Schmitt C.B. (ed.) The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy
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Theories of knowledge
677
investigation. For some, the aim was to get a clearer image or picture
of
the
external object,
rather
than
an abstraction of its form. Elements of
Democritean-Epicurean theories of sense-perception were revived to
buttress this appeal to a more incisive empiricism
than
that
involved in the
Aristotelian theory
of
knowledge.
(And some
of
this was adopted in Francis
Bacon's
proposals for a
Novum
Organum.)
These
nature
philosophers held, in quite different
ways,
that
beyond
gaining an accurate account
of
nature, one had to develop a special power of
experiencing or apprehending the real natures of things and their
interrelationships. The theories of how this is to be done range over
alchemical,
magical, cabalistic and Neoplatonic
views.
So, their empiricism
was
accompanied by supra-rational or extra-rational
ways
of obtaining
basic
truths.
Bruno, for instance, held
that
human ideas are just the shadows
or reflections of divine ideas. Nature can be understood in so far as it
expresses these divine ideas. Human beings
start
their quest for knowledge
from the objects
of
sense-perception and are able to move upwards to divine
ideas, though not to ultimate understanding of divine and original unity.
Part
of
nature
is intelligible, though
nature
as a whole, like God, is infinite
and beyond our intellectual faculties.
16
One great expositor of occult philosophy in the Renaissance, Henricus
Cornelius Agrippa, portrayed human beings as belonging to
three
worlds,
the terrestrial world of elements, the world of heavenly bodies and the
world
of spirit. Man as a microcosm is the ontological link between these
worlds and is
thus
able to know each of them. So, for Agrippa, human
knowledge
depends upon man's ontological nature. Man contains the
harmonious unity of the
three
worlds, and is thereby a microcosm
that
reflects the harmonious unity
of
the world in the macrocosm. Man's soul is
able to know the effluences
of
the world-soul and to know in the sympathies
and antipathies of things the latent powers in things
that
can be used by
magical
power. Thus, for Agrippa (at least when he was expounding occult
philosophy) nature's secrets, her hidden powers and forces, can be known
by
occult means, by magic, and this is the most important knowledge. (We
will
see shortly
that
at one phase in his career, Agrippa rejected all forms of
knowledge,
occult or otherwise, and produced an important work in the
history
of
scepticism.) Agrippa also believed
that
cabalistic research into the
characters and secret meanings of Hebrew letters and words would lead
man to the highest possible knowledge, namely knowledge of God.
17
16.
Yates
1964;
Walker
1958. 17.
Yates
1964, pp.
130-43;
Nauert
1965;
Prost
1881-2.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
678
Problems of knowledge and action
Paracelsus emphasised the importance of a genuine empirical method,
but insisted
that
the data of experience have to be systematised through
relating them to the terrestrial, sidereal and spiritual worlds. Man is a
microcosm of the world and through alchemical, astrological and other
means can learn the secrets of the macrocosm. The theory of man as the
microcosm of the world played an important role in explaining, for the
occultists,
how we could pass from knowledge of ourselves to knowledge
of
the macrocosm, the universe. This Neoplatonic
view
allowed thinkers
like
Agrippa and Paracelsus to try to transform their data about man into
data about the entire universe.
18
SCEPTICISM
During the sixteenth century various naturalistic theories
of
the world were
put forward, combining empirical and speculative elements offering a wide
range of theories about man, his place in
nature
and his relation to God.
Some
of these theories had germs of metaphysical
views
that
were to be
developed
into new systems of the world in the succeeding centuries. The
confusion of the competing theories of the world, of man, of
nature
and
of
God led in
part
to the development of a new sceptical critique of
Renaissance philosophy and science.
On
the one hand, the humanist challenge to traditional scholastic ideas,
the rediscovery
of
so many ancient outlooks, the discovery
of
so many new
facts
about the world, geographical, astronomical, anatomical, and the
monumental upheaval in religious thought involved in both the Reforma-
tion and the Counter-Reformation all posed sceptical questions about ac-
cepted ideas. In a whole range of areas
of
intellectual concern, people were
questioning accepted
views.
Sometimes this questioning led to asking if
there
could be any certain, unassailable knowledge about the natural or
human worlds. In addition, some theologians and philosophers from the
fourteenth century onwards, especially in the Ockhamist tradition, began
to question whether, if God was totally omnipotent, we could be sure of
anything. Can we be certain of any so-called necessary
truths,
if God is
really
all-powerful and can negate them? Can we be sure
of
any fact,
if
God
has the power to change the past? The sceptical implications of the
exploration
of
what is involved in the notion
of
an omnipotent God, acting
only
according to his
will,
were set forth by the fourteenth-century thinker
Gregory
of Rimini. His ideas played a role in seventeenth-century
18.
Pagel
1958a;
Webster
1982.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Theories of knowledge
679
scepticism, as evidenced by considerations of problems raised by him by
Descartes and
Bayle.
19
All of this, coupled with the revival of Academic
and Pyrrhonian sceptical arguments, developed into a fully-fledged
sceptical
challenge to all claims to knowledge, a challenge
that
was to play a
vital
role in the
attempts
by Descartes, Bacon and others to find an
unshakeable basis for the new knowledge emerging from the new science.
The
investigation
of
how
and when ancient scepticism was rediscovered
indicates
that
the major ancient texts stating the sceptical arguments, Sextus
Empiricus' Outlines of Pyrrhonism and Against the Dogmatists, Cicero's
Académica and Diogenes Laertius' Life
of
Pyrrho, were hardly known in the
Middle
Ages.
There are
three
medieval Latin manuscript translations of
Sextus'
Outlines
of
Pyrrhonism, but no indication
that
anyone read them or
commented on them. Cicero's account
of
Academic
scepticism was slightly
known
—
a few manuscripts existed
—
but the work was very little studied
before the fourteenth century. And the section of Diogenes about Pyrrho
and Pyrrhonism was not known at all. It is in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries
that
these
three
basic sources of information about ancient
scepticism were discovered and were actively studied and applied to the
issues of the time.
Cicero's
Académica was known to Petrarch,
Valla
and others. It was
printed
in 1471 with Cicero's other philosophical works. But it is only from
the
153os
onwards
that
it gets taken seriously and is commented on,
that
it is
used positively and
that
refutations are offered.
20
Diogenes'
Life of Pyrrho was translated into Latin in the 1430s and was
printed
several times before 1500. Charles Schmitt claims
that
the original
Latin translation is the source of the use of the word scepticus in the Latin
vocabulary.
21
The word appears in the medieval Latin translations of
Sextus,
but was not adopted by anyone. Sextus' works or his ideas were
probably known by Byzantine writers; they are first mentioned in western
literature
in the early fifteenth century, while the texts began to be studied
for
philosophical purposes in the early sixteenth century by Gianfrancesco
Pico.
Sextus' writings were published in Latin translations in 1562 and 1569,
and may have been published in English in Elizabethan times. The Greek
text, however, was not published until
1621.
Philosophers from Montaigne
onwards studied this treasury of ancient scepticism and employed its
arguments in formulating modern scepticism.
22
19.
Funkenstein
1986;
Bayle
1740, iv, pp. 56-8
('Rimini,
Gregoire
de').
20.
Schmitt
1972,
1983c.
21.
Schmitt
1983c,
p. 233.
22.
Schmitt
1967,
1983c;
Popkin
1979, pp.
18-41.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
68o
Problems
of
knowledge
and
action
Scepticism
is a
challenge
to any
claims
to
knowledge.
The
formulations
in
Cicero,
Diogenes
and
Sextus provided well-organised groups
of
arguments
to
challenge claims
to
knowledge
in
various areas
of
human
concern
—
philosophy, science, ethics
and so on. The
central
thrust
of
some
of
these arguments
was to
show
that
any
conflict
of
views
could only
be
judged
if
one
had an
adequate
standard
or
criterion.
But any
criterion could
be challenged,
and
this dispute would require
another
criterion,
and so on.
The
issue involved fitted only
too
well
into
the
religious controversies
of
the
time. Erasmus took
a
sceptical stance
in his
dispute with Luther
and
tried
to
suspend judgement,
as the
ancient sceptics
did, on
whether
man had
free
will.
Luther fought back saying
that
the
Holy Spirit
is not a
sceptic,
and
judgement
day is
coming.
The
problem
of the
criterion
by
which
one
recognises
or
measures
the
true
faith came
up
over
and
over again,
and
sceptical
arguments were used
by
Protestants
and
Catholics
to
undermine
the others' dogmatism. Sebastian Castellio opposed Calvin's assurance
in his
dispute with Servetus
by
challenging Calvin's claims
to
certainty
and
suggesting
a
reasonable scepticism instead. Catholic polemicists, from
Gentian Hervet,
the
translator
of
Sextus,
to St
Francois
de
Sales,
to
Juan
Maldonado
and his
disciple, Francois Veron,
all
challenged
the
Reformers
to justify their claims
to
knowledge,
and
Protestant defenders tried
to
reverse
the
question
and
throw
it
back against
the
Catholics.
23
Interest
in
scepticism
as
more
than
a
weapon
in the
religious controversies
first appears
in
Gianfrancesco Pico's work Examen
vanitatis
doctrinaegentium,
written during
the
decade
1510—20.
The
younger Pico was disturbed
by the
humanist thought being offered around
him
that
was based
on
pagan ideas
and
by the
strong reliance
of
contemporary theologians
on
Aristotle's
views.
Pico
was
attracted
to
Savonarola's ideas
and to
some
of the
anti-
intellectual tendencies
of his
movement.
So, he
decided
to
discredit
the
entire
philosophical tradition
of
antiquity.
His
book surveys ancient
philosophy
and
then
in the
second
part
turns
to the
problem
of
attaining
certainty. Sextus
is
discussed
at
length,
and his
arguments
are
used
to
demolish
any
rational philosophy, including,
of
course, Aristotle's. This
would
liberate
men
from vainly accepting pagan theories. Pico's conclusion
was
not to
convince people
that
all
was
in
doubt,
but
rather
that
one
should
turn
from philosophy
as a
source
of
knowledge
to
Christian revelation
instead.
24
The
occult philosopher Agrippa published
a
strange work
in
1526,
De
23. Popkin 1979, pp. 1-17. 24. Schmitt 1967; Popkin 1979, pp. 20-3.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Theories of knowledge
681
incertitudine et
vanitate
scientiarum declamado, which has led him to be listed as
one of the early sceptics of the Renaissance. His book is a diatribe against
every
kind of intellectual activity. He said he was doing this to humble
human pride and lead people to
true
religion.
Very
little actual sceptical
argument occurs, though sceptical sources are used.
25
In less bombastic fashion various theologians, Catholic and
Protestant,
used sceptical arguments to indicate
that
human reason is incapable of
leading men to knowledge of divine
matters
and of metaphysics, and so
they should
turn
to faith. Cardinaljacopo Sadoleto felt he had to oppose this
growing
scepticism about whether anything could be known by rational
means, and defend the classical philosophical tradition.
26
In the circle around Petrus Ramus,
there
was serious discussion of the
import
of
scepticism. One
of
Ramus' friends, Omer Talon, wrote a work in
1548
entitled Académica, presenting Cicero's account of Academic scepti-
cism.
Talon saw scepticism as a justification of Ramus' attacks on Aristotle
and Aristotelianism and as a means of liberating human thought. Then
Talon
added the usual Renaissance sceptical statement of fideism: 'What
then
is to be done? Must we believe nothing without a decisive argument,
must we abstain from approving anything without an evident reason? On
the contrary; in religious
matters
a
sure
and solid faith
will
have more
weight
than
all of the demonstrations of all of the philosophers.'
27
(A
somewhat similar
view
appears in
another
work, Académica, published by
Pedro de Valencia in
1596.)
28
Talon's
efforts led to Ramus being attacked as a new sceptic, and his
movement being seen as dangerous to both philosophy and religion, since it
would
undermine any basis for any
beliefs.
One member of Ramus' circle,
Guy
de Brués, wrote a critique
of
this new scepticism in 1557 in the form of
a dialogue amongst members of the Pléiade, in which some of them argue
for
scepticism and others answer the arguments. The work is not very
exciting
philosophically, but indicates how
important
discussion about
scepticism and how to refute it had become by the middle of the sixteenth
century.
29
One could cite other indications in many other writers. The
really
important
philosophical presentations of scepticism appear almost
simultaneously from two distantly related
authors
in France, Francisco
Sanches,
professor at Toulouse, and his cousin, Michel de Montaigne.
Sanches in his
Quod
nihil scitur, written in 1576 and published in 1581,
presents a very acute scepticism in the form of an intellectual critique of
25.
Popkin
1979, pp. 23-6. 26. Ibid., pp. 26-7. 27.
Cited
ibid., p. 29.
28. Ibid., p. 36. 29. Ibid., pp. 30-1.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
682
Problems
of
knowledge
and
action
Aristotelianism. Analysing
the
Aristotelian theory
of
knowledge, Sanches
first attacked
the
Aristotelian conception
of
definitions.
He
insisted
that
all
definitions
are
arbitrary
and
have
no
necessary relation
to
what
is
named.
Names keep changing,
so
that
by
combining names
and
definitions,
we do
not thereby know anything about objects. Sanches
then
attacked Aristotle's
theory
of
science
as
acquiring knowledge through demonstrations. First,
how
do we
know
the
concepts employed? Only through particulars, which
is
what Aristotle was trying
to
explain.
In a
demonstration,
the
syllogism
is
supposed
to
produce scientific knowledge.
But can it? We can
only
be
sure
the premises
are
true
if
we
know
the
conclusion is,
and not
vice
versa.
How
can we tell
if'all
men are mortal' is
true,
if
we
do not know
that
the conclusion
'Socrates is
a
man' is true?
Also,
we
can prove anything
syllogistically
by
just
starting with
the
right premises.
So,
Aristotle's
logical
system
is
useless
in
acquiring knowledge.
We
cannot gain certitude
by
finding
true
definitions;
we
cannot find
the
real causes
of
things,
for we
would have
to
find
the
causes
of
the
causes
and so on.
Instead, what
we
should seek
is
perfect knowledge
of a
thing
by
immediate intuitive apprehension. This
can be
done
for one
particular
at a
time. Any generalisations beyond this
will
lead
to
dubious abstractions
and
chimeras.
The
certain knowledge
of
particulars becomes dubious when
we
realise
the
frailty
and
unreliability
of
human senses,
and our
inability
to
know
objects individually because they
are
related. Hence genuine scientific
knowledge
is
unattainable.
All we can
accomplish
is to
attain
a
limited,
imperfect knowledge
of
some things present
in
experience. Sanches
was a
professor
of
medicine,
and
wrote extensively
on
medical matters, setting
forth
the
limited information
that
he had
gathered.
He
presented
the
most
precise
and
organised case
for
scepticism during
the
Renaissance
and for the
negative claim
of the
Academics,
nihil scitur.
He
probably influenced later
thinkers such
as
Pierre Gassendi,
and
initiated
a
'scientific method'
(a
term
he seems
to
have introduced)
for
achieving some kind
of
organised
empirical information even
if all is
ultimately
in
doubt.
30
His cousin, Michel
de
Montaigne, was
the
most significant
and
influential
figure
in the
development
of
Renaissance scepticism.
A
thoroughgoing
humanist, Montaigne read
the
classics, including
the
newly translated
sceptical
ones.
A
child
of
religious wars,
the son of a
Catholic father
and a
Jewess
turned
Protestant mother,
he
knew
the
sceptical arguments
of the
Reformers
and
Counter-Reformers.
He
personally knew many
of the
protagonists
of
the contending groups
of
his
day and
became
an
adviser
to
30.
For detailed
discussion
and bibliography, see
ibid.,
pp.
36—41.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Theories
of knowledge
683
the leader
of
the Protestant cause, Henri de Navarre, as
well
as being Mayor
of
Bordeaux.
Montaigne's presentation of his sceptical viewpoint occurs most com-
pletely
in the longest and most philosophical of his essays, Apologie de
Raimond Sebond, which was apparently written at the period when he was
most affected by his reading of
Sextus.
He carved phrases and slogans from
Sextus
into the rafter-beams of his study. The Apologie was written after
Montaigne had translated the Theologia naturalis of Sebond (Sibiuda), a
forceful
rationalist theologian of the fifteenth century. Some readers were
not convinced of the reasoning and asked Montaigne for further explana-
tion. In his rambling style Montaigne 'defended' Sebond by showing the
inadequacy
of
reason in all areas. Therefore Sebond's use
of
it in theology was
no worse
than
anyone else's rational efforts. In the course
of
developing
this
explanation, Montaigne presented various layers of doubt drawn from
Sextus
and
Cicero.
He showed the unreliability of human senses and of
human reason. He showed the conflict of human opinions on almost any
subject
whatsoever and the inability of people to justify their
views
in
science,
philosophy or theology. 'The participation
that
we have in the
knowledge
of
truth,
whatever it may be, has not been acquired by our own
powers.'
It is only based on faith.
31
As
Montaigne intensified the sceptics' case, he
returned
over and over
again
to the fideistic
motif
as the only solution. We lack reliable criteria for
judging
our senses or our reason. The more we try to justify our
views,
the
more dubious they become. So,
'there
cannot be first principles for men
unless the divinity has revealed them; all the rest
—
beginning , middle and
end
—
is nothing but dreams and smoke'.
32
Montaigne
wove
Sextus' series
of
tropes and his evidence
that
all reasoning is circular or leads to an infinite
regress through a vast variety of human knowledge. The ancient
philosophers and scientists and the new ones like Copernicus and Paracelsus
are challenged. The varieties of human behaviour, as revealed in classical
literature
and in the accounts of the explorers, indicate we can have no
assurance about how to behave. As one
wallows
in these many sceptical
currents, Montaigne pointed out
that
trying to know reality is like trying to
clutch
water. So, we should rest content in our world of appearances,
accepting
the customs, mores and religion of our society until and unless
God
chooses to enlighten us.
Montaigne showed his contemporaries
that
sceptical difficulties would
prevent them
from
justifying
any particular rule
of
faith, any particular set
31.
Montaigne
1922-3,
11, p. 230 (11.12); see
also
Popkin
1979, pp.
42-65.
32.
Montaigne
1922-3,
11, p. 285 (11.12).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
684
Problems
of
knowledge
and
action
of
human opinions
and any
alleged claims
of
scientific knowledge.
He
offered
them only reliance
on
faith as
a
solution,
and
many
had
doubts about
his sincerity. His Essais were extremely popular,
and, at
least
in the
Apologie,
posed
the
modern problem
of
knowledge.
How do we
know anything?
What
can we
know?
How
certain
can we be? He was
read
by
Bacon,
Descartes, Pascal
and
very many others.
His
views
were presented
didactically
by
Pierre Charron
in De la
sagesse
(1601),
which went through
numerous editions. This nouveau
pyrrhonisme
of
Montaigne became
the
challenge
that
now had to be met
if
a new foundation
for
human knowledge
was
to be
found. Thus, through scepticism,
the
theory
of
knowledge
became
the
central focus
of
modern thought.
The
epistemologies
of
Aristotle,
Plato,
the
Neoplatonists,
the
nature
philosophers,
the
mystics,
the
cabalists
and the
rest
no
longer seemed adequate
to
meet
the
challenge raised
by
the
revival
and
revitalisation
of the
arguments
of the
Greek sceptics.
Although
Aristotle's answer tended
to be
what
was
still taught
in the
seventeenth-century schools,
the
modern philosophers sought other
ways
of
dealing with
the
sceptical crisis.
So, the
scepticism which
slowly
developed
in the
Renaissance
in the
shadow
of
official
Aristotelianism,
forms
of
Platonism
and
Neoplatonism
and
various bizarre
views
of
nature
gradually became central,
and
posed problems
that
were
to be
critical
in
philosophy from
then
on. And as the
proposed fideism
of the
Renaissance
sceptics lost
its
lustre
or
conviction,
the
revived scepticism
was to
become
one
of the
main forces undermining
belief
in
traditional
Judaism
and
Christianity.
33
Thus,
a
revived
and
revitalised scepticism, which grew
out of
many
of
the
currents
of
Renaissance thought, made
the
problem
of
knowledge
crucial
for
later philosophy.
In
questioning
all
of
the theories
in
philosophy,
science
and
theology
of
the time,
the
sceptics made
it
crucial
for
thinkers
to
find a satisfactory justification
for
their knowledge claims. Hence,
the
questions: Where does
our
knowledge come from, what
can we
know
and
how
certain
is our
knowledge? became central.
New
theories
of
knowledge
had
to be
offered
to
deal with
the
epistemological crisis brought
on by the
growth
and
spread
of
scepticism
at the end of the
Renaissance.
The
older
theories
of
Aristotle
and the
scholastics seemed
to
have been overthrown,
and
the new
knowledge being developed
by the new
scientists seemed
to
require
another
kind
of
foundation. Hence,
in the
post-Renaissance
philosophical world
the
theory
of
knowledge became
a
central
part
of
philosophical discussions.
33. Popkin 1979, pp.
66flf.;
Penelhum 1983.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
19
EPISTEMOLOGY
OF THE
SCIENCES
The
range of Renaissance discussions of cognitive status and means of
acquiring knowledge in the various scientiae is extensive. Certain difficulties
attendant
on the attempt to survey this field deserve mention at the outset.
To
start
with it should be noted
that
only a small
part
of the field has been
subject
to scholarly attention. Further, much of the recent literature is
primarily concerned with the issue of continuity between Renaissance
epistemology
and the epistemologies associated with the 'new' science of
the seventeenth century, sometimes with scant regard to intellectual,
disciplinary and generic contexts. Epistemology of the sciences is not, it
should go without saying, a Renaissance notion: no Renaissance category
even
remotely corresponds to 'the sciences' or 'the natural sciences' in our
senses of the terms; and current conceptions of epistemology are at best
dimly
foreshadowed in Renaissance
logic
and psychology. In imposing an
artificial
unity on discussions of method and status in the scientiae we run
obvious
risks of anachronism in selection and interpretation of material.
In the
following
account attention is confined to topics in the
epistemology
of disciplines
that
were, from the curricular point of
view,
orthodox - natural philosophy, medicine and mathematics. This is a drastic
restriction, for much of the most innovative debate of the period on
questions of attainment of knowledge concerns disciplines whose creden-
tials as scientiae were perceived as questionable: the 'unorthodox' sciences,
astrology,
alchemy, natural magic and so on; and the practical and operative
disciplines,
architecture, cartography, military engineering and the
like.
The
survey opens with accounts of
three
sixteenth-century debates
concerned, respectively, with: the status of'demonstrative regress', a means
whereby
it was widely supposed
that
the proximate causes of natural
phenomena could be established; the grounds of certainty in mathematics;
and the status of hypotheses in astronomy. In the next section other major
debating points are touched on in an attempt to convey the extent and
diversity
of Renaissance treatments of method and status in the scientiae.
Two
of the topics considered in the opening sections figure centrally in
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686
Problems of knowledge and action
modern theses about continuity in the epistemology of the sciences.
Demonstrative regress has been claimed as a link in a tradition of scientific
methodology stretching from Aristotle to
Galileo;
and sixteenth-century
controversy about the
status
of
astronomical hypotheses has been presented
as a confrontation between 'realist' and 'fictionalist'
views
of mathematical
hypotheses
that
can be traced from Greek antiquity to the present day. The
final
section ventures some reflections on the vexed question of continuity
in the epistemology of the sciences.
DEMONSTRATIVE
REGRESS
Demonstrative regress (regressus
demonstrativus)
is a procedure which
combines an inference from an observed effect to its proximate cause with
an inference from the proximate cause to the observed effect. This
composite process plays a central role in many sixteenth-century accounts
of
method of discovery in
natural
philosophy.
1
A
crucial source for the doctrine of regressus is Posterior Analytics
1.13,
in
which
Aristotle contrasts two sorts of syllogisms,
arrohei^Ls
rov Stori,
'demonstration
of
the reasoned fact', and airohei^is rov on, 'demonstration
of
the fact'.
2
One of his examples of the former is (slightly expanded):
heavenly bodies which are near the earth do not twinkle; the planets are near
the earth; hence the planets do not twinkle. This syllogism demonstrates the
presence of an observed effect, not twinkling, in a subject, the planets', and it
does so by means
of
a middle term, being near the earth, which constitutes the
proximate cause
of
that
effect. By rearrangement
of
terms a 'demonstration
of
the fact' is obtained in which the middle term specifies the effect
rather
than
the cause. Thus we have: heavenly bodies which do not twinkle are
near the earth; the planets do not twinkle; hence the planets are near the
earth. Part of Aristotle's intention in this passage is, it seems, to distinguish
demonstrative syllogisms from related syllogisms whose premises, whilst
true, fail to explain their conclusions.
3
Nevertheless, by the sixteenth
century the question of the way in which the two alleged species of
demonstration may be combined to yield knowledge of the causes of
natural
phenomena had come to be widely regarded as crucial for the
interpretation of the Posterior Analytics and for the understanding of
Aristotle's
own procedure in
natural
philosophy.
1.
Sixteenth-century
treatments
of regressus are
surveyed
in
Risse
1964; Aristotelismo veneto 1983,1, pp.
221-77
(Papuli).
See
also
Randall
1961; W. F.
Edwards
i960;
Kosman
1964;
Papuli
1965, 1967;
Poppi
1969,
1972a;
Wallace
1972-, 1, 1984, ch. 3;
Bottin
1972; N.
Jardine
1976.
2.
These
are G. R. G.
Mure's
renderings
in
Aristotle
1910-52,
1.
3. Cf.
Aristotle
1975, pp.
149—50;
Patzig
1981, pp.
145-50.
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