Teilhard de Chardin's ideas about the mechanisms of biological evolution are revised and their connections with contemporary theories are reported. Teilhard de Chardin's main contribution is the proposal of a new scientific discipline, geobiology—the science of the biosphere evolving as a whole. The main fields of interest of geobiology are reported, and its relationships with contemporary hypotheses, such as Lovelock's Gaia, are discussed. The consequences of this kind of approach are the parallel evolution described as orthogenesis and the presence of (...) canalization phenomena. These Teilhardian hypotheses are discussed in relation to those of the process structuralists and to the novelties of the molecular evolution of the genome. Conclusions are that the mechanisms discussed by Teilhard are presently taken into consideration by contemporary evolutionists in order to construct a new theory of biological evolution. (shrink)

This paper introduces the thought of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin from a perspective neglected until now: a view that builds on the analysis of his scientific papers. His scientific work formed part of the “modern synthesis” which laid the foundation of contemporary Darwinism. His main contributions in the field were the definition of a new branch of evolutionary sciences, geobiology; the redefinition of the term orthogenesis; and the proposal of the “scale” phyletic tree. Using these new research concepts, Teilhard de (...) Chardin attempted to solve, within a scientific framework, a problem fundamental for his philosophical synthesis: that of evolutionary directionality. (shrink)

Aim of this article lo to make a reading of Teilhard de Chardon's work in order to suggest a new model for the relationship between Science and Theology. It deports from the fact that Teilhard de Chardin was a man of science, particularly engaged in the fields of palaeontology, geology and the paleo-antrhopology. It also takes into consideration the fact that his teleological perspective is basically grounded in the necessity of reconciling evolution, one of the novelties of the modern world, (...) and the Church. As a palaeontologist, Teilhard de Chardings put into evidence the fact of evolution as a movement in direction to an ever greater process of complexity and brain formation. Teilhard de Chardin's research explores not only the philetic lines of a great number of fossil mammals, but also places the problem raised by new methods in evolutionary biology, underlining his understanding of biology as a science of the infinitely complex and the Biosphere as the final object of study for evolutionary biology. The article shows in particular how Teilhard de Chardin recognizes as characteristic of evolution a gigantic movement in the direction of complexity and consciousness, in the term of which is the emergence of the thinking being. This movement however, does not stay with the human being, but evolves due to the action of humankind in direction to the Point Omega. Thus Earth acquires a new meaning, one that makes possible for humankind to progress la the direction of the Event of the Second Coming of Christ. Finally, the article also claims that in Teilhard de Chardin we have a perspective whose objective is the solution of some of the problems that Darwinian evolutionism confronts modern Theology with, as for example The problem of the suffering that so profoundly affects life from its very beginnings. (shrink)

Three theories about evolution are presently under discussion: the genocentric theory, the organismocentric theory, and the biospherocentric theory. A brief discussion of the three theories is presented. These theories have different implications for theology. The genocentric theory is related to the Darwinian interpretation and, for theology, means the end of an apologetic vision of natural science and for this reason the end of natural theology. The organismo‐centric theory is mainly related to events of autoorganization and follows the path of the (...) geometrical harmony of nature. But it is far different from the apologetic interpretation of natural theology which cannot be restored. The biospherocentric theory, on the contrary, contains many fruitful perspectives. This theory, which counts Teilhard de Chardin among its founders, allows the development of a new approach to the theology of nature. In this approach, it is actually the biosphere herself that is doing theology thanks to her thinking sphere: the noosphere. (shrink)

The goals of the present study are to relate the transactional and transformational aspects of modern leadership theory to the history of Medici rule and influence in Renaissance Florentine politics, and, at the same time, to test leadership models against the humanist debates on the accession of the Medici to power. I will focus on the Discorso sopra il fermare lo stato di Firenze nella devozione de’ Medici [Discourse on holding the State of Florence in devotion to the Medici], written (...) in 1516 by Lodovico Alamanni (1488–1526), a prominent Florentine statesman. Alamanni’s Discorso relates to the first restoration of the Medici government and engages with a number of issues that animate Machiavelli’s political theory as well as other memoranda for the Medici contemporaneous with The Prince. I argue that the two categories of leadership—the transactional and the transformational—first proposed by James MacGregor Burns, provide a new way of specifying Alamanni’s intentions and, by comparison, those of contemporary authors, including Machiavelli. I will also demonstrate that Alamanni’s work exemplifies more vividly than other political writings of the Medici period an approach to leadership that is predicated upon the combination of the transactional and transformational paradigms. (shrink)

Muratori has often been portrayed as a moral philosopher who represented the traditional neo-Aristotelian mainstream of Italian intellectual life in the early part of the eighteenth century. His loyalty to Christianity as a basis from which societies ought to be reformed has determined his reputation as a ‘pre-enlightened’ thinker. Yet, it is argued here that not only was Muratori very much in touch with the state of the art of early eighteenth-century moral philosophy, but also that he was really a (...) historian with political interests who came to develop a renewed Christian moral philosophy as a tool to respond to the political challenges of the time. Fallen man's preference for self-preservation to natural freedom prepared him for engaging in increasingly sociable contexts that required further self-disciplining and moral improvement. Thus, man cultivated his fallen condition into prudence and ultimately developed a capacity both for charity and for functioning in modern commercial societies. (shrink)

This essay proposes a bifurcation within the concept of moderation in early modern Europe. To draw this out it reconstructs an “encounter” between two citizens of the scholarly Republic of Letters in the years around 1700—Lodovico Antonio Muratori and Jean Le Clerc—and the concept of moderation each maintained. It proposes that the former maintained an ideal of moderation which was “hard” principally about self-regulation, while the latter maintained an ideal of moderation which was “soft” and principally about (religious) toleration. (...) It then attaches this “encounter” to an analogous conflict between uses of moderation in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England. It concludes by proposing that this bifurcation, while occurring within scholarly and theological debates, has enduring significance for our interpretation of the Enlightenment, and for the passage of political moderation into the modern world. (shrink)

in 1612, lodovico cigoli completed a fresco in the pauline chapel of the basilica of santa maria maggiore in rome depicting apocalypse 12: “a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet.” he showed the crescent moon with spots, as his friend galileo had observed with the newly invented telescope. considerations of the orthodox view of the perfect moon as held by philosophers have led historians to ask why this clearly imperfect moon in a religious painting (...) raised no eyebrows. we argue that when considered in the context of biblical interpretation and the rhetoric of the counter-reformation, the imperfect moon under the woman's feet was entirely consistent with traditional interpretations of apocalypse 12. (shrink)

The ArgumentIn 1612, Lodovico Cigoli completed a fresco in the Pauline chapel of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome depicting Apocalypse 12: “A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet.” He showed the crescent Moon with spots, as his friend Galileo had observed with the newly invented telescope. Considerations of the orthodox view of the perfect Moon as held by philosophers have led historians to ask why this clearly imperfect Moon in a religious (...) painting raised no eyebrows. We argue that when considered in the context of biblical interpretation and the rhetoric of the Counter-Reformation, the imperfect Moon under the woman's feet was entirely consistent with traditional interpretations of Apocalypse 12. (shrink)

This paper offers a reconstruction of Alessandro Piccolomini's philosophy of mathematics, and reconstructs the role of Themistius and Averroes in the Renaissance debate on Aristotle's theory of proof. It also describes the interpretative context within which Piccolomini was working in order to show that he was not an isolated figure, but rather that he was fully involved in the debate on mathematics and physics of Italian Aristotelians of his time. The ideas of Lodovico Boccadiferro and Sperone Speroni will be (...) analysed. This paper demonstrates that Piccolomini's attack on the certitude of mathematics was a product of discussions between Aristotelians. (shrink)

Tragedy as Philosophy in the Reformation World' examines how sixteenth- and seventeenth-century poets, theologians, and humanist critics turned to tragedy to understand providence and agencies human and divine in the crucible of the Reformation. Rejecting familiar assumptions about tragedy, vital figures like Philipp Melanchthon, David Pareus, Lodovico Castelvetro, John Rainolds, and Daniel Heinsius developed distinctly philosophical ideas of tragedy,irreducible to drama or performance, inextricable from rhetoric, dialectic, and metaphysics. In its proximity to philosophy, tragedy afforded careful readers crucial insight (...) into causality, probability, necessity, and the terms of human affect and action. With these resources at hand, poets and critics produced aseries of daring and influential theses on tragedy between the 1550s and the 1630s, all directly related to pressing Reformation debates concerning providence, predestination, faith, and devotional practice. Under the influence of Aristotle's Poetics, they presented tragedy as an exacting forensic tool, enabling attentive readers to apprehend totality. And while some poets employed tragedy to render sacred history palpable with new energy and urgency, others marshalled a precise philosophicalnotion of tragedy directly against spectacle and stage-playing, endorsing anti-theatrical theses on tragedy inflected by the antique Poetics. In other words, this work illustrates the degree to which some of the influential poets and critics in the period, emphasized philosophical precision at the0expense of-even to the exclusion of-dramatic presentation. (shrink)

Stephanie West suggested in a note in this journal , 280) that the presence of an anecdote in Lodovico Guicciardini's sixteenth-century L'Hore di Ricreatione furnishes a parallel for the fable alluded to by Horace, Ep. 1.2.42–3: ‘Rusticus exspectat dum defluat amnis: at ille / labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum.’ The parallels, and a third from nineteenth-century Sicily, allow her to imagine a tale, ‘part of Italian traditional lore’, already extant in Horace's time and presumably transmitted in rural (...) regions down to Guicciardini and the Sicilian story-teller. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Iago’s Roman Ancestors JAMES TATUM Othello is that rare thing: a tragedy of literary types who half suspect they are playing in a comedy. —D. S. Stewart, 1967 In memoriam Bill Cook1 Shakespeare’s Othello is a drama created for a world where everyone was bound by “service,” a formal connection to someone else superior, in a hierarchy that linked all persons in court, theater, and society through unavoidable obligation. (...) Service could range from the lightest kind of tie, to indentured servitude. This meaning of “service” reflects its origin in Norman French, from the Latin word for slavery, servitium. It is Iago’s sense of the word in his comment to his dupe Roderigo: “Why, there’s no remedy, ’tis the curse of service.” The perceived color of Othello poses a perennial challenge which producers and directors in the United States have to consider every time Othello is performed. Jim Crow did not officially end in most parts of the former Confederacy until the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s; and even then such legacies of slavery and segregation as color prejudice remain a challenge, alive if now not entirely well, and they haunt many a production. It is this more recent history that inspired Patrick Stewart’s “photo-negative” production of Othello in Washington, DC in 1997, in which the English actor himself played Othello while the rest of the cast were black. Given recent and not so recent history, it is important to realize that there actually is a slave hard at work throughout Othello, from opening scene to last: not Othello himself, but his “ancient” or ensign, Iago. arion 27.1 spring/summer 2019 the slave-playwright of shakespeare’s OTHELLO Lodovico: O, thou Othello, that was once so good, Fallen in the practice of a damnèd slave, What shall be said to thee? Othello, 5.2.289–91 the plot of Shakespeare’s Othello comes from the story “Disdemona and the Moorish Captain” in Giraldi Cinthio’s The Hundred Tales (1565), but the theatrical tradition he used to adapt it for the stage was not other tragedies. He went back to a classical theater he had used to write one of his earliest successes, The Comedy of Errors, one he knew as well as any other through his study of it in Latin grammar school and afterwards: Roman comedy. What resulted was something of a puzzle to his later critics. Since the 17th century some of Shakespeare’s readers have alternately complained or marveled at the way Othello has the fast pace and structure of a farce. This accounts for its exceptional power as a tragedy when it is intelligently performed; the double catastrophe of Othello’s murder of Desdemona and his own suicide come more quickly and more violently, for example, than the endings of Macbeth, King Lear, or Hamlet. All of Othello’s characters are cast in the stereotypical roles first created in Menander and other playwrights of Greek New Comedy, and then passed on to later European vernacular theater through Plautus and Terence’s adaptations. In performance, Shakespeare’s Iago is at once a reprise of his earlier stage villains and a reincarnation of the servus callidus or clever slave playwright of Plautus. It is as if Zero Mostel’s Pseudolus in Sondheim’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum were playing Richard III. Iago creates what he regards as a comedy, from its opening scene before Brabantio’s house to its catastrophic end in Cyprus, and to the bafflement of Christian interpreters and others, he seems incapable of recognizing the enormity of his evil. Unlike his resourceful Roman ancestors, who think up ingenious plots to help their less clever owners 78 iago’s roman ancestors in their love affairs, Iago’s scenario is demonic, designed to destroy his master Othello, not save him. As I’ve suggested, one comedy in particular may have played an important role in the making of Othello: Plautus’ Amphitryon, with its story of Jupiter’s adulterous affair with Alcmena, the wife of the heroic king Amphitryon of Thebes. To aid him in his schemes Jupiter calls on his son the trickster... (shrink)

In this paper I describe the context and goals of Francisco Vallés' In IV librum Meteorologicorum commentaria. Vallés' work stands as a landmark because it interprets a work of Aristotle's natural philosophy specifically for medical doctors and medical theory. Vallés' commentary is representative of new understandings of Galenic-Hippocratic medi-cine that emerged as a result of expanding textual knowledge. These approaches are evident in a number of sixteenth-century commentaries on Meteorologica IV; in particular the works of Pietro Pomponazzi, Lodovico Boccadiferro, (...) Jacob Schegk, and Francesco Vimercati. Vallés' conviction that Meteorologica IV is relevant to medical knowledge depends on his understanding of Aristotle's theory of homeomerous substances and their relation to composite substances. The application of Meteorologica IV to medical topics became commonplace in the following years, and this Aristotelian book became widely known as a bridge between natural philosophy and medicine. (shrink)

In his Lives, Giorgio Vasari mentions many artists who were talented at music when they were young, prominently Giorgione and Sebastiano del Piombo. Benvenuto Cellini resisted his father's pressure to choose music. Why? How rewarding was a musical profession in Renaissance Italy? It could be very lucrative, both for town musicians such as Cellini's father and for castratos. Moonlighting for banquets, dances, even spying, could bring in additional income. For gentlemen, music was a necessary social grace; they had private tutors, (...) such as Silvestro Ganassi dal Fontego, who was himself a painter as well as a printer. Amateurs could learn from cathedral choirmasters, who were often music theorists, the pinnacle of the profession. The theorist Pietro Aaron, choirmaster at Imola Cathedral, then tutor to the sons of Sebastian Michiel, Grand Prior of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem in Venice, had a wide acquaintance among humanists, noblemen and other musicians, and his letters open a window on the life of a musician. Among his many professions, the writer Antonfrancesco Doni counted music; a madrigal he wrote in 1560 is included in an appendix. The ability to improvise verses and music was much prized, ranging from star performers such as Serafino Aquilano to amateurs such as Niccolò Machiavelli. Portraits of musicians are discussed; they offer important evidence but are difficult to interpret. The theorist Lodovico Zacconi concluded in 1592 that being a musician was not only an honourable and lucrative profession but an enjoyable one. (shrink)