https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7432-7880
![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
One of the key concepts in modern science is force (F). In present studies on the history of dynamics, Patricius is either completely omitted or only cursorily mentioned. The aim of this text is to show that Patricius’s concept of the soul, as he developed it in his Nova de universis philosophia from 1591, comes close to the modern (i.e. Newtonian) understanding of force. This should support the more general position that one of the most intriguing aspects of Patricius’s philosophy is his contribution to the emergence of modern science.
Notes
1 Our philosopher was born on the island of Cres (“Cherso” in Italian) into a Croatian noble family, as he himself testifies in his autobiographical letter to Baccio Valori from 1587 (Patrizi, Lettere ed opusculi inediti, 45). Since the island of Cres was part of the Venetian Republic at the time, the dominant language of administrative communication, besides Latin, was Italian. Although Patricius was able to speak the Croatian of the time, there is no text of his in his mother tongue and we have no trace of how exactly he spelled his name in Croatian. In Croatian secondary literature there was a plethora of suggestions for how to spell his name: Petris, Petriš, Petrić, Petričević, Petrišević, etc., the form “Petrić” has become a sort of compromised standard. However, historically, the most plausible variants are Petriš or Petris. In their most recent book on Renaissance Cres, Borić and Gudelj (Uveliko i u malo, 192 and passim), after having conducted thorough onomastic research, insist that the original family name of this outstanding North Dalmatian family was Petris. Patricius too used to write his family name in several forms: in Italian Patrici, Patricii, Patricij, Patrizi, Patrizzi, Patritio, and in Latin Patricius and Patritius. It is an interesting question why he used all these variations of his name, almost akin to pseudonyms or nicknames, instead of his native Petris, which could fit perfectly into the Italian onomastic system. Be that as it may, in this text I will be using the form “Patricius” since it is the name written on the front page of the most important source for my present investigation, Nova de universis philosophia.
2 In 2004, Tomislav Petković published a summary of his presentation, entitled “Was Patricius Important for the Development of the Concept of Force in Kepler’s and Newton’s Theories of Gravitation?”. This presentation, it seems, has never been published in the form of an article. Judging by the summary, Petković’s line of argument was significantly different from mine: Petković, in his oral presentation, compared Patricius’s method of classification of the tidal causes with Kepler’s theory of planetary motions and, later, with Newton’s general theory of gravitation.
3 Pace Brida, “Petrićevo tumačenje duše svijeta”; Blum “Francesco Patricius’ Principles of Psychology”; Deitz, “Space, Light, and Soul”; and, partially, Leinkauf, “Francesco Patricius’ concept of ‘nature’”., 577–9. All these studies offer different aspects of Patricius’s concept of the soul.
4 In this search, the titles of works containing the lexeme anim*, e.g. De anima etc., were omitted.
5 Cf. Skrbina, Panpsychism in the West; Skrbina, “Panpsychism Reconsidered”.
6 Westfall, “Scientific revolution”, 1.
7 Dijksterhuis, The Mechanization of the World Picture, III, 14.
8 Jammer, Concepts of Force; Westfall, Force in Newton’s Physics;Westfall, The Construction of Modern Science; Koyré, The Astronomical Revolution.
9 Boršić, Renesansne polemike s Aristotelom, 2013.
10 Jardine, Kepler’s A Defence of Tycho against Ursus, 154.
11 Patricius, Nova de universis philosophia, Pancosmia XII, f. 91va: “Cunctae tamen, et hae duae et illae veteres, ex unica illa positione. Quod stellae in coelo, ut in tabula nodi aut clavi sint infixae, ortum habent”.
12 Patricius, Nova de universis philosophia, Pancosmia XII, f. 91va–b.
13 Patricius, Nova de universis philosophia, Pancosmia XIII, f. 93rab, my translation of the following text: “Sed prius effectrices … separationis huius causas expendamus. Casu non esse factam constat. Casum enim ex universitate iamdudum expulimus. Vis vero aliena, quae nam potuit esse tanta, quae immensum opus, in immensis corporibus efficeret? Si tamen fuit aliqua, ea necessario, vel corporis fuit, vel incorporei. Sed incorporea, sui natura nulli vim inferunt, blande omnia tractant, a suo munere non discedunt. Corporis ergo oportet eam fuisse. Sed corpora, uti multoties est iam demonstratum, agunt nihil, patiuntur tantum. Neque igitur a corporis vi ulla, ea scissio est facta. Et si a corpore fieri potuit, a quo nam corpore cum adhuc non nisi unum Empyrei corpus esset inter corpora illa quatuor incorpora, et antitype quasi medium? Ipsum ergo sibi vim nullam attulisse ratio dictat. Et si attulit, aliena vis non fuit, sed propria. Si igitur vis ulla allata est, propria vel Empyrei, vel aetheris, vel utriusque est allata. Sed ab utro vis, aut ab, utroque, cur dicatur esse allata? Vel quia inter ipsos dissidium sit ortum? Vel animo concordi, eam fecerunt divulsionem? Sed discordia nulla inter eos intercessit, quando adhuc totum partibus erat similare, et partes toti. Inter similia vero nulla umquam oritur dissensio. Sed concordi animo, cur dissidium faciant, cum uni esse, longe sit melius, quam multis. Dum enim una entia sunt, essentiam obtinent. Si in multitudinem scindantur, si ea talis sit, ut quaeque eius pars uno caret, in nihilum abeant omnia. Si unum retineant, media inter nihilum et unum remanent. At longe satius est, summum unum esse, quam aut medium, aut postremum. Satius ergo est Empyreo summum unum esse et primissimi unius quasi imaginem, quam se in multitudinem secari. Ad solum ergo res redigitur Conditorem. Eum scilicet voluisse, vel separatos eos creare, vel creatos iam, dissecare”.
14 Nardi, “La dottrina dell’Empireo nella sua genesi storica e nel pensiero dantesco”.
15 Jammer, Concept of Force, 72.
16 Jammer, Concept of Force, 31.
17 Pace Paolo Rossi, who, in “Francesco Patricius”, after generally accepting this anti-modern-scientific interpretation of Patricius’s position, argued that it is not as straightforwardly anti-mechanistic as it might appear.
18 Newton, The Principia, 62.
19 Jammer, Concepts of Force, 124. Jammer also mentions Galileo’s reluctance to cope with this issue (Jammer, Concepts of Force, 95 sq.). Whether Newton dived into defining force or not is far from uncontroversial. I. Bernard Cohen is quoted as someone who “contends that Newton never even addressed the question of the ‘existence of forces’; on the other hand … Richard Westfall declares that Newton not only addressed the question, but fundamentally rejected the prevailing mechanical philosophy of his day by insisting that forces must be considered part of our fundamental ontology” (Janiak, Newton as Philosopher, 50–1). Janiak himself holds the following view (Janiak, Newton as Philosopher, 85): “In my view, then, we can split the difference between Cohen’s and Westfall’s interpretations as follows: on the one hand, Newton does address the existence of forces by claiming that ‘gravity really exists,’ so Cohen errs in that regard; but in making that claim, Newton is not claiming that we should add gravity to the strict mechanist – or the Cartesian – ontology, so Westfall errs in that regard. What unifies the different elements of Newton’s overarching view, I think, is his subtle rejection of the terms of the debate within natural philosophy established by mechanists of various stripes. … If we can measure a physical quantity such as gravity, it exists just as any physical quantity does, even if we remain ignorant of its ontological basis in the strict mechanist (or the Cartesian) sense”.
20 This idea can be found in Jammer, Concepts of Force, 125. Jammer here quotes Albert Einstein, who also recognised this trace in Newton’s self-estimation.
21 Boundri, What was Mechanical about Mechanics?, 33, comments: “Faced with the term ‘force’, the modem physicist thinks only of the modem formulation of Newton's second law, in which force is the product of mass and acceleration: E = m × a. For him, the fact that the inertial force has the formal name of ‘force’ is no more than a residual trace of a very early philosophy of nature, in which forces were quite simply considered responsible for everything that moved. After all, it is as clear as daylight that inertia is a property that needs no cause! The same applies to the concept of ‘living force’ which today is, at best, regarded as an old name for kinetic energy, but which no longer has anything in common with Newton’s concept of force”.
22 Jammer, Concepts of Force, 81.
23 Dijksterhuis, The Mechanization of the World Picture, V, 8–9.
24 Pisano and Baussotti, “On the Conceptualization of Force in Johannes Kepler’s Corpus”.
25 Galileo, II Saggiatore, 232, has the famous phrase that the “book of nature” is “in mathematical language, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures; without these it is humanly impossible to understand a word of it, and one wanders around pointlessly in a dark labyrinth”. Translation taken from Galileo, The Essential Galileo, 183. A less famous but equally succinct idea can be found in Kant’s words about science: “I assert, however, that in any special doctrine of nature there can be only as much proper science as there is mathematics therein” (Kant, Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, 6).
26 Jammer, Concepts of Force, 87.
27 Quoted by Rossi, “Francesco Patricius”, 379.
28 Kepler, Mysterium cosmographicum, 174.
29 Kepler, Mysterium cosmographcum, 176, note c. The translation is taken from Jammer, Concepts of force, 90. The same passage caught Paolo Rossi’s attention in his “Francesco Patricius”, 380.
30 This seems to be Paolo Rossi’s suggestion.
31 This seems to be Jammer’s suggestion. See Jammer, Concept of force, 83: “It also seems that in certain passages in this work [Mysterium cosmographicum] Kepler employs the term ‘soul’ (anima) merely as a metaphor to express the immateriality of the principle that governs the mutual movements of the heavenly bodies. He simply is not yet in possession of a special term for this notion”.
32 A thorough comparison between Kepler’s and Patricius’s astronomical positioning, as well as the nature of the harsh critique Kepler issued against Patricius, is discussed in Hladký, “Kepler on Patrizi”.
33 Patricius/Petrić, Discussionum peripateticarum tomus secundus, 344–6, my translation of the following text (Plato’s Greek original text is omitted): “In quibus illud est animadvertendum Platonem primum motorem statuisse animam universalem, scilicet animam universi, quam etiam Deum vocat non multo post at non primum deum: Et omnibus, quibus anima utens mentem asciscens semper Deum, Deus ipsa existens recta et felicia ducit omnia. In huius primi motoris cognitionem devenit, inquirendo an Dii essent, hos esse adinvenit, postquam animam esse priorem corpore ostendit. Id autem per motus effecit, quorum omnium primum esse dicit, quem decimo loco, recensuerat, eum scilicet, qui se ipsum et alia movet, de quo ait: Primum generatione est et vi secundum rationem. Et iterum concludens: Principium ergo motionum omnium et primam in stantibus pariter factam et in motis existentem, eam, quae se ipsam movet, dicemus necessarium esse antiquissimam et potentissimam mutationem omnium; eam vero, quae alteratur ab alio et movet alia, secundam”.
34 This was a widely known fact in the Renaissance. Cf. Giordano Bruno in the Second dialogue of his De la causa, principio et uno declares: “there is no philosopher enjoying some reputation, even among the Peripatetics, who does not hold that the world and its spheres are animated in some way” (Bruno, Cause, Principle and Unity, 42).
35 Patricius, Nova de universis philosophia, Pampsychia I, f. 49rb: “Posthac distincte usuros, ut anima dicat nobis humanam tantum animam. Animus vero, reliquarum rerum animos significet, plantarum, brutorum, et, si qui sint in universitate, alii”.
36 The text of De humana philosophia was recovered and published by Mucillo, “De humana philosophia”.
37 Patricius, Nova de universis philosophia, Pampsychia I, f. 49vb, my translation and cursive of the following text: “Nullum entium Dei bonitate caret. Quaecumque enim fecit, fuere valde bona. Si bona sunt, Dei bonitatem quatenus poterunt, imitabuntur propria eorum bonitate. Bonitatis omnis proprium est benefacere. Facient ergo aliquid. Factio, haec, actio est. Actio omnis a viribus. Vires ab essentia. Essentiam ergo beneficam cuncta entia ad usque minima, et vilissima habent. Et quia essentia omnis benefica, in se prius vires parturit; et per vires, actiones parturit ad extra. Et praegnans prius est in se, et extra se necessario fecunda. … Nullum ergo ens, sterile est. Omne ergo ens fecundum est. Si fecundum etiam praegnans. Si praegnans, etiam parturit. Si parturit, etiam producit. Quid enim essentia cuiusque careat viribus? Minime. Vires hae, an erunt otiosae? Si a bono sunt, si boni illius participant, otiosas esse, est impossibile. Si otiosae non sunt, sunt igitur in motu. In motu, vel interno, vel ad extra? Utroque. Ille quidem intra essentiam est, et vitam ei praebet. Ostensum enim est vitam veram, motum infra essentiam esse. Hoc vero, quia vita, nihil est aliud, quam essentia parturiens actionem, tum in se ipsa, tum ex se ipsa. Si in se ipsa actionem edit, ea actio e se non exit, in se fit et in se manens nihil edit aliud quam se ipsam. Si vero ex se ipsa actionem profert, ea actio non est otiosa. Si otiosa non est, et motus ipsa est, et motu eo, et se ipsa, aliud a se efficit. Cuius ipsa sit causa uti vocant immediata. Vires vero, quae eam actionem ex essentia efferunt, causa sit anterior. Essentia autem, quae virium et actionis radix est et fons, de se parti effectus primaria sui ordinis est causa”.
38 One of the several cruces of this passage is how to translate vis – as “power” or as “force”. My choice of “force” was not only motivated by the fact that in the Patrician corpus there are other terms to denote power (potestas, potentia, virtus, etc.), but also by some inner philosophical reasons. In philosophical discussions, “power” is a quality, or a faculty, signifying the ability to interact with, and affect, other things. On the other hand, “force” has a more active meaning, an actual exercise of interaction between two objects. In modern physics, the two terms are (more or less clearly) differentiated.
39 The division of force into “inner” and “outward” reflects Proclus’s Neo-Platonism. The same goes for the idea that force is part of the essence of a being. However, Patricius’s interpretation of Procelan physics is not of immediate relevance for this text. An overview can be found in Siorvanes, Proclus, 100–5.
40 This scheme is my interpretation of Patricius, Nova de universis philosophia, Pampsychia I, f. 49va. Deitz, “Space, Light, and Soul”, 142, comments on Patricius’s classification: “Yet anyone who has even a passing acquaintance with the writings of Proclus and Ficino will readily admit that so far, Patrizi has had little original to say in substance”.
41 This “first” and “in it and out of it” should be understood temporarily: the “first” is “first created” and “in it and out of it” indicates that what is created “first” simultaneously contains everything else of the same sort (unities, lives, etc.). Patricius argues that the first unity, directly created by God, must contain all other: the particular, unities, etc. Cf. Patricius, Nova de universis philosophia, Pampsychia I, f. 50rab.
42 The interpretation of Patricius’s middle place of the soul as copula mundi was suggested by Leinkauf, “Francesco Patrizi’s concept of ‘nature’”, 575.
43 Patricius, Nova de universis philosophia, Pampsychia II, f. 51ra.
44 This and the previous passage is a summary of the argument Patricius develops in Nova de universis philosophia, Pampsychia II, f. 51va–52ra.
45 In the chapter “On physical space”, Patricius describes space as an “incorporeal body or corporeal non-body”. There he also gives a definition of what this means by this expression: “Both [the incorporeal body and the corporeal non-body]. Each of them is independent substance existing by itself and in itself, so that it always stays by itself and in itself and never moves anywhere, does not change essence neither with its parts nor the whole” (Patricius, Nova de universis philosophia, Pancosima I, f. 65rb): “Atque utrumque per se substans, per se existens, adeo ut etiam per se stet semper, atque in se stet: neque unquam, neque usquam moveatur, neque essentiam; neque locum mutet, nec partibus, nec toto”. It is hardly a helpful description for our purposes.
46 Patricius, Nova de universis philosophia, Panaugia IV, f. 10ra.
47 Deitz, “Space, Light, and Soul”, and Boner, “A tenuous tandem”, argue that, for Patricius, light was a sort of connection between the mundus Empyreus and the finite world, actually being identical with space.
48 The reference is to Patricius, Nova de universis philosophia, Panarchia I, f. 1vab.
49 Patricius, Nova de universis philosophia, Pampsychia II, f. 51rab, my translation of the text: “Est quoque demonstratum, corpus esse ἑτϵροκίνητον, alimobile, ita ut ad motum, actionemque suam edendam, non a se, sed ab alio, necesse est moveri. Movetur autem in tempore. Motus hic actio est. Actio venit a viribus, vires ab essentia. Ergo si corpus in tempore movetur, motus hic temporarius est, et est actio. Actio ergo corporis est temporaria. Ergo, et vires temporariae, et essentia temporaria. … Trine autem dimensum corpus est, et corpus est trine dimensum. Hoc autem quia moles est, et mole constat. Hoc itidem quia sine spacio esse nequit. Hoc item quia spacio constat. Id vero, quia e spacio fit. Hoc etiam quia spacium corporum omnium primum est principium. Hinc ergo est, ut omne corpus spacio constet, et in spacio habitet, et mole constet, et moles sit, et trine sit dimensum. Et totum sit, et partes habeat, et in eas sit divisibile, et dividatur, tum essentia tum viribus, tum actionibus, seu potius passionibus”.
50 Patricius, Nova de universis philosophia, Pampsychia IV, f. 55ra: “mundum totum anima esse praeditum affirmamus”.
51 Luc Deitz succinctly concluded: “Patrizi was, I think, the greatest Proclian physicist that ever lived after Proclus—and this is certainly no small claim to fame” (Deitz, “Space, Light, and Soul”, 157).
52 Rossi, “Francesco Patricius”, 379–80.
53 Girardi-Karšulin, “Petrić u sedamnaestom stoljeću”, shows the context of Leibniz’s mentioning Patricius, whom he called novator, together with Telesio, Campanella, Bodin, Nizolio, Cardano, Galileo, Bacon, Gasssendi, Hobbes, Descartes. Francis Bacon also mentioned Patricius as homo novus in the Novum organum. Descartes did not mention Patricius’s name directly, however – especially via Mersenne – there are reasons to think that Descartes argued against some of Patricius’s positions in his book Le monde, in the first part, entitled “Traité de la lumière”.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Luka Boršić
Luka Boršić obtained his first Ph.D. degree in Ancient philosophy with emphasis of classical languages and his second in history of philosophy with the emphasis on the emergence of modern science. His main areas of research are ancient philosophy, Renaissance philosophy and modern science, and gender philosophy. He works as a scientific adviser at the Institute of Philosophy in Zagreb, Croatia, presently serving as the Director of the Institute. In 2019, he was a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University in New York, studying Paul Oskar Kristeller’s papers.