Bernardino Telesio

Bernardino Telesio (Latin Bernardinus Telesius; * 1508 or 1509 in Cosenza, † October 2, 1588 ) was an Italian philosopher and natural scientist.

Life

Telesio was born in Cosenza in Calabria, and studied in Padua and Rome. There he was a long time given the support of Pope Paul IV, who also came from Naples and its appeal to the Archbishop of Cosenza, he turned down his philosophical researches sake. After his death, he returned ( 1566) to Naples, where his ideas were taken up by a number of young Southern Italian philosopher Tommaso Campanella among others, Pierre Gassendi, Giordano Bruno, Thomas Hobbes and Francis Bacon. Telesio tried to replace the Aristotelian philosophy of matter and form by a dynamic theory of antithetical forces. His principal work, " De Rerum Natura " ( On the Nature of Things, the title sounds to Lucretius on ), published 1565-1587 in two parts in Rome and Naples. In it, he developed a spectacular system based on the concepts of matter and force, as well as independent observations of nature. Starting point of the research must be the sensory experience, it Telesio accesses the pre-Socratic philosophers, Empedocles on back. This is the working basis, which was founded in Naples by him naturalist Academy Telesiana that went down soon, but many imitations found.

As principles of things Telesius determined two incorporeal forces: heat and cold, and matter. The heat emanates from the sky, the cold of the earth; former is the principle of motion, thinning, expansion, revival, the latter the reason for the rigidity and rest. The more heat in a thing, the more flexible it is, how the stars. The world is a constant struggle of the dry - warm - wet with the cold, the heat area itself the scene of a dialectical interplay an expansive, sun-like and a cold, astringent, earthy strength. Through the struggle of heat and cold heaven and earth and the individual things have emerged. The gorgeous sun triumphs over the earthy and produces the light. Telesio is reflected in this value -prone version of light along with Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Francesco Patrizi as a precursor of the Enlightenment.

Matter is the passive, sluggish resisting substance which expands and contracts with heat and cold, diluted and is compressed, but in all change their quantity keeps constant. In the organisms is a by the heat from the seed drawn "life spirit " of the nerve (especially in the brain) has its seat and is active throughout the body. The man also has an arm's length independent, added by God, immortal soul. The sensation ( sensory perception) based on the action of things on the "spirit", who feels his affections. In the spirit comes to the memory and the intuitive thinking, to which the intellect ( the activity of the soul ) is bound. - The ultimate goal of the Spirit is self-preservation; the drive after you come to all things. What is the self-preservation conducive to excite lust, what is your opposite, pain. In moderation, the affects dominant action, in self-preservation and self-improvement, there is a virtue. All virtues ( wisdom, courage, kindness, etc. ) are only sides of the same virtue. In the pursuit, which, on the desire to preserve its natural condition, but also the effect makes man truly heavenly and divine, Telesius sees the majesty of the human spirit. Such a noble mind not seeking the honor of wealth, power, or happiness, but according to those which he obtained by his greatness of soul. The honor of this sublime spirit strives not for its own sake. He looks for the goods that bring true honor to their intrinsic value sake. The grandeur, the epitome and crown of the virtues, the great man gives the perfection of a universal spiritual culture. This sublime soul is in misfortune unshaken and without anger against Insults by words or deeds of such people who are deeply under her and not worth that they wasted their strength to such creatures. Your happiness she finds in one's own purity and perfection.

Works (excerpts)

• Varii de rebus naturalibus libelli, from Antonio Persio editi, alii quorum nunquam antea excusi, alii meliores facti prodeunt. Venice 1590 ( Photomechan. reprint with foreword by Cesare Vasoli Hildesheim / New York:. Olms 1971).

In this by his pupil Antonio Perseo posthumously published collected works are included:

• De cometis et lácteo circulo (1590)
• De his, qui fiunt in aere, et de terrae motibus ( 1570)
• De iride
• De mari ( 1570)
• Quod animal universe from unica substantia animae gubernatur, adversus Galenum
• De usu respirationis
• De coloribus ( 1570)
• De saporibus
• De SOMNO

Earlier editions:

• De rerum natura iuxta propria principia. (Rome 1565).
• De rerum natura iuxta proria principia. / De his, quae fiunt in aere, et de terraemotibus. / De COLORUM generatione. / De mari. (Naples 1570).