Valentina Zaffino
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Valentina Zaffino is professor of History of Modern Philosophy at the Pontifical Lateran University, associate professor at the University of Notre Dame - Rome Global Gateway, and adjunct professor at the University of Perugia. She earned her degree in Philosophy and History of Ideas at the University of Cosenza and her Phd in Philosophy at the Pontifical Lateran University.
She was a research fellow at the University of Chieti-Pescara, a visiting scholar at the Nanovic Institute for European Studies and at the Medieval Institute of the University of Notre Dame. She has held several conferences in Italy and abroad and her work focuses on Humanistic and Renaissance Philosophy, with reference to the links between Platonism and Aristotelianism; the Cambridge Platonists; the philosophy of nature in the German tradition; the notion of finalism in modern philosophy.
Address: Pontificia Università Lateranense, piazza San Giovanni in Laterano, 4, 00184, Roma
https://www.pul.it/team/zaffino-valentina/
https://rome.nd.edu/about/faculty/valentina-zaffino/
Valentina Zaffino is professor of History of Modern Philosophy at the Pontifical Lateran University, associate professor at the University of Notre Dame - Rome Global Gateway, and adjunct professor at the University of Perugia. She earned her degree in Philosophy and History of Ideas at the University of Cosenza and her Phd in Philosophy at the Pontifical Lateran University.
She was a research fellow at the University of Chieti-Pescara, a visiting scholar at the Nanovic Institute for European Studies and at the Medieval Institute of the University of Notre Dame. She has held several conferences in Italy and abroad and her work focuses on Humanistic and Renaissance Philosophy, with reference to the links between Platonism and Aristotelianism; the Cambridge Platonists; the philosophy of nature in the German tradition; the notion of finalism in modern philosophy.
Address: Pontificia Università Lateranense, piazza San Giovanni in Laterano, 4, 00184, Roma
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aims to reconstruct Aristotle’s influence on Marsilio Ficino’s Theologia Platonica, focusing especially on the theme of providence. First, it highlights the “platonization” that Aristotelianism underwent during the 15th century, not least at the hands of Ficino himself. Despite Averroes’ misguided interpretation of various Aristotelian treatises, Ficino nonetheless countenanced the possibility of philosophical harmony between Plato and Aristotle, although the latter had a propaedeutic function with respect to the study of the former. Second, this article focuses on the notion of providence, at least as it was understood by Ficino. Therefore, the research considers how in explicit reference to the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise De mundo, Ficino credited Aristotle with a
providentialist theory, accepting a thesis which during the Renaissance was believed to be Aristotelian. Ficino’s acceptance and reinterpretation of this position is here investigated in detail.
Our paper pay attention to the historical passage from a closed geocentric world-system to an infinite one. The similarity is the figure of speech that reveals its explicative power, especially in the case of Giordano Bruno who uses it to introduce the idea of an infinite cosmos. The astronomers tried hard to understand how widely they could extend the (depth of the) universe on the basis of the observational data available at that time, with opportune instruments and without any metaphorical reasoning: Giovanni Battista Riccioli, the Jesuit astronomer who proposed the last semi-geocentric model of world before Newton by using the telescope, compares different methods and results from many astronomers and once again concludes with a closed world.
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ERRATA CORRIGE (only to to the version of the paper available at http://isonomia.uniurb.it/metaphor-and-argumentation/ ).
P. 136, note 72 e 73: “Locher (1614:”; not “Scheiner (1615:”
P. 136, middle page: “Christophori Scheiner apparently supports Johann Locher, though arguing against the thesis of infinite universe”; not “Christophori Scheiner, though arguing against the thesis of infinite universe”
p. 139, between “Lansbergen and “Lucentini”: Locher, J. G., 1614, Disquisitiones mathematicæ, de controversiis et novitatibus astronomicis quas sub præsidio Christophori Scheiner ... publice disputandas posuit, propugnavit mense septembri, die 5 ... Ioannes Georgius Locher, ex typographeo Ederiano, apud Elisabetham Angermariam, Ingolstadii
Key words: Giordano Bruno, Timaeus, matter, form, causes, cosmos.
The Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, written by Giordano Bruno, is extremely important to understand Author’s Aristotelianism. Focusing on the concept of physis, we aim to identify the originality of Bruno’s interpretation about Aristotle’s natural philosophy and the Neoplatonic sources of it. Bruno assumes the Aristotelian theory of the four causes, asserting that nature is principle, purpose, mover and element of all things. In particular, it is material principle, immanent to generated beings. Despite the Aristotelian background of Bruno’s discussion, his peculiar approach consists in defining matter and form as the two species of the nature and in asserting the ontological primacy of matters against form. For, since matter is absolute potentiality and actuality, it is not different from the form; as a consequence, matter does not become divine by means of an external efficient cause, but matter is divine as such.
aims to reconstruct Aristotle’s influence on Marsilio Ficino’s Theologia Platonica, focusing especially on the theme of providence. First, it highlights the “platonization” that Aristotelianism underwent during the 15th century, not least at the hands of Ficino himself. Despite Averroes’ misguided interpretation of various Aristotelian treatises, Ficino nonetheless countenanced the possibility of philosophical harmony between Plato and Aristotle, although the latter had a propaedeutic function with respect to the study of the former. Second, this article focuses on the notion of providence, at least as it was understood by Ficino. Therefore, the research considers how in explicit reference to the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise De mundo, Ficino credited Aristotle with a
providentialist theory, accepting a thesis which during the Renaissance was believed to be Aristotelian. Ficino’s acceptance and reinterpretation of this position is here investigated in detail.
Our paper pay attention to the historical passage from a closed geocentric world-system to an infinite one. The similarity is the figure of speech that reveals its explicative power, especially in the case of Giordano Bruno who uses it to introduce the idea of an infinite cosmos. The astronomers tried hard to understand how widely they could extend the (depth of the) universe on the basis of the observational data available at that time, with opportune instruments and without any metaphorical reasoning: Giovanni Battista Riccioli, the Jesuit astronomer who proposed the last semi-geocentric model of world before Newton by using the telescope, compares different methods and results from many astronomers and once again concludes with a closed world.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////
ERRATA CORRIGE (only to to the version of the paper available at http://isonomia.uniurb.it/metaphor-and-argumentation/ ).
P. 136, note 72 e 73: “Locher (1614:”; not “Scheiner (1615:”
P. 136, middle page: “Christophori Scheiner apparently supports Johann Locher, though arguing against the thesis of infinite universe”; not “Christophori Scheiner, though arguing against the thesis of infinite universe”
p. 139, between “Lansbergen and “Lucentini”: Locher, J. G., 1614, Disquisitiones mathematicæ, de controversiis et novitatibus astronomicis quas sub præsidio Christophori Scheiner ... publice disputandas posuit, propugnavit mense septembri, die 5 ... Ioannes Georgius Locher, ex typographeo Ederiano, apud Elisabetham Angermariam, Ingolstadii
Key words: Giordano Bruno, Timaeus, matter, form, causes, cosmos.
The Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, written by Giordano Bruno, is extremely important to understand Author’s Aristotelianism. Focusing on the concept of physis, we aim to identify the originality of Bruno’s interpretation about Aristotle’s natural philosophy and the Neoplatonic sources of it. Bruno assumes the Aristotelian theory of the four causes, asserting that nature is principle, purpose, mover and element of all things. In particular, it is material principle, immanent to generated beings. Despite the Aristotelian background of Bruno’s discussion, his peculiar approach consists in defining matter and form as the two species of the nature and in asserting the ontological primacy of matters against form. For, since matter is absolute potentiality and actuality, it is not different from the form; as a consequence, matter does not become divine by means of an external efficient cause, but matter is divine as such.
https://circulocusano.ar/programa-del-v-congreso-internacional-cusano-de-latinoamerica/
Roma, May 2022
A webinar lecture with Valentina Zaffino (Pontifical Lateran University; Rome Global Gateway, University of Notre Dame). Part of our summer webinar series on "Reason and Beauty in Renaissance Christian Thought and Culture," presented in collaboration with the American Cusanus Society. Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician, and cosmologist. Bruno’s notoriety is due both to his adventurous life and to his original reinterpretation of ancient thought in light of the new philosophical scenario. Valentina Zaffino will analyze Bruno’s image of the cosmos, focusing on his remodeled Neoplatonic background. In this context, as will be shown, the notions of harmony and beauty are closely related with Bruno’s fascinating claim of the infinity of the cosmos.