Original scientific paper
The Problem of Matter in the Philosophy of Frane Petrić
Erna Banić-Pajnić
; Zagreb, Hrvatska
Abstract
The question of matter, one of the most intriguing questions of the history of philosophy from antiquity to the present, is addressed by Frane Petrić in two of his most significant works: Peripateticae discussiones and Nova de universis philosophia. In the article we question the relationship between the views about matter expressed in the Peripateticae discussiones and his conception of matter as set out in Nova de universis philosophia. In the Peripateticae discussiones, Petrić elaborates, among other things, the problem of matter, mostly criticizing Aristotle’s view of matter. In his critique of Aristotle’s views in the case of matter, he is trying to point out, with Aristotle’s own arguments, the contradiction of Aristotle’s views and the unfoundedness of his assumptions. Thus, for example, he breaks down Aristotle’s thesis on forms – substances shawing that the forms are in fact acccidental, referring precisely to Aristotle’s definition of the accidental, which shows that it fully corresponds to the definition of form. In a critical examination of Aristotle’s views, he compares these with those of Aristotle’s predecessors, especially Plato. In doing so, he demonstrates that Aristotle’s interpretation of Plato’s conception is wrong. He contrasts this interpretation with his interpretation of particular places in Plato’s works, referring to the Platonic tradition. However, he does not present his own systematic interpretation of Plato’s conception of matter. Although he tries to purify Aristotle’s conception from different interpretations, he often interpretes Aristotle’s philosophy following the interpretation of later interpreters of Aristotle. In the work Nova de universis philosophia, he in some way continues the discussion with the representatives of the peripatetic tradition regarding the problem of the first matter in Panarchia, the second part of Nova de universis philosophia, and then in the fourth part of this work, in Pancosmia, he presents his original views on the constituents of the corporeal world and especially fluid. In doing so, he seeks to address all those difficulties concerning the determination of matter which he faced by critically elaborating Aristotle’s views in the Peripateticae discussiones. In the first eight books of Pancosmia Petrić elaborates on the question of the primal principles (primaeva principia) of the corporeal world. They are space, light, heat and fluid (fluor). He states that each of these principles is corporeal and noncorporeal. Although all four principles are considered as constituents of the corporeal world, he claims that matter of the world’s body in the true sense is fluid, which, in addition to being corporeal and non-corporeal, has the ability to dilute and thicken, shrink and expand. Petrić repeatedly emphasizes that all the things of the world are composed of fluid, which he defines as flux (fluxio). Being continous fluid is at the same time the foundation of the continuity of the world. Although he claims that the world is one and continuous, Petrić nevertheless establishes differences between the world’s parts. Thus, in the very principles, he distinguishes between the degrees corresponding to the degrees of being spoken of in the eleventh book of Panarchia, where he establishes the ontological hierarchy of nine degrees of being. In other parts of the world, Petrić also distinguishes degrees of density and rarity. This differentiation is correlated with the differentiation of things of the world into corporeal and non-corporeal. On this basis, Petrić establishes a hierarchy of degrees in “the totality of beings” (universitas) that is accompanied by value ranking. So, according to Petrić, the more non-corporeal something is, the more perfect it is, and closer to God. He also establishes a hierarchy of causes, so the highest cause of all is in the empyreum, in which God, the blessed spirits, and the souls liberated from the body, abide. In the second part of Pancosmia, more precisely from the twenty-third book onward, Petrić speaks about the principles of the material world which he calls hylaeus mundus. These principles, which he calls elementa are air, water and earth. According to Petrić, these elements represent only parts of the world’s unique substance. And they consist of the primal principles. Although Petrić maintains the traditional, from ancient philosophy established order of these elements, there is also a significant departure from the traditional, more precisely Aristotelian interpretation of the composition of the world. According to Petrić, the very elements of the material world and their properties are also present in the above-the-moon (supracelestial) region of the world, i.e. in the celestial part of the world. And the sky itself according to Petrić is changeable. For Petrić ether is not the fifth element, significantly different from the other elements. He also does not consider fire as a separate element, but connects it with the three ethereal worlds. For Petrić’s conception it is determined that there is no strict boundary between the parts of the material world, so in fact his key thesis is following: “Therefore, the whole universe is one body, in which there is a difference only of the places of the parts.” In his account of the order of the parts of the world, Petrić mainly follows Zoroaster’s, Hermes’s and Orpheus’s doctrine of the composition of the world. It should be emphasized that with such a conception of the world, in which the distinction between two essentially different parts of the world is lost, Petrić builds on the earlier Platonic tradition present in the early and late Middle Ages. The key to Petrić’s thesis is that of the uniqueness and oneness of the world based on the uniqueness of world matter. The thesis of her corporeal-noncorporeal nature eliminates the difference between the non-physical and the physical, and thus solves one of the fundamental problems of New Platonic philosophy – the question of Plato’s inherited problem of the horismos between that of the intelligible and material. From his definition of the original principles of which the corporeal world consists, it is clear that it is conditioned by the conception of the principle of all, the One, which is Un-omnia, as defined by Petrić in the second part of the Nova de universis philosophia, in Panarchia. This One, God and Good as infinitely powerful (infinitipotens) produces an infinite effect, and this effect are, first of all, the primal principles as the corporeal-noncorporeal, which are infinite. In this infinity of them lies the possibility of new forms that world matter is always ready to receive. Thus, it is confirmed that the exposition in Pancosmia, the exposition on the corporeal world, actually supplements the ontotheological account in Panarchia.
Keywords
matter; Frane Petrić / Franciscus Patricius; Renaissance philosophy
Hrčak ID:
240937
URI
Publication date:
25.12.2019.
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