In Studies in Early Modern Aristotelianism Paul Richard Blum shows the Aristotelian profile of modern philosophy. Philosophy, sciences mathematics, metaphysics and theology under Jesuit leadership mark the difference of subject-centered modernity from ‘teachable’ school philosophy.

A reassessment of how the legacy of ancient philosophy functioned in early modern Europe In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle affirms that despite his friendship with Plato, he was a better friend of the truth. With this statement, he rejected his teacher's authority, implying that the pursuit of philosophy does not entail any such obedience. Yet over the centuries Aristotle himself became the authority par excellence in the Western world, and even notorious anti-Aristotelians such as Galileo Galilei preferred to keep him as a friend rather than to contradict him openly. In Early Modern Aristotle, Eva Del Soldato contends that because the authority of Aristotle—like that of any other ancient, including Plato—was a construct, it could be tailored and customized to serve agendas that were often in direct contrast to one another, at times even in open conflict with the very tenets of Peripatetic philosophy. Arguing that recourse to the principle of authority was not merely an instrument for inculcating minds with an immutable body of knowledge, Del Soldato investigates the ways in which the authority of Aristotle was exploited in a variety of contexts. The stories the five chapters tell often develop along the same chronological lines, and reveal consistent diachronic and synchronic patterns. Each focuses on strategies of negotiation, integration and rejection of Aristotle, considering both macro-phenomena, such as the philosophical genre of the comparatio (that is, a comparison of Aristotle and Plato's lives and doctrines), and smaller-scale receptions, such as the circulation of legends, anecdotes, fictions, and rhetorical tropes ("if Aristotle were alive . . ."), all featuring Aristotle as their protagonist. Through the analysis of surprisingly neglected episodes in intellectual history, Early Modern Aristotle traces how the authority of the ancient philosopher—constantly manipulated and negotiated—shaped philosophical and scientific debate in Europe from the fifteenth century until the dawn of the Enlightenment.

This book explores the dynamics of the commentary and textbook traditions in Aristotelian natural philosophy under the headings of doctrine, method, and scientific and social status. It enquires what the evolution of the Aristotelian commentary tradition can tell us about the character of natural philosophy as a pedagogical tool, as a scientific enterprise, and as a background to modern scientific thought. In a unique attempt to cut old-fashioned historiographic divisions, it brings together scholars of ancient, medieval, Renaissance and seventeenth-century philosophy. The book covers a remarkably broad range of topics: it starts with the first Greek commentators and ends with Leibniz.

For many early modern philosophers, particularly those influenced by Aristotle’s Physics and De anima, time had an intimate connection to the human rational soul. This connection had wide-ranging implications for metaphysics, natural philosophy and politics: at its heart was the assumption that man was not only a rational, but also a temporal, animal. In Time and the Science of the Soul in Early Modern Philosophy, Michael Edwards traces this connection from late Aristotelian commentaries and philosophical textbooks to the natural and political philosophy of two of the best-known ‘new philosophers’ of the seventeenth century, Thomas Hobbes and René Descartes. The book demonstrates both time’s importance as a philosophical problem, and the intellectual fertility and continued relevance of Aristotelian philosophy into the seventeenth century.

This volume provides the first extensive assessment of the impact of Aristotelianism on the history of philosophy from the Renaissance to the end of the twentieth century. The contributors have considered Aristotelian issues in late scholastic, Renaissance, and early modern philosophers such as Vernia, Nifo, Barbaro, Cajetan, Piccolomini, Patrizzi, Zabarella, Campanella, Galileo, Sémery, Leibniz, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and Gadamer. Specific attention is given to the role of the five intellectual virtues set forth by Aristotle in book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics, namely art, prudence, science, wisdom, and intellect.

Danilo Facca investigates the contribution of Aristotelianism in the emergence of a system of philosophical disciplines for schools and universities in the late Renaissance and Early Modern age. Facca charts the intellectual context of this process, focusing on the interpretation of Aristotelianism at renowned German, Italian and Polish centres of study including Milan, Padua, Altdorf, Helmstedt, Torun and Gdansk, at a time when the authority of the Aristotelian tradition was under direct threat from the dissemination of Peter Ramus' thought. Each chapter assesses engagement with and criticism of ideas from Aristotelian theoretical and practical philosophy. They bring together the writings of major figures, including Peter Ramus and Bartholomäus Keckermann, and lesser-known academics who have not received sufficient recognition in existing literature, such as Ottaviano Ferrari, Philipp Scherb, Ernst Soner and Franz Tidike. By discussing the relationship of these academics with the Aristotelian legacy, this book reveals how innovative ideas that emerged during the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries were actually formed through the reworking, and even distortion of concepts originally derived from Aristotle.

This monograph is the first to analyze Julius Caesar Scaliger’s Exotericae Exercitationes (1557). Though hardly read today, the Exercitationes was one of the most successful philosophical treatises of the time, attracting considerable attention from many intellectuals with multifaceted religious and philosophical orientations. In order to make this massive late-Renaissance work accessible to modern readers, Kuni Sakamoto conducted a detailed textual analysis and revealed the basic tenets of Scaliger’s philosophy. His analysis also enabled him to clarify the historical provenance of Scaliger’s Aristotelianism and the way it subsequently influenced some of the protagonists of the “New Philosophy.” The author thus bridges the historiographical gap between studies of Renaissance philosophy and those of the seventeenth-century.