di vedere, un contrasto nella sua mente, il quale esprime lo stato cui era arrivata la sua cognizione. Il moto circolare del cielo è solo moto eterno: Ma se è eterno, perchè ha bisogno dell' eterno motore?” Cf. Ragnisco , “Da Giacomo Zabarella a Claudio Berigardo” (ref. 14), 485.

The only possible exception is Zabarella's discussion of prime matter. Cf. Zabarella , De rebus (ref. 5), 136–7, and South , “Zabarella” (ref. 2), 87–94, who interprets Zabarella's investigative path as an instance of regressus. Let us note, however, that, for all his methodological acuity, Zabarella never states, in the tract on prime matter, that he is following the stages of regressus. In my view, South's reconstruction is forced and only remotely plausible.

Randall , “The development” (ref. 1), 200.

Cf. Galilei Galileo , Le opere di Galileo Galilei, Edizione Nazionale, ed. by Favaro Antonio (20 vols, Florence, 1890–1909), viii, 296.

Cf. Galilei Galileo , Two new sciences, transl. by Crew H. de Salvio A. (New York, 1954; 1st edn, New York, 1914), 276, and Randall , “The development” (ref. 1), 200, fn. 32, where Randall does not acknowledge his appropriation of the Crew and De Salvio translation.

“Il contenuto sostanziale del MS n. 27 riguarda il processo (regressus) dimostrativo, un tipo di ragionamento che impiega due dimostrazioni, una ‘del fatto in sé’, l'altra ‘del fatto ragionato’. Nella sua esposizione, Galileo si riferisce a queste due dimostrazioni come ‘progressioni’ e nota che esse sono separate da una fase intermedia. La prima progressione argomenta dall' effetto alla causa, mentre la seconda si muove nella direzione opposta, dalla causa all'effetto. Perché il processo funzioni, occorre che la ‘dimostrazione del fatto’ venga per prima e che l'effetto sia dunque inizialmente conosciuto più della sua causa, sebbene alla fine essi debbano essere visti in modo convertibile. La fase intermedia realizza la transizione alla seconda dimostrazione. Così come veniva spiegata ai tempi di Galileo, questa fase riguardava un esame mentale della causa proposta (mentale ipsius causae examen), secondo l'espressione usata da Jacopo Zabarella (1533–1598). Il termine latino examen è importante perché corrisponde al greco peîra, un vocabolo che è nella radice del latino periculum, cioè prova, l'equivalente di esperimento (experimentum). Compito principale della fase intermedia è la prova, il ricercare ed eliminare altre possibilità, in modo da ritrovare la causa che fa sì che quell'effetto sia presente”. Wallace William A. , “Galilei, Galileo (1564–1642)”, dictionary entry in Dizionario interdisciplinare di scienza e fede, 2003–6; retrievable on-line at: http://www.disf.org/voci/142.asp. Wallace's mention of in MS n. 27 refers to Galileo's early notebooks, published in Galileo Galilei, Tractatio de praecognitionibus et praecognitis and Tractatio de demonstratione, edited by Edwards W. F. Wallace W. A. (Padua, 1988). The titles under which Galileo's notebooks were published have been assigned by the editors; they are not Galileo's, and they are nowhere to be found in Galileo's original manuscripts.

Schmitt , “Experience and experiment” (ref. 3).

Vallius's passage is in his Logica (ref. 10), ii, 345. The Vocabolario della Crusca says that “negoziare [to negotiate]” is “il trattare che fanno i Principi le cose di stato [the the negotiating that Princes hold about state affairs]”. See Accademici della Crusca, Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, 2nd edn (Venice, 1623), ad vocem. It is difficult to trace the meaning of negotiatio in neo-Latin. So far as I have been to ascertain, it seems not to have stably aquired that of negotiation in the Oxford English Dictionary sense. However, the present state of our knowledge of neo-Latin does not allow certain conclusions. For example, the Glossarium mediae et infimae Latinitatis does not list the OED meaning under the heading of “negotium”, to which the reader is referred for “negotiatio” (Charles Du Fresne Du Cange, Glossarium mediae et infimae Latinitatis (8 vols, Paris, 1937–38)). However, Thomas Aquinas, in a passage from his Writing on the Sentences of Peter Lombard [Scriptum super Libros Sententiarum], comes close to the OED meaning of negotiation, while speaking of a “rationem negotiantem”. Thomas's passage is as follows: “Unde cum negotiatio de his quae sunt ad finem, praesupponat naturalem cognitionem finis, quae sequitur naturalem inclinationem voluntatis in finem; oportet quod habitus perficiens rationem negotiantem de his quae sunt ad finem, praesupponat inclinationem appetitus ad finem …” (retrievable at the website of the Archivio della Latinità Italiana del Medioevo: http://www.uan.it/alim/letteratura.nsf/Ricerche?Openform).

“… per hanc negotiationem, nos videre effectum esse semper, et necessario connexum cum causa, et illi causae convenire omnes conditiones causae, et effectui convenire conditiones omnes effectus, et ita conferendo causam cum effectu, et cognoscendo quidditatem causae, cognosci a nobis, illam esse causam, et ab ea dependere effectum, et hoc modo haberi cognitionem causae per resolutionem, et applicationem regularum logicarum, quibus cognoscere possumus quae sit causa, et quis effectus”. Vallius , Logica (ref. 10), ii, 345.

Piccolomini Alessandro , In mechanicas quaestiones Aristotelis, paraphrasis paulo quidem plenior (Rome, 1547), 81v–83r.

Piccolomini , In mechanicas (ref. 63), 83r.