ENGLISH RENAISSANCE PARADOX : INTELLECTUAL CONTEXTS AND TRADITIONS WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO JOHN DONNE'S ̀PARADOXES' AND ̀BIATHANATOS' Richard Pagano A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St Andrews 2000 Full metadata for this item is available in St Andrews Research Repository at: http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/11046 This item is protected by original copyright The English Renaissance Paradox: Intellectual Contexts and Traditions with Particular Reference to John Donne's Paradoxes and Biathanatos Richard Pagano February 2000 Abstract This study examines the intellectual background of the paradoxes of John Donne. In the first chapter, the classical foundations of the concept of paradox are detailed. These foundations reflect basic philosophical differences which are manifest in a writer's approach to the defense of a paradox or uncommon opinion. The first chapter also discusses the derivation of classical concepts of paradox by sixteenth­ century writers in an effort to correlate these concepts with the respective philosophical positions with which Donne would have been familiar. The second chapter focuses on the dialectical procedure of the thesis. Aristotle explicitly associated the thesis with paradox, and he delineated its fundamental role in the investigation of contested speculative questions. Cicero adapted it to his rhetorical theory but continued to observe its essentially dialectical character. In the sixteenth century, writers on both rhetoric and logic drew heavily on the works of Aristotle and Cicero for their own formulations of the thesis. These formulations reflect precisely the relationship which Aristotle and Cicero observed between the paradox and the thesis. The third chapter begins by examining the challenge posed by Peter Ramus to the Aristotelian dialectic upon which the scholastic curricula of European universities was based. Donne's English contemporaries, Gabriel Harvey and Thomas Nashe, disagreed on the value of Ramus' innovations, and their comments on them in their quarrel reveal an awareness of the profound epistemological ramifications of Ramus' denial of the sceptical use of the thesis which Aristotle had observed in his Topics. The fourth chapter details those epistemological theories which competed with Ramus' neoaristotelianism. The majority of these theories are neoplatonic; they exhibit the characteristic features of Platonic Idealism which Aristotle had rejected in his Metaphysics, and which would be later rejected by Aquinas. Donne was familiar with these neoplatonic alternatives and was not wholly unreceptive to them. However, he explicitly denies the value of neoplatonic theories of mind for the practical affairs of Christian life, and maintains that the doubt implicit in matters to which revelation and reason have not delivered absolute precepts insures the viability of paradoxical opinions. The fifth chapter compares Donne's Aristotelian notion of paradox with other paradoxes of the sixteenth century. Through this comparison, the scholastic foundation of Donne's dialectical argumentation is exposed. Once exposed, his characteristic tentativeness with regard to the doctrinal differences of his day is understood to be a consequence of his Aristotelian and Thomist regard for the difficulty with which reason attains knowledge. The sixth chapter examines Donne's paradox and thesis, Biathanatos, in light of the Thomist principles which it employs in its exposition of the problem of suicide. Throughout Biathanatos Donne criticizes the value of Augustine's moral doctrine in practical life, and accepts an epistemological doctrine which accomodates doubt and error in the manner detailed by Aquinas and denied by Augustine. It is with this doubt and error in mind that Donne's paradox proceeds towards its conclusion's request for charitable interpretation, an interpretation which is informed specifically by Aquinas' doctrine of charity. 11 Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals of the Universities of the United Kingdom for supporting my research with an ORS grant. I would also like to thank the University of St. Andrews for providing me with a scholarship to support the last two years of my work, and the Department of English for generously supplementing my scholarships when need arose. Numerous members of the university assisted me in a range of areas of my research. Special thanks to Christine Gascoigne and her colleagues in the Rare Books Department of the University Library, as well as to the Inter-Library Loan and other departments of the library. Dr. Roger Rees and Dr. Johannes Hecker provided invaluable help in translating difficult Latin passages. Dr. Stephen Read made time to help me work through logical questions. The Psychology Department provided solace in times of trouble. The English Department office administrators tolerated my inability to comprehend paperwork. My office-mate of four years, Dr. Luke Ferretter, created a learned and cheerful atmosphere in which to study, not to mention some very strange noises. My departmental neighbors, Dr. Nils Eskestad, Dr. Andrew Nash and Chris Jones, made the basement of Castle House a haven (i. e. nice coffee) . My supervisor, Dr. Neil Rhodes, patiently read through the hundreds of disorganized pages that comprise this [mal draft. His supervision was thorough, scholarly and generous, and most of all, respectful of the purpose for which this project was conceived. At every stage and in every relevant respect, he made an effort to make my experience at St. Andrews more fulfilling. I would like also to thank some friends. Ian Penton-Voak, David Donaldson and Jane Cumberlidge are family. Lindsey Murray, Kevin Allen, Sophie Scott, Paolo Manghi, Federica Bartolucci, Daniele Calvani, Vera, Jan Deckers, Chris Brannigan, Kenny Reid, Bernie Tiddeman, Chris and Kate, Leslie MacDowell, Sarah MacDonald, Slim MacDowell, the Mackenzie clan, Nils, Andrew, Steua Needarest and Crail F.e. have extended that family. I will take this opportunity also to express my gratitude to my family, brothers, in-laws, Mom-Mom, Mom and Dad, for their constant love and support. Finally, I must recognize the greatest joy that my research at St. Andrews has occasioned, my wife. Had I not been studying here, I would not have met her. And if I had not met her, I would have never found my other half. iii Contents Introduction ...................................................................................... 1 Chapter I The Sixteenth-Century Paradox and the Classical Foundations of Doubt 1 English Concepts of Paradox and Cicero's Paradoxa Stoicorum ..................... 12 2 Surprise and Deception: Orthodox and Paradox ........................................ 15 3 Paradoxical Encomia and Defenses of Uncommon Opinion .......................... 19 4 The Rhetorical Encomiast and the Dialectical Paradoxist ............................. 27 5 Sceptical Dissent and the Proof of Paradoxes ........................................... 31 6 The Pyrrhonist Use of Paradox ............................................................ 35 7 The Scepticism of Gorgianic Rhetoric ................................................... 41 8 Gorgianic Rhetoric and Socratic Dialectic .............................................. .44 9 Truth and the Confidence of Socratic Paradox ......................................... .47 10 The Clarification of Contraries .......................................................... 51 11 The Conflation of Contraries ............................................................ 55 Chapter II The Dialectical Procedure of the Paradoxical Thesis 1 The Philosophical Thesis and the Rhetorical Controversia ........................... 76 2 The Use of Dialectic and the Thesis ...................................................... 80 3 Doubt and the Thesis ........................................................................ 85 4 Aphthonius and the Thesis ................................................................. 89 5 The Cogitatio and Arguments for Preferability ......................................... 93 6 Inventio, Dispositio and the Problem of Verification .................................. 97 iv 7 Dialectic, Credibility and the Paradox .................................................. 101 8 Clarification by Refutation ............................................................... 107 9 Equivocation, Paradox and the Libertine Threat ....................................... 111 Chapter III Ramist and Aristotelian Responses to Doubt and Paradox 1 Ramus and the Establishment of Certainty through Dialectic ....................... 125 2 Dispositio, Method and the Vanity of Contention .................................... 128 3 The Doubtful Axiom and the Thesis .................................................... 132 4 Ramus against the Paradoxical Thesis .................................................. 136 5 Blundeville's Recognition of the Paradoxical Thesis ................................. 141 6 Harvey and N ashe on Ramism ........................................................... 146 7 The Value of the Paradox of Rami sm.................................................. .150 8 Vain Contention and Frivolous Paradoxes ............................................. 153 9 The Syllogistic Structure of Paradox in Harvey, Nashe and Donne ................ 157 Chapter IV The Epistemological Limits