Georgios Steiris

Georgius Trapezuntius Cretensis (or George of Trebizond) (1396-1472), an eminent humanist scholar who immigrated to Italy from Crete, is well appreciated for his translations, commentaries and treatises on philosophy, rhetoric and science. While there is a good deal of scholarship on Byzantine scholars in the Italian Renaissance, the topic of their contribution to mathematics and science in general has not to date been thoroughly addressed. This paper purports to fill this lacuna. On the basis of major evidence, I will attempt to show the way Trapezuntius treated mathematics and physical sciences in order to serve his personal goals in the mid 15th century.

al-Fārābi was well aware that ecumenism can easily convert to tyranny if a certain city–state attempts to impose its laws outside its territory. State legislation depends on specific cultural and historical factors which deprives it from being universal because culture and history could not unite different nations in an ecumenical state. Legislation has to be built on universal premises, e.g. on philosophy, so as to serve the needs of a global state. Philosophy is the bond which unites humans and communities, while religion and legislation are disruptive factors. Despite the fact that in our days there are different philosophies, philosophy encourages dialogue, not hatred. As a result, al-Fārābi was right when he founded his ecumenical state on philosophy. Consequently, philosophers ought to persuade the citizens through rational arguments, dialectic, symbols and religion so as to accept the existence of an ecumenical state. The goal of this state is the supreme good, understood as the theoretical living. Al-Fārābi’s ecumenism is a means for the perfection of human beings and societies and not simply for the augmentation of wealth, as it is seen today. Al-Fārābi dreams of an anthropocentric ecumenical state. I support that this should be the form of modern ecumenism. While modern scholars have strong objections to the governing of philosophers, we should agree that philosophy is the appropriate universal language. The persistence on power and other divisive factors, such as religion or tradition, is doomed to fail

Die ethische und politische Philosophie al-Fārābīs beruht auf einer philosophischen Anthropologie, die die Menschen als von Natur aus als ungleich betrachtet und der Natur eine fundamentale Bedeutung zuschreibt. Die Natur stattet nur wenige Menschen mit besonderen Fähigkeiten aus, sodass die Verwirklichung der höheren theoretischen, geistigen, moralischen Tugend und der praktischen Kunst nur jene betrifft, die von der Natur dafür ausersehen wurden. Die Anthropologie ist darüber hinaus auch ein wichtiges Instrument politischen Handelns. Der Herrscher muss sich kontinuierlich dem Studium der menschlichen Natur widmen und die jeweiligen Eigenschaften benennen, die bestimmten Menschengruppen zugeschrieben werden. Dadurch kann er die geeigneten Mittel identifizieren, mit denen jede Gruppe zur Glückseligkeit geführt werden kann, und wählt die für jeden Fall geeigneten Argumente. Niccolò Machiavelli stützt sein gesamtes politisches Denken auf die Anthropologie. Ein zweiter Pfeiler der politischen Philosophie Machiavellis ist, wie bei al-Fārābī auch, die Religion. Beide machen sich Gedanken über die politische Dimension der Religion, ohne dass Machiavelli aber bis zur Entgeistigung der Religion gehen würde, wie es al-Fārābī gewagt hatte. Neben der Anthropologie, die ein integrales Element des politischen Denkens al-Fārābīs und Machiavellis darstellt, teilen sie sich die Auffassung von der Religion als Instrument politischen Handelns. Beide versuchten den Menschen zu zeigen, dass auf dem Gebiet des öffentlichen Lebens die Regierungskunst der Religion überlegen ist, ohne sich im Besonderen mit ihrem Wert an sich und ihrer Bedeutung für das private Leben zu befassen. Der substantielle Unterschied zwischen beiden liegt in der Breite der politischen Mittel. Hier ist die Innovation Machiavellis offensichtlich, weil sich seine Anthropologie von der al-Fārābīs unterscheidet.

Georgius Trapezuntius Cretensis (1395-1472), an eminent humanist scholar who immigrated to Italy from Crete, is well appreciated for his treatises on philosophy and rhetoric, his commentary on Ptolemy’s Almagest (Syntaxis Mathematica) and his translations of Plato, Aristotle as well as of some Christian fathers. Trapezuntius’ works, although heavily criticized at times, contributed to Italian and Northern Renaissance. On the basis of major evidence, we will attempt in this paper to show the way Trapezuntius treated the Aristotelian and Platonic mathematics in order to serve his personal goals in the rather peculiar intellectual climate of the mid 15th century.

The question of Modern Greek identity is certainly timely. The political events of the previous years have once more brought up such questions as: What does it actually mean to be a Greek today? What is Modern Greece, apart from and beyond the bulk of information that one would find in an encyclopaedia and the established stereotypes? This volume delves into the timely nature of these questions and provides answers not by referring to often-cited classical Antiquity, nor by treating Greece as merely and exclusively a modern nation-state. Rather, it approaches the subject in a kaleidoscopic way, by tracing the line from the Byzantine Empire to Modern Greek culture, society, philosophy, literature and politics. In presenting the diverse and certainly non-dominant approaches of a multitude of Greek scholars, it provides new insights into a diachronic problem, and will encourage new arguments and counterarguments. Despite commonly held views among Greek intelligentsia or the worldwide community, Modern Greek identity remains an open question – and wound.

The article focuses on an unexamined so far aspect of byzantine philosophy, namely the influence of Arabic philosophy upon byzantine thinkers. Despite the vicinity of Byzantium and Arabic territories, the philosophical interactions were minimal. Scholarios claimed, in a dedicatory epistle to Constantine Paleologus (1405-1453), that he had studied the treatises of Avicenna, Averroes, and other Arab and Persian philosophers. He admitted that Averroes was beyond doubt the best commentator of Aristotle. Scholarios acknowledged that the study of the Arabs contributed immensely to his philosophical education and particularly to the proper understanding of the Aristotelian philosophy (Scholarios, vii.1-6). Scholarios aimed at the enrichment and renewal of Byzantine philosophy. Besides his high esteem for Arabic philosophy, he devoted a large part of his life translating and paraphrasing the Scholastics, especially Aquinas. Despite Scolarios’ claim about his erudition on the Arab and Persian philosophers, a detailed examination of his works proves that in most cases he simply reproduced and incorporated sections from Aquinas’ works, without resorting to the original sources. Scholarios’ references to the Arabs are multiplied in his translations and compendia of Aquinas’ works, but are reduced significantly in his original texts. Frequently Scholarios refrained from mentioning the Arab philosophers, despite the fact that he commented on Aquinas’ passages, which are dedicated to Avicenna or Averroes. On the contrary, Scholarios did not avoid mentioning in detail Aquinas’ Christian or ancient Greek sources. It is obvious that Scholarios did not have a consistent approach towards Arabic philosophy. Most of the times he reproduced loosely Aquinas’ passages, where the latter commented on the Arabs.

Those who work with topics related to Modern Greek identity usually start discussing these issues by quoting the famous Georgios Gemistos Pletho (c.1360-1454): we, over whom you rule and hold sway, are Hellenes by genos (γένος), as is witnessed by our language and ancestral education. Although Woodhouse thought of Pletho as the last of the Hellenes, others prefer to denounce him the last of the Byzantines and the first and foremost Modern Greek. During the 14th and 15th centuries, a number of influential intellectuals in the Eastern Roman Empire preferred the term Hellene (Ἓλλην) to identify themselves, instead of the formal Roman (Ρωμαῖος) and the common Greek (Γραικός). According to the prevalent view of modern scholarship, the shift should not be interpreted only as a statement of proto-national identity, but also as the outcome of growing archaism. As Vryonis pointed out, the historian Critoboulos used to call the Balkan nations with their archaic names: Byzantines became “Hellenes,” Albanians became “Illyrians,” etc. Chalkokondyles followed in the same path. Furthermore, in order to lament the decline of their Empire, byzantine intellectuals tended to compare their sad present to the glory of ancient Greece. Besides archaism, proto-nationalism and Hellenism, I suggest that a careful reading of the sources would lead us to reappraise the ways 15th century intellectuals perceived identity. Whilst I do not accept Vakalopoulos’ views on diachronic Hellenic identity, I support that, in the 15th century, Byzantine scholars attempted to create an identity based on cultural and historical continuity and otherness. Moreover, Laiou’s definition of Greek identity as a resultant of language, history, tradition and interests does not cover the case of 15th century Byzantine philosophers, since the latter strived to enrich and enlarge Greek identity with additional elements. It is worth noting that those philosophers who fled to Italy deliberately chose to describe themselves as Greeks (Greci/Γραικοί) or Hellenes (Ἓλληνες) and not as Romans (Ρωμιοί/Ρωμαῖοι), according to the Byzantine official terminology. During the 15th century a major shift occurred in the Byzantine intelligentsia and its prominent members revisited matters of identity. In this paper, I attempt to scrutinize the ways Byzantine philosophers of the 15th century, who lived in the territories of the Byzantine Empire and in Italy, perceived identity and otherness. In my research, I include not only Greek, but also Latin sources, since their works is written in both languages.

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) focuses on Anaxagoras (ca. 500-428 BC) because he considers him as a precursor of the the later Neoplatonic concept all things exist in all things in their own mode, which became the core of Pico’s metaphysics. Anaxagoras’s philosophy permits Pico to establish his doctrine that all things share a portion of God within them, in their own way. Pico rejects the fixed position of man in the ontological hierarchy. Man has the chance to become everything. Pico asserts that man contains all things in himself as their center, just like God contains all things as their origin. As a consequence, Anaxagoras’s principle is supportive to Pico’s metaphysics. Furthermore, Anaxagoras’s metaphysical principle is supportive of Pico’s method of allegorical interpretation, which is indispensable for his syncretism and his attempt to reveal hidden truths in every text or level of reality.

In this article the impact of the dialogue Peri Politikis Epistimis in the political philosophy of the first Arab philosophers is highlighted and analyzed. This dialogue, whose importance was pointed out relatively recently in the relevant literature, contains material that guides the researcher to understand in a different way the intake not only of the classical but also of the early Byzantine political philosophy by Al-Farabi. The text focuses on the handling of the relationship between politics, religion and heresy in the early Byzantine treatise and in the work of Al-Farabi, an issue that has not been dealt with thoroughly by modern research.

This special volume of Forum Philosophicum, entitled “Sharing in the Logos: Philosophical Readings of Maximus the Confessor,” makes available five papers selected from those presented at the conference “Maximus the Confessor as a European Philosopher,” held at the Freie Universität, Berlin, from the 26th to the 28th of September, 2014. We are happy to open up our journal to the contributions of a number of scholars who all share a specific methodological stance when it comes to reading Patristic texts. Rather than discussing the philosophy of Maximus the Confessor, they seek out the philosophical involvements and implications of Maximus’ theology. They respect the distinction between philosophical and theological modes of thinking, while recognizing how those modes of thinking influence and complete each other.

This paper seeks to explore the way Giovanni Pico della Mirandola treated the Orphics and the Pythagoreans in his Conclusiones nongentae, his early and most ambitious work, so that he formulates his own philosophy. I do not intend to present and analyze the sum of Pico’s references to Orphics and Pythagoreans, since such an attempt is beyond the scope of this paper. Rather, I aim to highlight certain Pico’s aphorisms that allow readers to understand and evaluate his syncretic method and his goals. In addition, I attempt to trace Pico’s sources and evaluate his proper knowledge, understanding and treatment of the Orphics and the Pythagoreans. Pico resorts to the Orphics and the Pythagoreans because he wants to give a practical and applied dimension to his philosophy. He attempted the revival of the original wisdom that underlies the traditions he combined. He was not a fan of the Aristotelian θεωρίης ἢνεκεν. Philosophy does not aim at proper knowledge, but is the key for the manipulation of the cosmos, physically and metaphysically speaking. Pico probably thinks of himself as the modern Orpheus: he does not intend to reveal the paths which cross the sensible and the intelligible, but he aspires to tread them.