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Aristotle philosophy remained dominant until the second half of the sixteenth
century, however due to the revival of Plato’s philosophy some of the former’s concept
cosmological explanation of the universe in the mentality of the people by that time.
Many philosophers still held on to his teachings, on the finiteness of the universe, the
spherity of the cosmos, the heterogeneity and heirarchy between sublunar and
supralunar worlds, and the earth as the central and unmoving body of the universe or
geocentrism. Aristotle’s concepts also took hold on the church’s theology. Its root grew
deeper into the heart of Catholism who was the sole teaching authority of that time.
Science and technology was emerging by that time. When Galileo invented the
telescope he discovered that the earth was not the center of the universe, instead the
sun was. This discovery consequently led to his excommunication by the church which
would receive an apology from from the church 300 years later. By 1543, Copernicus
published his book entitled, Six books on the Revolution of the celestial spheres, which
Among them, heliocentrism and a mobile earth. It also proposed a new cosmology
consonant with those hypothesis and the immobility of the ultimate sphere of the
universe. At that time the dominant to his work was treated solely as an astronomical
knowledge and the former on science, facts and proofs. Copernicus was also branded
heretic by the church thereby meeting the same fate as that of Galileo. Consequently, at
least until the first adherent of Copenicus’ cosmology began to publish in the 1570’s and
arguments were also posited against aristotelianism. In this light also how Bernardino
noble and quite wealthy family. Having been educated by his uncle Antonio Telesio, a
humanist of note, he studied in Milan, Rome and the famous university of Padua, which
(1535–44) without taking oaths. Telesio dedicated his whole life to establishing a new
bound together with a rigorous criticism of Aristotelian natural philosophy and Galenic
physiology. Telesio blamed both Aristotle and Galen for relying on elaborate reasoning
rather than sense perception and empirical research. His fervent attacks against the
greatest authorities of the Western philosophical and medical traditions led Francis
Bacon to speak of him as “the first of the moderns” (Opera omnia vol. III, 1963, p. 114).
He was perhaps the most strident critic of metaphysics in late Renaissance times. It
was obviously due to his excellent relationships with popes and clerics that he was not
persecuted and was able during his own lifetime to publish his rather heterodox writings,
perverting philosophy from very foundation due to its highly abstracted nature. He,
therefore wanted to erect his own philosophy, particularly natural philosphy. He wanted
In his book de rerum natura iuxta propria principia (on the nature of things in their
own principles), he tried to erect his own philosophy or science of nature upon the
bases of;
proceeds alon with aristotelia line of thought. In order for him to establish the firt
1
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/telesio/#LifWorInf (oct. 19 2017)
reduced everything to an exclusively natural forms of principles of change, namely,
MATTER
on the one hand Aristotle thought matter to be the substance of change, form
and privation which, on the other hand for Telesio was excessively abstract. Note here
that Telesio was an ardent critic of Metaphysics for, for him that is too abstract. That is
why he wanted to establish a philosophy based on the natural principle alone. Telesio
then transformed the conception of matter, from being excessively abstract to a more
HEAT
Heat for Telesio is the principle of movement; making the corporeal matter into
which it penetrates, tenuous, rarefeid and light. This principle of heat is real, present
and fundamentally produced by the sun, its universal source, perepheral in general nad
the heavens which encircles the earth.(de rerum natura, 1568. 1. 1-9). This conception
of heat by Telesio is very much different from that of aristotle. Heat for aristotle is absent
in the heavens and present only in the world because of the friction produced by the
in contrast to heat, cold is the principle of immobility, and it renders the matter its
influences, dense and heavy. This principle of cold reside in the immobile earth.
Telesio presumed that in the beginning God had created two primary globes, the
sun and the earth, the sun being the seat of heat, the earth that of coldness, and that
He had separated them with such a distance in space that they could not extinguish
each other (DRN book I, ch. IV). All natural things result from the battle of these
antagonistic forces for the possession of matter. They are in peroetual struggle to
dominate and exclude the other. In order for these two to create a stable and permanent
univeres, the contrasting principles must be kept away from each other yet in a way that
they may still act upon each other to maintain the natural worl in a dynamic equilibrium
of perpetual motion. This means that when taken together with a creativea nd provident
divinity, the deduction of whose existence from sensory experience is, nevertheless,
highly questionable and is best accepted a priori that the universe is finite and the two
opposing principles are located in its opposing regions. The main region of that creative
battle is the surface of the earth, where they create metals, stones and animate beings.
The primary activity of warmth is to move fast and to dilate and rarefy matter, whereas
that of cold is to hinder movement and to condense matter. Things differ according to
the amount of heat or cold they possess (and therefore according to their density and
derivative qualities such as velocity and colour). The quantity of matter is not changed
through the action of these forces upon it. The role of heat, cold and matter as ‘natural
principles’ had been highlighted before by Girolamo Fracastoro in the first version of the
Homocentrica and in the dialogue Fracastorius sive De anima (Lerner 1992), as well as
Telesio’s scheme: “Three principles ûprincipia] of things altogether must be posited: two
active natures ûagentes naturae]. heat and cold, and a bodily bulk ûcorporea moles]....”
This “bulk” or “matter” is described as being “inert” and “dead,” all actions or operations
being foreign to it. Aristotle had given a somewhat similar account of heat and cold
in De generatione et corruptione (at 329b23), where he identifies “the hot” and “the
cold,” “the wet” and “the dry” as primary (tangible) qualities. In keeping with Aristotelian
texts such as this, heat and cold were called primae activae qualitates by such
contemporary Aristotelians as Zabarella. But for Aristotle the active and the passive
qualities make up the four elements (fire being a combination of the hot and the dry, and
so on), whereas for Telesio wetness and dryness are not primary but derivative. New
explanations are thus required for the traditional “media,” water and air.3 The three
principle of Telesio he made use to substitute that of aristotle’s Matter and Form.
Though he retained the term matter, he nonetheless, made a change on his concept of
matter. Here he established his principles for a humble interpretation of the of nature
2
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/telesio/#Cos (october 20, 2017)
3
http://www.encyclopedia.com/people/philosophy-and-religion/philosophy-biographies/bernardino-telesio
SPHERES
space to be absolute (DRN book I, ch. XXV–XXVIII), thus abolishing the Aristotelian
notion of a bipartite cosmos divided into a sublunary world, in which generation and
corruption take place, and a supralunary sphere with eternal regular movements. He
bodies composed of the same igneous matter as the stars(though less substantial and
dense, therefore not heat-emitting). He also believed them to be true source of celestial
motion, responsible for propelling the stars (to whom Telesio ceded no more than the
deduced from the final version of theory of comets. In his book on comets and the Milky
Way, he defined milky way as unusually condensed celestial matter in the spheres of
the fixed stars. Comets are sublunar exhalations, to be sure, ibut they are elevated to
the heavens where they shine in response to the sun’s illumination. Thus, Telesio offers
The existence of vacuum within space is also admitted, but things are said to
have a natural inclination to avoid empty space. In the cosmological chapters of book IV
a desire for a being more perfect than itself, but because it is its own nature to move
and thus to sustain its own life (DRN book IV, ch. XXIV; Aristotle, Metaph. XII, ch. 6–7).4
Telesio also rejected the Aristotelian conception of space and time as accidents
of corporeal substance.
SPACE
telesio argues that space is distinct from the material of the bodies it contain,
conceptually anterior to them and independent, though always full of corporeal matter.
Incorporeal in the space can be defined as the capacity to receive bodies. Space is
not infinite and its reach is limited to the spherical world that it must contain.
TIME
Time is independent of the object within it and of their movements; it exist for
itself and must be understood as independent of the motion that constantly occurs
within it.
4
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/telesio/#Cos (october 20, 2017)
CONCLUSION
Although Telesio did what he set up to do, some of his works were seen as
that the things of nature are not created, governed and sustained by divine providence.
In Telesio's philosophy, there is no such thing as a transcendent mind or idea. All things
act solely according to their own nature, starting from the primary forces of cold and
nature (Kessler 1992): everything can produce everything, an idea which was soon to
p. 467 f.). In order to sustain themselves, these primary forces and all beings which
arise through their antagonistic interaction must be able to sense themselves as well as
the opposite force, that is, they must sense what is convenient and what is inconvenient
or damaging for their survival and well-being. Sensation, therefore, is not the property of
above all, his conception of animal and human soul as spirits enduced from the seed
This made his book be included on the index of prohibited books published in
rome in 1596 with the clause donec expurgetur or until it shall be purged of error.