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The Literary Production of Philosophy Professors 16Th- and 17Th-Century Central Europe: a Brief Overview

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The Literary Production of Philosophy Professors 16Th- and 17Th-Century Central Europe: a Brief Overview ACTA UNIVERSITATIS CAROLINAE – HISTORIA UNIVERSITATIS CAROLINAE PRAGENSIS 2020 Tomus LX. Fasc. 1 Pag. 209–217 THE LITERARY PRODUCTION OF PHILOSOPHY PROFESSORS 16TH- AND 17TH-CENTURY CENTRAL EUROPE: A BRIEF OVERVIEW JOSEPH S. FREEDMAN The submitted study deals with various types of works written by 16th- and 17th-century Central European philo- sophy professors. Their intensive production is examined with the use of the following nine categories: 1. lectures, 2. disputations, 3. academic exercises, 4. polemical writings, 5. translations, 6. editions of ancient and post-ancient writings, 7. monographs, including commentaries, 8. auxiliary writings, and 9. other kinds of writings. These categories form the basis of further content analysis. Keywords: academic exercises – axioms, commonplaces – commentaries – disputations – editions – encyclopedi- as – lectures – lexicons – pedagogy – textbooks – translations DOI: 10.14712/23365730.2020.27 When discussing the literary production of philosophy professors (with a focus on Central Europe) during the 16th and 17th centuries, some preliminary comments are warranted. Phi- losophy is understood here – on the basis of curriculum documents as well as classifications of philosophy and the arts during these same two centuries – to refer largely to (the content of) the following philosophy disciplines: metaphysics, physics, mathematics disciplines, ethics, oeconomica (family life), politics, logic, rhetoric, and grammar, and history.1 They 1 Detailed discussion of these classifications and of Central European curricular documents – as well as of the writings of Bartholomew Keckermann (d. 1609) – is provided in the following of my publications: Joseph S. FreedMan, Philosophy Instruction within the Institutional Framework of Central European Schools and Universities during the Reformation Era, History of Universities, Oxford 1985, pp. 117–166; ideM, Cicero in 16th and 17th Century Rhetoric Instruction, Rhetorica 4/3, Summer 1986, pp. 227–254; ideM, The Diffusion of the Writings of Petrus Ramus in Central Europe, c. 1570-c.1630, Renaissance Quarterly 46/1, Spring 1993, pp. 98–152; ideM, Aristotle and the Content of Philosophy Instruction at Central European Schools and Uni- versities during the Reformation Era (1500-1650, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 137/2, June 1993, pp. 213–253; ideM, Encyclopedic Philosophical Writings in Central Europe during the High and Late Renaissance (c.1500-c.1700), Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 37, 1994, pp. 212–256; ideM, Classifica- tions of Philosophy, the Arts, and the Sciences in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Europe, The Modern Schoolman 72/1, November 1994, pp. 37–65; ideM, The Career and Writings of Bartholomew Keckermann (d. 1609), Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 141/3, September 1997, pp. 305–364. These seven publications have been reprinted – as nos. II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, and VIII, respectively – in: Joseph S. FreedMan, Philosophy and the Arts in Central Europe, 1500–1700: Teaching and Texts at European Schools and Universities (Variorum Collected Studies Series CS626), Aldershot 1999. While history is included in the above list, some authors excluded it from philosophy; Keckermann argued that history is not an academic discipline; refer to J. S. FreedMan, Classifications, pp. 42 (fn. 38–40), 42, and ideM, The Career and Writings of Bartholomew Keckermann, pp. 321–322. Here philosophy and the arts will be regarded as synonymous; © 2020 The Author. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the 209 Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0). were commonly taught in most Central European academic institutions – here understood to include universities as well as schools where at least some philosophy disciplines were taught – by academic philosophers, who will be considered here as philosophy professors.2 The word “literary” is understood broadly to include all writings authored (in whole or in part) by philosophy professors. These writings are placed here – for purposes of the article, with no claims of completeness – into the following categories: 1. connected with lectures, 2. disputations, 3. connected with academic exercises, including disputations, 4. polemical writings, 5. translations, 6. editions of ancient and post-ancient writings, 7. monograph length publications, some of which can be referred to as commentaries, 8. what can be refer- red to as auxiliary writings, and 9. other kinds of writings, together with issues pertaining to the use of any categories such as those given here. These individual categories are discussed in the order that their numbers are listed. Writings produced in connection with lectures (1) could focus on specialized philoso- phical topics, entire philosophy disciplines (with greater or lesser detail, often over a semes- ter or more), or sometimes – mainly in the 17th century – could have an encyclopedic scope. They are extant in manuscript and published formats and normally have the length of single-volume monographs. Monograph-length writings by philosophy professors are also accorded attention in category 7. In the case of Roman Catholic and especially Jesuit academic philosophers during the late 16th and early 17th centuries, these writings are often extant as manuscripts only.3 Writings by Protestant academic philosophers during that same period are normally extant as publications, many of which could be utilized as textbooks.4 Such textbooks normally were relatively well organized with [i.] tables of contents and/or [ii.] subject indices and/ or [iii.] section breaks and/or [iv.] marginalia/annotations.5 during the course of this period, arts faculties were generally renamed (or: were created) as philosophy faculties at Central European universities. 2 Here it can be noted that at the term Professor was used to refer to teachers at all levels at many Jesuit acade- mic institutions; refer here to Catalogi breves Provinciae Germaniae Superioris omnes qui in Archivio Gen. inveniri possunt ab anno 1556–1709. Catalogi III und eiusdem Provinciae ab anno 1590–1705. Descripsit ex Catalogus in Archivio gen. S.J. P. Herm. Hafner S.J. [München, Jesuiten-Archiv: Abt. 40-3, Nr. 71] Not all of these disciplines were taught throughout this period; refer to J. S. FreedMan, Philosophy Instruction, and Idem, Encyclopedic Philosophical Writings. 3 One such manuscript is Georgii Klainer Commentarius in reliquos (minores) libros physicos et metaphysicam Aristotelis exce[r]ptus Ingolstadii a Joh. Perzello..., Ingolstadii 1612 [München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. (= BSB): Clm 27765]. Among monograph-length philosophy publications by non-Jesuit Catholic authors prior to the mid-17th century are textbooks by Matthaeus Hoen on logic, physics, and metaphysics; the latter two works are cited and briefly discussed in Joseph S. FreedMan, The Godfather of Ontology? Clemens Timpler, All that is Intelligible, Academic Disciplines during the Late 16th and Early 17th Centuries, and Some Possible Ramifications for the Use of Ontology in Our Time, Quaestio, Yearbook on the History of Metaphysics 9, 2009, pp. 3–40 (8, 29). Another example, the philosophy lexicons of Georg Reeb SJ, is mentioned here (category 8 and fn. 38). 4 Some manuscripts by Protestant academic philosophers from this period are extant, including: Quaestiones in duos Aristotelis de animae libros dictatae a (Georgio) lieBlero Tubingensis professore… Finis 2di [Secundi] Libri de a[n]i[m]a. Tubingae 1565 2. Novemb[ris]. [Gotha, Forschungsbibliothek: Chart. B 495, fol. 1r–67r]. 5 For example, well-organized textbooks on metaphysics, physics, ethics, family life (oeconomica), politics, logic, rhetoric as well as his optics (with an appended treatise on human physiognomy) were published by Clemens Timpler between 1604 and 1617; refer to the discussion and bibliography in Joseph S. FreedMan, European Academic Philosophy in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries: The Life, Significance, and Philosophy of Clemens Timpler, 1563/64–1624 (Studien und Materialien zur Geschichte der Philosophie 210 Disputations6 (2) are extant largely in published form and very rarely prior to the mid- 16th century.7 In the 1550s and 1560s they were very short publications, often broadsheets, in which questions were posed (with or without answers) and/or theses presented – mainly at Roman Catholic academic institutions; in subsequent decades they, for the most part, increased in length there..8 At Central European Protestant academic institutions they were rarely published prior to the final decade of the 16th century. But from the early 17th cen- tury onwards they began to be published there in large quantities; some philosophy profes- sors presided over disputations on specific topics so selected and organized that they could be published together as a monograph and possibly as a textbook.9 Disputations – especially by Protestants – gained additional significance after the mid- 17th century as a medium for the presentation of specialized topics that were not or were rarely discussed in print prior thereto.10 Their impact extended beyond the academic insti- tutions where they were published; they sometimes were republished.11 The connection between orally presented vis-à-vis published disputations apparently grew more distant in the course of late 16th and the 17th centuries.12 27), 2 vols., Hildesheim – Zürich – New York 1988. This was somewhat less the case in Central Europe during the middle
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