Il Confronto Tra la "Fisica" Aristotelica E la Nuova Speculazione Bruniana (original) (raw)
Il confronto tra la "Metafisica" aristotelica e la nuova speculazione bruniana
La rivoluzionarietà della speculazione bruniana si esercita nei confronti della tradizione di alcuni testi aristotelici fondamentali nella trasmissione del pensiero e della civiltà occidentale. In modo principale essa attacca e demolisce i capisaldi della "Metafisica" di Aristotele, per poter cominciare ad affermare - o, se si vuole, a riaffermare (visto il richiamo esplicito del filosofo nolano alla riflessione dei primi Presocratici) - il principio dell'infinito creativo e doppiamente dialettico. Il breve saggio segue la formulazione e lo sviluppo progressivo del testo aristotelico attraverso la critica esposta dalla riflessione bruniana. Alla fine viene presentata una breve bibliografia bruniana.
Il confronto tra il "De caelo" aristotelico e la nuova speculazione bruniana
Questo volumetto conclude il confronto fra la speculazione bruniana e la tradizione del pensiero aristotelico. Ora Giordano Bruno considera le obiezioni della tradizione aristotelica all'esistenza di un corpo universale infinito in movimento interno (creativo e dialettico) infinito. Demolendo e disgregando le premesse dell'impostazione aristotelica la riflessione di Giordano Bruno ridetermina e riqualifica le tradizionali nozioni di spirito e di materia, innovandole in radice e sospingendole verso una rivoluzionarietà, capace di mantenere sempre uniti l'aspetto teoretico e il momento pratico della riflessione e del pensiero.
Il confronto tra la fisica aristotelica e la rivoluzionaria speculazione bruniana
Filosofi e Modernità II. Antichi e nuovi sentieri. , 2015
Questo breve articolo prosegue l'analisi iniziata a proposito del confronto fra la speculazione bruniana e la metafisica aristotelica. Ora la critica bruniana si appunta sul testo aristotelico della "Fisica", demolendo e disgregando la possibilità che non vi sia un principio ed un movimento infinito. Seguendo ed integrando le riflessioni precedenti, il pensiero di Giordano Bruno conserva l'unitarietà fra momento teoretico e momento pratico, approfondendo la determinazione dell'infinito creativo e doppiamente dialettico.
Aristotele, Fisica - Giordano Bruno, De l'Infinito: confronto e commento.
Questo breve volumetto prosegue l'analisi iniziata a proposito del confronto fra la speculazione bruniana e la metafisica aristotelica. Ora la critica bruniana si appunta sul testo aristotelico della "Fisica", demolendo e disgregando la possibilità che non vi sia un principio ed un movimento infinito. Seguendo ed integrando le riflessioni precedenti, il pensiero di Giordano Bruno conserva l'unitarietà fra momento teoretico e momento pratico, approfondendo la determinazione dell'infinito creativo e doppiamente dialettico. Questo testo viene offerto in due versioni: una gratuita (per studenti delle scuole superiori o universitari) e l'altra a pagamento al link sottostante (per persone senza problemi economici o desiderose di ricambiare gli sforzi fatti per realizzare quest'opera).
L'indifferenza dell'essere tra l'Aristotele di Brentano e il sofista della fenomenologia husserliana
Do semantics and ontology necessarily proceed hand in hand? Is saying so- mething tantamount to saying a thing that is or that exists? In this question lies a problem into which Aristotle himself incurred. Against the principles of onto- logy stand the provocations of the Sophistic: even what does not exist can be said. This same tension will occur, after centuries, among Brentano and some of the major pupils of his School. Here then is our proposal: the track from metaphysics to psychology beaten by Brentano is intended to invest the logos with ontological roots, whereas the renowned epigones, and Husserl above all, will rather engage themselves in an enfranchisement of the semantic dimension. Against the Aristote- lianism of the teacher, we would therefore have to expect a subtle, yet noteworthy, consequence: the phenomenological rehabilitation of the Sophist, when being and saying will not proceed any longer hand in hand.
OPEN ACCESS AT: https://ricerca.sns.it/handle/11384/109243?mode=simple, 2021
In my dissertation, I focus on two concepts that are important for understanding the way Avicenna (c. 980-1037) conceived the natural world, namely the continuum and the infinite. These concepts are strictly interconnected and were used by Avicenna to describe the physical structure of natural bodies. To more specifically understand what Avicenna meant by these two notions, it is necessary to consider one of the most important works of his, namely the Book of the Cure (or Book of the Healing), in Arabic Kitāb al-Šifāʾ or Šifāʾ. This is Avicenna’s vastest philosophical summa, covering almost all the principal branches of science known at the time. The second part of the Šifāʾ is entirely devoted to natural philosophy, and it is divided into eight sections. The first of these is the Physics (in Arabic al-Samāʿ al-ṭabīʿī), where Avicenna discusses and develops the most relevant and interesting doctrinal points found in Aristotle’s Physics. The Physics of the Šifāʾ is divided into four treatises. The most relevant for understanding what Avicenna thought about the continuum and the infinite is the third one. This treatise is entirely focused on natural bodies and their physical states, considered from the point of view of quantity. Among the quantitative states, or properties, of physical bodies, a prominent role is played by the continuum and the infinite. For this reason, in my dissertation, I focus specifically on this third treatise of the Physics of the Šifāʾ: I quote, translate from Arabic into Italian, and analyse the most significant passages dealing with these two physical notions. According to Avicenna, the continuum is the only possible way to describe the structure of natural bodies from a quantitative point of view. Their quantity is continuous, not discrete. Through a long and complex discussion about the different meanings of the term “continuous”, Avicenna provides a systematic account of this notion, which discusses and develops Aristotle’s one. What emerges from his account is that, according to Avicenna (and Aristotle), the most relevant property concerning the continuum is its infinite divisibility or divisibility ad infinitum. In this perspective, natural bodies cannot be considered aggregates of indivisible parts, which means that they cannot be composed of atoms. Bodies must have parts that are always further divisible or divisible ad infinitum. This does not imply that physical bodies are made up of an infinite number of parts. The parts inside the continuum do not exist in actuality, but only in potentiality. I focus on how Avicenna, resuming and enriching Aristotle’s position, illustrates these characteristics of the continuum. The fact that natural bodies are infinitely divisible is something that also affects our understanding of them as moving bodies. Just like Aristotle, Avicenna maintains that a body would not be able to move if it were indivisible. I focus on the way Avicenna proves this thesis. The argument he provides is an original revised version of the proof adduced by Aristotle, which Avicenna found problematic. The fact that a moving body should be infinitely divisible is something that it shares with the other fundamental structures of the physical world – namely, the distance the body covers when it is moving, the time during which it moves and the motion itself. Therefore, for Avicenna, distance, time and motion, just like the moving body, all share the same structure and are all continuous and infinitely divisible. I explain how Avicenna argues for their isomorphism, taking up Aristotle’s discussion on the same topic. Avicenna’s entire investigation into the continuum is permeated by the idea that something continuous is infinitely divisible. This raises the need to deal with the question of how exactly Avicenna conceived of the infinite, and what place he assigned to it in the framework of his natural philosophy. For this reason, I devote a substantial part of my dissertation to the discussion of how Avicenna understood the notion of the infinite. Avicenna carries out an attentive and innovative analysis of all the possible meanings of infinity. He systematizes and widens the meanings already envisaged by Aristotle in his Physics. Some of them are ruled out – for example, the infinite understood as something extended without limit. Avicenna provides a long series of arguments to show that an infinitely extended body could neither exist nor move in the natural world. This is something Aristotle himself had argued for. However, most of the arguments presented by Avicenna are original and go far beyond what Aristotle had said in his Physics and De caelo. Even though Avicenna does not accept this meaning of the infinite, this does not mean that he completely dismisses the infinite as a tool for understanding the natural word. On the contrary, one has just to conceive it in a different way, namely not as a state of infinite extension, but as a property that involves a process of addition or division. Something will be infinite by addition or infinite by division, if a process of infinite addition or infinite division can take place in relation to it. Infinite division is particularly important, because – as already noted – it is the kind of infinite that plays a role in the infinite divisibility of the continuum. As far as the infinite by addition is concerned, both Aristotle and Avicenna think that only numbers can be infinite in this way, while physical magnitudes cannot. However, once again, there are some important differences between their accounts. In particular, I argue that Avicenna does not agree with the way in which Aristotle had proved that magnitudes cannot be infinite by addition. Following this, I investigate the problematic and controversial topic of the kind of existence attributed to the infinite: does it exist in potentiality or in actuality in the natural world? This issue was discussed by Aristotle in some very difficult passages, which have induced modern scholars to come up with widely divergent interpretations. Avicenna considers all aspects of this problematic issue. He provides a complete and systematic picture, explaining in what sense the infinite can be regarded as existing in potentiality, in what sense in actuality and in what sense in neither of these ways. Finally, Avicenna had to face a problem that arises when one considers the infinite divisibility of physical bodies. Since physical bodies are considered continuous and therefore infinitely divisible, it should be possible to divide them into parts that are indeterminately small. However, it is unclear whether a body, when it becomes extremely small through this division, retains the characteristics that were peculiar to it, prior to the division. I focus on what Avicenna thought about this issue, considering whether it was necessary to fix a minimum for each kind of body beyond which the latter cannot shrink and at the same time continue to be that specific body. It has been correctly suggested that, in dealing with this issue, Avicenna was probably thinking of certain observations made by the Greek commentators on Aristotle in Late Antiquity. However, it is also possible to see how Avicenna deepened their reflection, by adding further observations on the physical implications of positing minima naturalia. In conclusion, my analysis of the notions of the continuum and the infinite in Avicenna’s Physics sheds light on many aspects of his way of conceiving physical bodies. By examining his treatment of these two crucial notions, it is possible to perceive, for example, how Avicenna argued that bodies cannot be constituted of atoms, but must be infinitely divisible, and that, in order to move, they cannot be indivisible or infinitely extended. Therefore, a complex picture of natural bodies emerges from my analysis. The latter has also offered me the opportunity to examine in greater detail the way in which Avicenna set himself in constant and original dialogue with Aristotle and the late-antique Greek philosophical tradition, particularly in relation to these crucial points in the natural philosophy of the Antiquity and the Middle Ages.