Originally posted by HalitoseDoes describing him as a "superstitious lout" count? Obviously you didn't bother to read LH's attack posts earlier in the thread.
Don't you think it takes some mental gymnastics to conclude that he had no philosophical impact/capability whatsoever from the above statement? Aren't you dealing a little too much in absolutes here (yeah, I know, self contradictory)?
EDIT: I'll start a collection:
What are his enduring contributions to philosophy? Or mathematics? Or science?
You're the one turning a mediaeval mystic with a passion for magic into a scientific visionary
he was a mystic whose cosmology was based on traditional Gnostic philosophy [flat out wrong as explained above]
but for his being put to death by the Inquisition, Bruno would've been a footnote in post-graduate textbooks on mediaeval esoteria long ago. [can't get any more insignificant than that!]
Bruno is remembered simply as a stick to beat the RCC with, a poster-boy for the Enlightenment - not for his contributions to science or philosophy.
I'm only up to page 6; need I go on???
Originally posted by HalitoseActually, I agree with no1. Let's look at the statement again.
Don't you think it takes some mental gymnastics to conclude that he had no philosophical impact/capability whatsoever from the above statement? Aren't you dealing a little too much in absolutes here (yeah, I know, self contradictory)?
Bruno's just a stick to beat the RCC with.
Notice the use of the word "just", implying that Bruno is nothing else. Subtract that word and I could agree with you but as it is Lucifershammer is clearly trying to communicate the idea that Bruno served no other purpose. Which is clearly incorrect.
TheSkipper
Edit: it seems LH actually used the word "simply" rather than "just" but the same thinking still applies.
Edit: Damn...here is the actual quote from the top of page 4:
"Bruno is nothing but a stick to beat the Church with."
I think the meaning is pretty clear.
Originally posted by TheSkipperActually he says the same thing three times; on the top of page 4 he uses the "nothing but" phrase, in the middle of page 4 it's "Bruno's just a stick to beat the RCC with" and on page 6, he goes to "simply". Same thing.
Actually, I agree with no1. Let's look at the statement again.
Bruno's just a stick to beat the RCC with.
Notice the use of the word "just", implying that Bruno is nothing else. Subtract that word and I could agree with you but as it is Lucifershammer is clearly trying to communicate the idea that Bruno served no other purpose. Which is clearly i is nothing but a stick to beat the Church with."
I think the meaning is pretty clear.
BTW, doesn't "nothing" = zero? What words were put in your mouth, LH?
Since LH has basically claimed that historians regard Bruno's philosophy as inconsequential, here's what famed Renaissance scholar Paul Oskar Kristeller wrote in Collier's Encyclopedia:
In his metaphysics, Bruno provided a connecting link between Cusanus and Spinoza and also exercised a direct influence on classical German idealism. In his cosmology, Bruno followed Lucretius and Copernicus, but he developed the implications of the Copernican system much further than Copernicus himself had done. More than the other Italian philosophers who were his contemporaries, Bruno deserves to be called a forerunner, if not a founder, of modern science and philosophy. In his thinking as well as in his writing he is bold and imaginative rather than precise or careful. yet his agreement with later scientific and philosophical theories that were unknown in his own time is often surprising. His tragic end has made him a martyr of philosophical liberty.
http://www.prop1.org/bruno.htm
Originally posted by HalitoseThis is from Bruno:
Don't you think it takes some mental gymnastics to conclude that he had no philosophical impact/capability whatsoever from the above statement? Aren't you dealing a little too much in absolutes here (yeah, I know, self contradictory)?
"This entire globe, this star, not being subject to death, and dissolution and annihilation being impossible anywhere in Nature, from time to time renews itself by changing and altering all its parts. There is no absolute up or down, as Aristotle taught; no absolute position in space; but the position of a body is relative to that of other bodies. Everywhere there is incessant relative change in position throughout the universe, and the observer is always at the center of things."
From the book, Giordano Bruno: His Life and Thought by Dorothea Waley Singer, Chapter 3:
To Bruno and to Bruno alone the suggestion of Copernicus entered into the pattern of a completely new cosmological order. In this sense Bruno not only anticipated Galileo and Kepler, but he passed beyond them into an entirely new world which had shed all the dross of tradition. It was a great vision which, from the very nature of the case, could be shared in full neither by his own nor by the succeeding generation.
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/bruno00.htm
I guess that's "astrology" according to LH.
EDIT: Dorothea Waley Singer
Mrs. Singer, wife of the noted British historian of science and medicine, Dr. Charles Singer, is well known for her special studies on Giordano Bruno and for her scholarship in medieval and Renaissance science and literature. Her teaching and writing career has taken her on two occasions to this country, where she made lecture tours in 1930 and 1932. Among many other titles, she has held that of Vice President of the History of Science Society in the United States.
Mrs. Singer is the author of Ambroise Paré; Catalogue of Greek Alchemical Manuscripts in Great Britain and Ireland; Catalogue of Latin and Vernacular Alchemical Manuscripts in Great Britain and Ireland Written Before the XVIth Century; and "Comenius and Confidence in the Rational Mind" in J. Needham's The Teacher of Nations.
LH: Have you actually read experts think about the scientific and philosophical value of his [Bruno's] works?
Singer, Chapter 3 (e):
The forces assailing the autonomy of the human will were on the one hand ecclesiastical authority, and on the other, belief in astrology and in the pagan conception of Fortuna or Fate. To none of these did Bruno yield obedience. His doctrine of Inner Necessity is, of course, incompatible with the cruder astrology. [82] His use of personification of the heavenly bodies is merely parable and symbol, "the Shadows of Ideas." [83]
LH: it's amply clear the man [ Bruno] did believe in astrology,
Originally posted by no1marauderYa gotta face it.. LH only knows Bruno though the eyes of his murderers.
Singer, Chapter 3 (e):
The forces assailing the autonomy of the human will were on the one hand ecclesiastical authority, and on the other, belief in astrology and in the pagan conception of Fortuna or Fate. To none of these did Bruno yield obedience. His doctrine of Inner Necessity is, of course, incompatible with the cruder astrology. [82] Hi ...[text shortened]... of Ideas." [83]
LH: it's amply clear the man [ Bruno] did believe in astrology,
Originally posted by no1marauder"Bruno is not a man."
I quoted your words, nitwit and I'll do it again:
Bruno's just a stick to beat the RCC with.
So you were wrong as usual and now you're trying to deny the logical import of your statement. Typical and laughable.
BTW, Bruno's cosmology was pretty much the polar opposite of Aristotle's "imperfect terrestial" realm and "perfect he ...[text shortened]... uff" throughout. Yet another shallow, ignorant reading from a shallow, ignorant man.
"Bruno is made of wood."
"Bruno is not a doctor."
All of these statements can also be construed as the "logical import" of my statement. Do you want to assert that I claimed any of these as well?
If you really want to do Scribbles-style nitpicking, go back over my statements - I said "Bruno is", not "Bruno was". Why do you think that is, no1? I clarified it further in my statement on page 6:
Why can't you simply evaluate Bruno's philosophy without bringing the RCC into it? If you can't, then you're proving my point - Bruno is remembered simply as a stick to beat the RCC with, a poster-boy for the Enlightenment - not for his contributions to science or philosophy.
Would it help if I replaced the word "simply" above with "primarily"?
As to Bruno's cosmology vs. Aristotle's, the point is not that they were polar opposites; the point is that both were built up from metaphysical/spiritual viewpoints rather than empirical observations. If I came up with a metaphysical viewpoint involving unicorns, dragons and turtles holding up the heavenly bodies such that it followed that the Solar System contained nine planets with the world we live in was the third of those, would you credit me with being "visionary"?
Originally posted by HalitoseWhatever the case, it took him nearly four days and a 100-odd posts to realise that I was "claiming Bruno's contribution to philosophy equals zero".
Don't you think it takes some mental gymnastics to conclude that he had no philosophical impact/capability whatsoever from the above statement? Aren't you dealing a little too much in absolutes here (yeah, I know, self contradictory)?
I wonder why that is.
Originally posted by no1marauderGnosticism is a wide-ranging set of beliefs - not all gnostic schools held to the emanation theory you are referring to here (which is more particularly neo-Platonist). The basic feature of gnostic thought is the idea of gnosis or special/mystical and experiental knowledge available only to a select few who achieve it through long years of mystical practice.
My understanding is that most Gnostics regarded matter and this universe in particular as imperfect creations of a lesser deity than the perfect God. Bruno's ideas of a vast, infinite and in some sense perfect universe seems completely contradictory to basic Gnostic beliefs.
Bruno's thought was, technically speaking, Hermeticist - an optimistic version of what is technically called Gnosticism that originated around the same time and places as Gnosticism.