The philosophical systems of Francesco Patrizi and Henry More

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a comparison of the philosophical systems of Francesco Patrizi and Henry More. The point, however, is not to demonstrate Patrizi’s influence on More but rather to see how, with respect to some particular subjects, they both tried to offer a modern interpretation of Neoplatonism. The main axis of the analysis follows the topics of space, light, and soul. While to More, light is of merely marginal interest, it is demonstrated that space and soul are of crucial importance and play a similar role in both authors’ systems. They function as intermediary entities that link the higher and the lower reality and form a sort of canvas upon which the material world unfolds. Yet, in comparison with Patrizi, More’s system is both constrained by a much stricter, dualistic classification and at the same time veers dangerously close to immanentism and pantheism (which More tries to avoid).

KEYWORDS:

• Henry More
• Francesco Patrizi
• world soul
• light
• space
• metaphysics
• Renaissance
• early modern
• Neoplatonism

Note on Contributor

Jacques Joseph received his PhD at the Department of Philosophy and History of Science at the Faculty of Science of the Charles University in Prague, where he currently works as a post-doctoral researcher. He specialises in interactions between Renaissance and early modern philosophy and science, as well as in modern French epistemology.

ORCID

Jacques Joseph http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3325-4723

Notes

1 Notable exceptions are Fierz, “Über den Ursprung”, 85–120; Henry, “Concept of Space”, 567–71; Grant, Much Ado about Nothing, 226–8.

2 In the following, I use the text of the Nova de Universis Philosophia. For the history of the text and analysis of the differences, see Patrizi, De spacio, 23–8 and 71–3.

3 For more on this subject, see Sedley, “Philoponus’ Conception of Space”.

4 John Henry even goes as far as to claim that “space can be seen to be radically different from the other principles”, and that, in comparison to them, it seems an odd addition. According to Henry, the reason for this inclusion is that, while such a conception of space was radically new, Patrizi still had to figure out how to incorporate it into his system in an intelligible manner (Henry, “Void Space”, 137). Luc Deitz, on the other hand, argues that, in Patrizi’s system, space is intimately related to the other elements, especially light and heat (Deitz, “Space, Light, and Soul”, 154–7). In that case, it may be only us, influenced as we are by the Newtonian theory of absolute space, who feel that space stands out from the rest of Patrizi’s elements. We return to Deitz’s argument in later parts of the paper.

5 On this, see Grant, Much Ado about Nothing, esp. 116–81; for a comparison with Patrizi, Grant, Much Ado about Nothing, 200.

6 Patrizi, Nova de universis philosophia, 4, 1, 65b (the first number corresponds to the part, Panaugia, Panarchia, Pampsychia, or Pancosmia, the second to the book, and the third to page number in the 1591 edition; the letter indicates the column). Amos Edelheit points out that this argument is as much a eulogy of the exceptionality of space as it is a critique of Aristotelian categories (Edelheit, “Francesco Patrizi’s Two Books”, 250).

7 Patrizi, Nova de Universis Philosophia, 4, 1, 65b.

8 Edelheit, “Francesco Patrizi’s Two Books”, 244; see Patrizi, Nova de Universis Philosophia, 4, 1, 61a: “Omnia namque & corporea, & incorporea, si alicubi non sint nullibi sunt, si nullibi sunt, neque etiam sunt. Si non sunt, nihil sunt”.

9 Patrizi, Nova de universis philosophia, 3, 2, 51c.

10 See also Dadić, Franciscus Patricius, 47.

11 See above, note 8 (my italics).

12 Patrizi, Nova de Universis Philosophia, 4, 1, 61b–c: “Sed si divinitas universa indivisibilis sit, ut est, in spacio erit indivisibili, & a divisibili spacio circumque erit obvoluta. Si nullibi item sit, sine spacio non cogitatur, si sit alicubi, vel in coeli culmine, vel supra coelum, in spacio certe erit. Si vero sit ubique, in spacio, non esse nequit”.

13 Henry, “Void Space”, 135.

14 Henry, “Void Space”, 144.

15 Patrizi, Nova de Universis Philosophia, 4, 2, 66–8. For a more detailed analysis, see Henry, “Void Space”, 145–59; Edelheit, “Francesco Patrizi’s Two Books”.

16 Timaeus, 53c–57d.

17 See e.g. Patrizi, Nova de Universis Philosophia, 4, 2, 66a.

18 Newton, De gravitatione, fol. 20–1. This parallel may seem to be contradicted by Patrizi’s claim that the actually existing infinite lines, surfaces, and bodies have limits and finitude only in our imagination (Patrizi, Nova de Universis Philosophia, 4, 2, 68a). This claim, however, only aims to show that mathematics is founded not on abstractions from bodies but on abstractions from space, which precedes bodies. For more on Patrizi’s distinction between finite and infinite space (which seems to make these seemingly contradictory claims compatible), see Edelheit, “Francesco Patrizi’s Two Books”, 251–2.

19 Included in More, The Complete Poems, 6–166.

20 This shows that metaphysical emanationism is not fully incompatible with physical atomism, although it could be argued that, in this respect at least, More’s philosophy is far from being typically Neoplatonic.

21 More, The Complete Poems, 160.

22 See e.g. Reid, The Metaphysics, 158–60; Crocker, “Mysticism and Enthusiasm”, 147; Gabbey, “Philosophia Cartesiana Triumphata”, all of which also provide further references.

23 For more on this, see Reid, The Metaphysics, 103–20.

24 In the following, I use Jacob’s modern edition (Jacob, Henry More’s Manual).

25 More, Immortality of the Soul, 21 (bk. 1, ch. 3, § 1; quoted from More, A Collection, in which the works are paginated separately). The fact that, in his later works, More switches from emanationist monism to such a dualistic language is often taken as proof of a major shift in his philosophy. Proving that More’s dualistic language does not necessarily imply actual, clear-cut dualism would be beyond the scope of this paper. Let us therefore just note that More’s “dualism” is at least unusual enough to have received both an idealistic (Jacob, “Neoplatonic Conception of Nature”) and a materialistic interpretation (Henry, “A Cambridge Platonist’s Materialism”).

26 Jacob, Henry More’s Manual, vol. 1, 41–3 (ch. 6, §§ 7–8).

27 Jacob, Henry More’s Manual, vol. 1, 57 (ch. 8, § 8).

28 Jacob, Henry More’s Manual, vol. 1, 61 (ch. 8, § 15).

29 One can also clearly see here the influence of the cabbalistic notion of God as place (maqom). For more on this, see Copenhaver, “Jewish Theologies of Space”, esp. 515–28.

30 As bodies are also in a way penetrable, albeit only by spirits, and indiscerpibility is a property which spiritual substances share with atoms, the ultimate constituents of bodies. For more on this, see Reid, The Metaphysics, 187–200.

31 As Deitz argues in “Space, Light, and Soul”, 151–7.

32 For more on this, see Lindberg, “The Genesis”.

33 This ascent is described in Patrizi, Nova de Universis Philosophia, 1, 6–10, 14–23.

34 Patrizi, Nova de Universis Philosophia, 1, 5, 13a. For more on this, see Brickman, “An Introduction”, 29–30.

35 Patrizi, Nova de Universis Philosophia, 1, 1, 1c.

36 “Nova de universis philosophia in qua aristotelica methodo non per motum sed per lucem et lumina ad primam causam ascenditur”. For more on this, see Ryan, “The Panaugia”.

37 It is interesting to note that More uses the example of light both in his early poems, in which he adopts what he would later call “holenmerism”, i.e. the notion that the soul is present whole in the whole body and whole in each of its parts, and in his later works, in which he rejects holenmerism and claims that souls are spatially extended in the same way bodies are. For more on the evolution of More’s attitude on holenmerism, see Reid, The Metaphysics, 158–75.

38 More, An Antidote against Atheism, 15–6 (bk. 1, ch. 4, § 3; from More, A Collection, see above, note 25).

39 More, Immortality of the Soul, 25–6 (bk. 1, ch. 5, §§ 2–3).

40 Through “vital congruity”, a notion that is further explained in the section on the soul.

41 Patrizi, Nova de Universis Philosophia, 4, 5, 77a and passim. See also Prins, Echoes, 279.

42 Patrizi, Nova de Universis Philosophia, 4, 5, 76b–c. See also Brickman, “An Introduction”, 49–50. This further confirms Deitz’s identification of space, light, and soul in Patrizi’s philosophy (Deitz, “Space, Light, and Soul”, 156–7).

43 Patrizi, Nova de Universis Philosophia, 3, 2, 51c.

44 Patrizi, Nova de Universis Philosophia, 3, 2, 52a.

45 Patrizi, Nova de Universis Philosophia, 2, 11, 23d; 4, 17, 104d. See also Prins, Echoes, 291; Dadić, Franciscus Patricius, 149.

46 The world soul, being the first and highest of all souls, is identified with the hypostasis Soul in Patrizi, Nova de Universis Philosophia, 3, 1, 49c.

47 Patrizi, Nova de Universis Philosophia, 3, 4, 56a–b and passim.

48 The concept is derived from that of medical spirits. For more on this, see Walker, “Medical Spirits”; Debus, “Chemistry”; and, for a more historical approach, Verbeke, L’évolution de la doctrine.

49 I briefly resume here the argument presented in Prins, Echoes, 217–310.

50 This is said in reference to Jammer, Concepts of Force, 76–7, who claims the same about the notion of spirit in Telesio.

51 This tradition has its source mostly in Plato’s Timaeus, 41e, and Phaedrus, 246a–54e; an influential account is found also in Macrobius’ In somnium Scipionis, I, 12–4. For More’s theory of vehicles, see Leech, Hammer of the Cartesians, 87–106; for a more historical survey, see Dodds, “Astral Body”.

52 More, The Complete Poems, 10–2, 16–7.

53 More, Immortality of the Soul, 146–7 (bk. 3, ch. 1, § 2). This does not, however, mean that souls are mortal: after death, they pass on into a more subtle, aerial or celestial body. Still, we can see how such an intimate connection between souls and bodies might have been one of the reasons that led John Henry to claim that More’s philosophy is but a thinly disguised form of materialism (see Henry, “A Cambridge Platonist’s Materialism”).

54 More, Immortality of the Soul, 120–1 (bk. 2, ch. 14, §§ 8–10).

55 More, Immortality of the Soul, 193 (bk. 3, ch. 12, § 1).

56 More, Immortality of the Soul, 200 and 199, respectively (bk. 3, ch. 13, §§ 7–8).

57 More, Immortality of the Soul, 196–9 (bk. 3, ch. 13, §§ 1–6).

58 More, A Collection, xvi. Another “proof” of blindness of the Spirit of Nature comes from the fact that it can be “fooled” into doing things it tries to prevent, such as creating a vacuum. This idiosyncratic interpretation of Boyle’s experiments with a vacuum pump led to a famous controversy between the two authors. For more on this, see Henry, “More versus Boyle”.

59 See e.g. Jacob, Henry More’s Manual, vol. 2, 222 (ch. 13, § 4, Schol.). Comparison to the union between body and soul seems to lead to an interesting paradox as the Spirit of Nature is what creates the requisite vital congruity in the first place.

60 All the more so given that, for More, the range of phenomena governed by the Spirit of Nature kept growing, leading him as far as to claim that “I am abundantly assured that there is no purely Mechanical Phænomenon in the whole Universe” (More, Divine Dialogues, viii). On More’s rather complicated relationship with mechanicism, see Gabbey “Limits of Mechanism”. A more detailed analysis of More’s Spirit of Nature can be found in Joseph, “The Spirit of Nature”.

61 For more on this, see Joseph, “More’s ‘Spirit’ and Newton’s Aether”. Although More and Newton knew each other, the extent and manner of More’s influence on Newton is hard to determine (see Reid, The Metaphysics, 2–4).

62 Coincidentally and just like with space, More also uses the existence of the Spirit of Nature as an argument for the existence of spiritual substances in general.

63 More, An Antidote against Atheism, 46 (bk. 2, ch. 2, § 13).

64 More, An Explanation, 458 (bk. 9, ch. 2, § 9).

65 Deitz, “Space, Light, and Soul”, 155–6.

66 Deitz, “Space, Light, and Soul”, 155–6.

67 Patrizi, Nova de Universis Philosophia, 1, 1, 1c.

68 Patrizi, Nova de Universis Philosophia, 1, 1, 1a–b: “Hæc omnia sunt in Spacio. Hæc omnia sunt in Lumine. Hæc omnia sunt in Calore”.

69 More’s critique of immanentism and pantheism is most clearly expressed in his refutation of the kabbalah in More, “Fundamenta philosophiæ”; see also Coudert, “A Cambridge Platonist’s Kabbalist Nightmare”.

70 Deitz, “Space, Light, and Soul”, 142–3.

71 Patrizi, Nova de Universis Philosophia, 2, 11, 24c. As Patrizi lists each member of every series (and the whole chain, down to the level of body), this does not seem to be just an abbreviation or omission on his part.

72 Patrizi, Nova de Universis Philosophia, 4, 11, 88a; Deitz, “Space, Light, and Soul”, 156.

73 More, The Complete Poems, 156.

74 Technically speaking, More distinguishes between the “reall” cuspis of the Cone that is still connected to the spermatical life of Physis (and through it, to the higher hypostases) and the lowest ontological level of Hyle “that is set for the most contract point of the Cuspis [and] is scarce to be reckoned among realities” (More, The Complete Poems, 164).

75 I am convinced that this is to be attributed, at least in part, to a common source in Proclus. His influence on Patrizi is the culmination of Deitz’s argument (“Space, Light, and Soul”, 155–7; see also Leinkauf, Cusanus, Ficino, Patrizi, 351–71). In More’s case, Proclus’ influence is generally accepted, although, at least to the best of my knowledge, it has not yet been examined in detail. On the other hand, see de Castro, “Proclus, the Cambridge Platonists and Leibniz”.

76 More, The Complete Poems, 162.

77 More, The Complete Poems, 156.

78 More, The Complete Poems, 156.

79 For more on this, see Levitin, Ancient Wisdom, 33–112.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was supported by the research project “Renaissance Platonism Between Science and Religion” (GA ČR 19-11769S) and the Charles University Research Centre programme No. 204056.