Original scientific paper
Federicus Grisogono: De divinis mathematicis
Erna Banić-Pajnić
; Centar za povijesne znanosti, Odjel za povijest filozofije, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Abstract
In hopes of contributing to debate on ,the intellectual conditions leading to the significant change in the way of perceiving and relating to the world that came about in the mid-17th century with the first strides in mathematically founded natural scence, we turned to the works of Federic Grisogono from Zadar, an astrologist (astronomer), physician, mathematician and philosopher, who taught at the Padua University and was a prominent figure in. Italian intellectual circles of the day (first half of the 16th century).
Since the problem of metaphysical assumptions for the development of modem science in these debates, particularly related to determination of the role of revived interest of Renaissance thinkers for Platonism and Neoplatonism, we considered Grisogono's works, who declares himself when dealing with mathematics problems to be a follower of Pythagoras and Plato, from the point of view of the characteristics of their approach and thus partially the approach to the mathematical from the framework of Renaissance Platonism and Neoplatonism. We established characteristics of these approaches in Grisogono's work, where the mathematical is treated within the framework of philosophical and theological problems, but there are good indications of certain elements of a new approach (subjection of everything there is to the number, and establishing the possibility of 'observing 'all that is as »sub specie quantitatis«, the conviction that numerical relations apply uniformly to the world, and therefore for ,the sublunar sphere, although indirectly through the influence of heavenly bodies, emphasis on the utility of mathematical knowledge and the possibility of applying it to physical phenomena, realizing 'the procedure in mathematics with which the sensory is abstracted from everything as a scientific procedure par excellence). In the course of this work we came to the conclusion that the very fact of gradual change in the attitude towards and approach to mathematics in the period from 1400 -to 1600, which Grisogono’s example is proof of, testifies to the fact that the approach to mathematics in ascendence in the mid-17th century, treating, the mathematical as an object unto itself, which represents an important change in interpretation and experience of the world and not merely an aspect of the internal development of mathematics and its procedures, has its roots, in that very development.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
87503
URI
Publication date:
2.12.1985.
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