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Rodrigo de Arriaga

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The Reverend
Rodrigo de Arriaga
Disputationes theologicae, Antwerp, 1643
Born(1592-01-17)17 January 1592
Logroño, Spanish Empire
Died7 June 1667(1667-06-07) (aged 75)
Prague, Kingdom of Bohemia
EducationCharles University (Th.D., 1626)
Parent(s)Pedro de Arriaga and Graciosa Mendo[2]
Era17th-century philosophy
Region
SchoolScholasticism
Conceptualism[1]
Institutions
Main interests
Metaphysics, logic, natural philosophy

Rodrigo de Arriaga SJ (Spanish pronunciation: [roˈðɾiɣo ðe aˈrjaɣa]; 17 January 1592 – 7 June 1667) was a Spanish philosopher, theologian and Jesuit.[3] He is known as one of the foremost Spanish Jesuits of his day and as a leading representative of post-Suárezian baroque Jesuit nominalism.[4] According to Richard Popkin, Arriaga was “the last of the great Spanish Scholastics”.[5]

Life

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Born in 1592, at Logroño in Castile, he joined the Society of Jesus on 17 September 1606, when he was 14 years old.[6] He studied philosophy and theology under Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza[7] and taught philosophy (1620–1623) and theology (1624) in Valladolid and theology in Salamanca (1624–1625).[8] On 12 November 1623, he took the fourth vow in the Society of Jesus.[9]

In 1625 he was sent to the University of Prague, where he remained for the rest of his life. Arriaga was solemnly declared a doctor of theology in Prague in January 1626, and shortly thereafter began teaching.[10] Arriaga was instrumental in establishing Jesuit control over the Bohemian educational system. He served as professor of theology until 1637, when he became prefect of studies in the theology faculty. He held that position until 1642, when he became chancellor of the Clementinum, remaining in this post until 1654. In 1654 he was again appointed prefect of studies and retained this position until his death.[11] Arriaga gained a wide reputation, not only in Spain, but all over Europe. So great was his intellectual authority and his fame as a teacher that he was the subject of a popular quip: "Pragam videre, Arriagam audire"—"To see Prague, to hear Arriaga."[12] The Jesuit province of Bohemia three times made him a deputy to Rome to attend the General Congregation of the Jesuit Order. He was highly esteemed by Urban VIII, Innocent X, and the Emperor Ferdinand III. He died in Prague on June 17, 1667.[13]

Arriaga was a good friend and colleague of the Belgian mathematician Grégoire de Saint-Vincent. When, after the Battle of Breitenfeld, the Saxons pillaged Prague and set fire to many parts of the city, it was Arriaga who saved Saint-Vincent's manuscripts from destruction.[14]

Arriaga occupies an important place in the history of modern philosophy. Among the attempts made in the course of the seventeenth century to revive and reinvigorate medieval scholasticism, the Cursus Philosophicus of Arriaga, scholastic alike in contents, in arrangement, and in form, is one of the most skilful. Arriaga had studied with attention the recent writings of the anti-Aristotelians; and, giving effect to many of the opinions advanced by them, he endeavoured by modifications and concessions to adapt to modern use the logic and metaphysics, but still more the physical hypotheses, of his scholastic masters. In this attempt at compromise he went further than any other scholastic philosopher of the seventeenth century. In his own day, as a Jesuit teaching the doctrines then approved by his order, he was indeed safe from any serious charge of heterodoxy; but his position as an innovator laid him open to many attacks from the uncompromising adherents of the Aristotelian school. He was openly denounced as a sceptic, and accused of wilfully suppressing or weakening the answers to plausible objections against the system which he professed to teach. Opposers of Aristotelianism, on the other hand, like the Platonist philosopher Jan Marek Marci, seized upon Arriaga's concessions as proving the unsoundness of the foundations upon which the Aristotelian philosophy rests.

Philosophy

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Title-page to Rodrigo de Arriaga's Cursus Philosophicus (Antwerp: Balthasar Moretus) 1632

Very innovative in metaphysics and natural philosophy (he defended heliocentrism despite the ecclesiastical prohibitions), Arriaga approached scholastic scholarship in a critical manner and with sympathy for nominalist philosophy.[15] He rejected the ontological argument, denying the possibility of demonstrating a priori the existence of God. He maintained that immortality can be proven as only probable, namely from the soul's inclination towards perpetuity.[16]

Arriaga wrote favorably of the nominalist view of quantity and substance in his Cursus Philosophicus. He claimed that “ex Philosophia” there was no reason to postulate quantity distinct from prime matter and that this opinion had sufficient supporters both ancient and modern who provided very strong arguments. The function of quantity was to render a thing impenetrable. Arriaga admitted that it was impossible to determine whether something was impenetrable by having something added to it or by its essence, but then he drew the typically Ockhamist conclusion that when we do not have positive arguments for proving a plurality of entities (i.e., quantity being something additional to the thing itself), we must deny that they exist. Arriaga conceded that his opinion was not certain because of the argument derived from the Eucharist that quantity was distinct from prime matter, but, in contrast to Suárez, he maintained that the latter argument was not convincing and was merely probable.

Arriaga displays an original approach to natural philosophy, interest in the critical scientific spirit of the time, and familiarity with the new experimental science, quite unusual among the scholastics.[17] He gave up most of the opinions of Scholastic authorities in point of natural philosophy, such as the composition of the continuum, rarefaction, etc. and held many innovative views.[18] Regarding the structure of the universe, he accepted the fluid nature of planetary space, though he rejected the arguments from astronomical observations.[19] He argued that arguments supporting the incorruptibility of the celestial bodies were at best specious.[20] While the Revisers General attempted to enforce uniformity within the Society, Arriaga called for greater liberty in philosophy. In the preface of the first edition of his Cursus Philosophicus (1632) he argued explicitly in favour of new opinions. Was there not just as much genius in Thomas, Cajetan, Molina, and Suàrez as in the ancients?[21] Since we have studied much since the ancients, he wondered, "why then is it not proper for us to deduce new conclusions?"[22] Antiquity was no guarantee of the truth of any opinion, for in his view it was truly amazing how many ancient opinions had virtually no foundation but were based simply on the badly understood authority of Aristotle or some other philosopher.[23]

Legacy

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In his Dictionnaire Historique et Critique, Pierre Bayle praises Arriaga for his sceptical method and ability to destroy rival theories, considered by Bayle as essential to philosophy.[24] Arriaga exerted a strong influence on the Czech physician Jan Marek Marci, on the Italian scholar Valeriano Magni and on the Spanish philosopher and scientist Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz. The German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz used his works extensively. It can also be assumed that Descartes's treatment of the problems of rarefaction and condensation (Principia II, 5–6) is influenced by Arriaga.[25] According to Sven Knebel, Arriaga was “the contemporary Catholic Scholastic whom the seventeenth-century Protestants studied most.”[26]

His work was, however, sometimes controversial. Jean Baptiste Ladvocat regarded him as one of the most abstruse and difficult scholastic philosophers.[13] Arriaga was accused by his superiors of supporting the Zenonist doctrine of quantity. This doctrine, which asserted that quantity consisted of points, had been repeatedly and strenuously rejected by the revisers general as incompatible with the orthodox account of Eucharist. However, the routine reissuing of such injunctions and the unflagging efforts of the censors to expunge such a doctrine from Jesuit books attest to the continued dissemination of zenonism within the Order. In a letter from General Vincenzo Carafa, Arriaga was named as the source of the diffusion of this doctrine in Germany. The text in question was doubtless his philosophy textbook, Cursus Philosophicus, which enjoyed wide circulation throughout the German Province of the Society of Jesus.[27]

Works

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Arriaga published two massive works:

  • Cursus philosophicus. Antwerp: Plantin Press. 1632. Arriaga's Cursus Philosophicus is a university textbook containing material covering the usual three-year Jesuit philosophical curriculum, i.e. Summulae, Logica, Physica, De coelo, De generatione, De anima, and Metaphysica (ethics was taught within moral theology). The Cursus was highly successful, and was reprinted several times: Paris, 1637, 1639; Lyon, 1644, 1647, 1653, 1659, 1669;
  • Disputationes Theologicae in Summam Divi Thomae. This ponderous series of dissertations on Thomas Aquinas was published in successive volumes as follows: vols. I and II Disputationes in Primam Partem, Antwerp, 1643; Lyon, 1644, 1669; vols. III and IV Disputationes in Primam Secundae, Antwerp, 1644; Lyon, 1669; vol. V Disputationes in Secundam Secundae, Antwerp, 1649; Lyon 1651; vols. VI, VII and VIII Disputationes in Tertiam Partem, Antwerp, 1650–55; Lyon, 1654–1669.

References

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  1. ^ Heider, Daniel (2014). Universals in Second Scholasticism. John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 18.
  2. ^ Oñate Guillén 1992, p. 78.
  3. ^ "Arriaga, Roderigo de". thesaurus.cerl.org. Retrieved 2017-09-06.
  4. ^ Salas 2019, p. 91.
  5. ^ Popkin, Richard Henry (2003). The History of Scepticism: From Savonarola to Bayle. Oxford University Press. p. 288. ISBN 9780195107685.
  6. ^ Olmos 1984, p. 129.
  7. ^ Lohr, Charles H. (1988). Latin Aristotle Commentaries: Renaissance authors. Vol. 2. Leo S. Olschki Editore. p. 21.
  8. ^ Spruit, Leen (1995). Species intelligibilis: From Perception to Knowledge: 2. Renaissance Controversies, Later Scholasticism, and the Elimination of the Intelligible Species in Modern Philosophy. Brill Publishers. p. 327. ISBN 9789004247000.
  9. ^ Baciero González, Carlos. "Rodrigo de Arriaga". Diccionario Biográfico Español. Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia.
  10. ^ Vopěnka 2022, p. 42.
  11. ^ Haar, Christoph (2019). Natural and Political Conceptions of Community: The Role of the Household Society in Early Modern Jesuit Thought, c.1590–1650. Brill Publishers. p. 66. ISBN 9789004351653.
  12. ^ Alexander 2014, p. 139. For the adage, see Enrique Rivera de Ventosa, “Der Philosophische Beitrag der Jesuiten,” in Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie: Die Philosophie des 17. Jahrhunderts, ed. Jean Pierre Schobinger (Basel: Schwabe, 1998), 1/1:391.
  13. ^ a b Chalmers 1812, p. 6.
  14. ^ Meskens, Ad (2021). Between Tradition and Innovation. Gregorio a San Vicente and the Flemish Jesuit Mathematics School. Brill. p. 85. ISBN 9789004447905.
  15. ^ Sousedík 1981, pp. 110–111.
  16. ^ See Rodericus de Arriaga 1632, 807a (De Anima, disp. 10, n. 13).
  17. ^ Gellera 2021, p. 210.
  18. ^ Bayle, Pierre; Desmaizeaux, Pierre; Tricaud, Anthelme; Gaudin, Alexis (1739). "Arriaga (Roderic d')". The Dictionary Historical and Critical of Mr. Peter Bayle. Vol. 1. pp. 506–7.
  19. ^ Udías, Agustín (2014). Jesuit Contribution to Science: A History. Springer. p. 44. ISBN 9783319083650.
  20. ^ García Santo-Tomás, Enrique (2017). The Refracted Muse Literature and Optics in Early Modern Spain. Translated by Vincent Barletta. University of Chicago Press. p. 212. ISBN 9780226465739.
  21. ^ That is, the medieval Doctor Angelicus St. Thomas Aquinas, O.P. (1224/25-1274) and the leading figures of the sixteenth-century scholastic revival Cardinal Cajetan (Tommaso de Vio, O.P., 1468/69?-1534), Luis de Molina, S.J., (1535-1600), and the Doctor Eximius Francisco Suàrez, S.J. (1548-1617), whom Arriaga characterizes as a "giant among the scholastics".
  22. ^ Roderigo de Arriaga (1632). Cursus Philosophicus. Antwerp. Praefatio ad Lectorem. . . . cur ergo & nobis non licet conseqentias novas deducere?
  23. ^ Hellyer, Marcus. 2003. “The Construction of the Ordinatio pro studiis superioribus of 1651.” Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 72: 7.
  24. ^ Gellera 2021, p. 211.
  25. ^ "Rodrigo de Arriaga". Scholasticon (in French). Archived from the original on 2022-10-09. Retrieved 2019-09-29.
  26. ^ Knebel, Sven K. (2009). "Die Kunst in der 'Barockscholastik'". Spät-Renaissance Philosophie in Deutschland 1570–1650. Tübingen: Niemeyer: 283.
  27. ^ Hellyer, Marcus (2005). Catholic Physics: Jesuit Natural Philosophy in Early Modern Germany. University of Notre Dame Press. p. 47. ISBN 9780268030711.

Further reading

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  • The Biographical Dictionary of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. 1842. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  • Southwell, Nathaniel (1676). Bibliotheca Scriptorum Societatis Iesu. Rome: Ex Typographia Iacobi Antonij de Lazzaris. pp. 728–729.
  • Schmidt, Johannes (1754). Historia Societatis Jesu Provinciae Bohemiae. Vol. III. Prague. p. 615.
  • Chalmers, Alexander (1812). "Arriaga, Roderic De". General Biographical Dictionary. Vol. 3. London: J. Nichols. p. 6.
  • Scoraille, Raoul de (1915). "Jansenius en España". Recherches de Science Religieuse. VII. Paris: 187–254.
  • Allegemeine Deutsche Biographie. Vol. I. Munich/Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot. 1875–1910. pp. 609 ff.
  • Sommervogel, Carlos (1890–1932). Bibliothéque de la Compagnie de Jésus. Vol. V. Bruxelles-Paris: Oscar Schepens. pp. 578–581.
  • Lubac, Henri de (1912). Dictionnaire d'Histoire et de Geographie ecclesiastiques. Vol. IV. Paris: Letouzey et Ané. pp. 717 ff.
  • Kroes, Alois (1919). Geschichte der böhmischen Provinz der Gesellschaft Iesu. Vol. V. Vienna. p. 650.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Astrain, Anthony (1920). Historia de la Compañía de Jesús en la Asistencia de España. Vol. VI. Madrid: Rivadeneyra. p. 868.
  • Uriarte, José Eugenio de; Lecina, Mariano (1925–1930). Biblioteca de escritores de la Compañía de Jesús pertenecientes a la antigua asistencia de España desde sus origenes hasta el año de 1773. Vol. I. Madrid: Imprenta de la Viuda de López del Horno. pp. 326–329.
  • Eschweiler, Karl (1931). "Roderigo de Arriaga". Spanische Forschungen der Görresgesellschaft. 3: 253–286.
  • Lubac, Henri de (1946). Surnaturel. Paris: Aubier. pp. 299 ff.
  • Ortiz-Monasterio, X. (1964), La conception de la liberté chez Rodrigo de Arriaga, Paris: Université de Paris
  • Legaz Lacambra, Luis (1947). "De Suárez a Rodrigo de Arriaga". Horizontes del pensamiento jurídico. Barcelona: Bosch: 212–296.
  • Ferrari, F. (1951). La teologia della fede di Rodrigo de Arriaga. Rome: Gregorian University.
  • Neue Deutsche Bibliographie. Vol. I. Aachen-Behaim. 1953. pp. 398 ff.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Polgár, László (1957). Bibliographia de Historia Societatis Iesu in regnis Corona Hungarica unitis. Vol. III/1. Rome: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu. pp. 176 ff.
  • Fabrat, Antonio (1971). "P. Rodrigo de Arriaga". Pensamiento. 23: 215–235.
  • Arriaga, Rodrigo de, in Quintín Aldea Vaquero; Tomás Marín Martínez; José Vives Gatell (eds.), Diccionario de Historia Eclesiástica de España, vol. I, Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Enrique Flórez, 1972, p. 113;
  • Sousedík, Stanislav (1981). "La obra filosófica de Rodrigo de Arriaga". Ibero-Americana Pragensia. 15: 103–146.
  • Sousedík, Stanislav (1983). "Rodrigo de Arriaga, soucasnik J.A. Komenského". Studia Comeniana et historica. 13: 20–62.
  • Olmos, Ángel (1984). "Apuntes sobre un filósofo riojano: Rodrigo de Arriaga, S.J." Berceo (106–107): 129–141. ISSN 0210-8550. Retrieved 30 May 2016.
  • Mácha, Karel (1985). Glaube und Vernunft. Die böhmische Philosophie in geschichtlicher Übersicht. Vol. I. Munich: Saur. pp. 107–111.
  • Muñoz Box, Felix (1990). "La filosofía natural de Rodrigo de Arriaga". Estudios Filosóficos. 39: 591–604.
  • Oñate Guillén, Carmelo (1992). "Rodrigo de Arriaga, filósofo del barroco. ¿También científico?". Letras de Deusto. 22: 77–94.
  • "Dos cartas de Rodrigo de Arriaga a Andrés Mendo". Berceo. 125: 113–125. 1993.
  • Luna Alcoba, Manuel (1994). "El problema del continuo en la Escolástica Española: Rodrigo de Arriaga" (PDF). Fragmentos de Filosofía. 4: 137–150. ISSN 1132-3329.
  • Baciero González, Carlos (1997). "Rodrigo de Arriaga, filósofo metafísico". Berceo. 132: 169–183.
  • Salas Mora, Abel (1997). El sabio logroñés Rodrigo de Arriaga. Logroño: Instituto de Estudios Riojanos.
  • Saxlová, Tereza; Sousedík, Stanislav, eds. (1998). Rodrigo de Arriaga († 1667), Philosoph und Theologe: Prag 25.-28 Juni 1996. Prague: Karolinum.
  • Tozza, Elisabetta (1998). "Rodrigo de Arriaga e l'aristotelismo". Atti dell'Accademia Pontaniana. 47: 297–308.
  • Jean-Robert Armogathe, Dubium perfectissimum: The Skepticism of the 'Subtle Arriaga', in: Scepticism as a Force in Renaissance and Post-Renaissance Thought. New Interpretations, ed. by José Raimundo Maia Neto and Richard H. Popkin, Amherst, New York, Humanity Books, 2004, 107–121.
  • Penner, Sydney (2012). "Rodrigo de Arriaga on Relations". The Modern Schoolman. 89 (1): 25–46. doi:10.5840/schoolman2012891/24.
  • Alexander, Amir (2014), Infinitesimal: How a Dangerous Mathematical Theory Shaped the Modern World, Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux, pp. 139–141, 144–146, 298, ISBN 978-0-374-17681-5
  • Novotný, Daniel D. (2016). "Arriaga (and Hurtado) against the Baroque Mainstream: The Case of Ens rationis". Filosofický časopis. 64: 119–144.
  • Salas, Victor (2019). "Rodrigo de Arriaga, S.J. (1592-1667), on Analogy and the Concept of Being". Res Philosophica. 96 (1): 91–111. doi:10.11612/resphil.1747.
  • Haar, Christoph (2021). "Rodrigo de Arriaga (1592–1667) in Prague". History of Universities. XXXIV (2): 18–37. doi:10.1093/oso/9780192857545.003.0002. ISBN 978-0-19-285754-5.
  • Gellera, Giovanni (2021). "Natural Philosophy". A Companion to the Spanish Scholastics. Brill Publishers: 201–227. doi:10.1163/9789004296961_009. ISBN 9789004296961.
  • Vopěnka, Petr (2022). New Infinitary Mathematics. Praga: Karolinum Press. pp. 41–47. ISBN 9788024646633.
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