- London, England, United Kingdom
Dilwyn Knox
University College London, School of European Languages, Faculty Member
- https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/9556-dilwyn-knox/aboutedit
A substantially revised version of my entry 'Giordano Bruno'' for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, focussing on his cosmology, ontology and psychology.
Research Interests: Renaissance Philosophy, Intellectual History of the Renaissance, Panpsychism, Italian Renaissance literature, Giordano Bruno, and 8 morePantheism, Medieval history, Renaissance philosophy, Reformation Theology, Ancient, Mediaeval and Renaissance Philosophy, History of Renaissance Philosophy, Renaissance Cosmology, History of Philosophy, Renaissance Theology, and Philosophy of Renaissance and Humanism
The paper shows that a) Erasmus's treatise De civilitate was widely adopted in Protestant Latin schools during the sixteenth century; b) that the ideals that it espoused conformed to a well-established tradition in religious, clerical and... more
The paper shows that a) Erasmus's treatise De civilitate was widely adopted in Protestant Latin schools during the sixteenth century; b) that the ideals that it espoused conformed to a well-established tradition in religious, clerical and secular eduction; and c) that the ideal of rational bodily conduct suited the ideals of Reformation education.
Research Interests: Philosophy and Soul
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A detailed discussion of the philosophical ideas and context of Giordano Bruno's argument in his best known work, De la causa.
Research Interests: Philosophy and Immanence
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'Giovanni Bonifacio's L'arte de' cenni and Renaissance Ideas of Gesture'. ... Knox, D (1996) 'Giovanni Bonifacio's L'arte de' cenni and Renaissance Ideas of Gesture'. In: Tavoni, M, (ed.)... more
'Giovanni Bonifacio's L'arte de' cenni and Renaissance Ideas of Gesture'. ... Knox, D (1996) 'Giovanni Bonifacio's L'arte de' cenni and Renaissance Ideas of Gesture'. In: Tavoni, M, (ed.) Italia ed Europa nella Linguistica del Rinascimento. Confronti e Relazioni, Atti del ...
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The publication of this work was aided by the Stanwood Cockey Lodge Foundation Publications in the series Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition are listed at the end of this volume Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data... more
The publication of this work was aided by the Stanwood Cockey Lodge Foundation Publications in the series Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition are listed at the end of this volume Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Knox, Dilwyn. Ironia: medieval and ...
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script that preserves the identified recollecte are considered by the editor to have a similar Pontanian provenance. These texts open a revealing window onto the inner workings of humanist schools in mid-fifteenth-century Italy. In the... more
script that preserves the identified recollecte are considered by the editor to have a similar Pontanian provenance. These texts open a revealing window onto the inner workings of humanist schools in mid-fifteenth-century Italy. In the first place, they show that a humanist master such as Pontano was concerned, above all else, with teaching philology, both in the narrow sense of Latin lexicography, orthography, etymology, and pronunciation; and in the wider meaning of exegesis and historical, mythological, antiquarian, ethnological, and geographical context. Morals — albeit an overriding concern of Pontano’s in his many dialogues and treatises — make no appearance here. As far as sources are concerned, Pontano relied heavily on genuinely ancient commentators such as Servius; despite his polemics against barbarous medieval grammarians, he nevertheless made extensive use of medieval authorities such as Isidore of Seville, Papias, Hugutio, and Giovanni Balbi too. In the classroom, Pontano was no purist, even employing the non-classical formula Nota quod, beloved of medieval grammarians such as Bene da Firenze and Giovanni da Soncino. Pontano emerges, like other humanist pedagogues such as Guarino and Perotti, as a pragmatist: he adjusted the level of his teaching to the often limited knowledge and capacities of his pupils. Particularly notable in this regard is his recourse to the vernacular to provide explanations of, and synonyms for, rare or difficult Latin words; the volgare here has Southern Italian characteristics, further suggesting the extent to which Pontano (Umbrian by birth and early education) adapted his teaching practices to the needs of his Neapolitan pupils. Pontano’s lessons provided the same kind of hybrid menu — drawing as he did on classical Greek and Latin as well as late ancient, early Christian, and medieval sources — that typified the education offered up by other fifteenth-century Italian pedagogues. Giuseppe Germano and Antonietta Iacono have provided much new material for students of Italian humanism and particularly for historians of school education in fifteenth-century Italy. Their studies, editions, and commentaries are prepared with careful attention to detail and with commendable philological rigor. ROBERT BLACK University of Leeds
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... 166 COPERNICUS ON GRAVITY Figure 2. Peter Apiary Cosmographicus liber, Nuremberg 1524, p. 6. The spheres are arranged as in Figure 1, with the exception of the water and air spheres, which form here a composite terraqueous globe... more
... 166 COPERNICUS ON GRAVITY Figure 2. Peter Apiary Cosmographicus liber, Nuremberg 1524, p. 6. The spheres are arranged as in Figure 1, with the exception of the water and air spheres, which form here a composite terraqueous globe rather than two distinct spheres. ...
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Research Interests: Philosophy and Copernicus
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'Giovanni Bonifacio's L'arte de' cenni and Renaissance Ideas of Gesture'. ... Knox, D (1996) 'Giovanni Bonifacio's L'arte de' cenni and Renaissance Ideas of Gesture'. In: Tavoni, M, (ed.)... more
'Giovanni Bonifacio's L'arte de' cenni and Renaissance Ideas of Gesture'. ... Knox, D (1996) 'Giovanni Bonifacio's L'arte de' cenni and Renaissance Ideas of Gesture'. In: Tavoni, M, (ed.) Italia ed Europa nella Linguistica del Rinascimento. Confronti e Relazioni, Atti del ...
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A detailed discussion of the philosophical ideas and context of Giordano Bruno's argument in his best known work, De la causa.
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... 166 COPERNICUS ON GRAVITY Figure 2. Peter Apiary Cosmographicus liber, Nuremberg 1524, p. 6. The spheres are arranged as in Figure 1, with the exception of the water and air spheres, which form here a composite terraqueous globe... more
... 166 COPERNICUS ON GRAVITY Figure 2. Peter Apiary Cosmographicus liber, Nuremberg 1524, p. 6. The spheres are arranged as in Figure 1, with the exception of the water and air spheres, which form here a composite terraqueous globe rather than two distinct spheres. ...
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... 166 COPERNICUS ON GRAVITY Figure 2. Peter Apiary Cosmographicus liber, Nuremberg 1524, p. 6. The spheres are arranged as in Figure 1, with the exception of the water and air spheres, which form here a composite terraqueous globe... more
... 166 COPERNICUS ON GRAVITY Figure 2. Peter Apiary Cosmographicus liber, Nuremberg 1524, p. 6. The spheres are arranged as in Figure 1, with the exception of the water and air spheres, which form here a composite terraqueous globe rather than two distinct spheres. ...
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Summary Book II rehearses many cosmological and metaphysical ideas addressed elsewhere in De immenso, and indeed in Bruno’s other works. The last two chapters, 12 and 13, however, develop an idea that he had hitherto discussed only... more
Summary
Book II rehearses many cosmological and metaphysical ideas addressed elsewhere in De immenso, and indeed in Bruno’s other works. The last two chapters, 12 and 13, however, develop an idea that he had hitherto discussed only briefly, namely, the perfection of the universe. The chapters take the form of a detailed criticism of Aristotle’s arguments in De caelo, I 1, that the cosmos was a perfect, finite, body, followed by his alternative proposal. This took as its starting point a scholastic distinction between two forms of perfection: the perfection of finite bodies and the absolute perfection of God. Bruno then added that God’s image, the infinite universe, albeit corporeal, must also be absolutely perfect. The numberless solar systems or «synods» contained within it, perfect as they were in the finite sense, were the «messengers» announcing its absolute perfection and thereby providing, God incarnate, individual soul with the means to perfect itself. Now, given that the universe, no less than God, was absolutely perfect, it was absolutely good. It accommodated the apparent imperfections, including evil, of finite things by virtue of being, again like God, a coincidence of opposites. It must also, according to the scholastic principle that transcendentals such as good, truth and being, were convertible in God’s unity, be absolute Being. Hence, in Book II, chapters 12 and 13, as elsewhere, Bruno defined the universe, rather than God, as the Eleatic One Being of which all sensible things were transitory modes. To complement this interpretation Bruno reascribed the scholastic definition of God as an infinite sphere to the Eleatics and applied it to his «second God», the universe. The concept of perfection, as formulated in Book II, chapters 12 and 13, led Bruno to clarify, perhaps more concisely than on any other occasion, the cohesion of some key ideas in his «new philosophy».
Book II rehearses many cosmological and metaphysical ideas addressed elsewhere in De immenso, and indeed in Bruno’s other works. The last two chapters, 12 and 13, however, develop an idea that he had hitherto discussed only briefly, namely, the perfection of the universe. The chapters take the form of a detailed criticism of Aristotle’s arguments in De caelo, I 1, that the cosmos was a perfect, finite, body, followed by his alternative proposal. This took as its starting point a scholastic distinction between two forms of perfection: the perfection of finite bodies and the absolute perfection of God. Bruno then added that God’s image, the infinite universe, albeit corporeal, must also be absolutely perfect. The numberless solar systems or «synods» contained within it, perfect as they were in the finite sense, were the «messengers» announcing its absolute perfection and thereby providing, God incarnate, individual soul with the means to perfect itself. Now, given that the universe, no less than God, was absolutely perfect, it was absolutely good. It accommodated the apparent imperfections, including evil, of finite things by virtue of being, again like God, a coincidence of opposites. It must also, according to the scholastic principle that transcendentals such as good, truth and being, were convertible in God’s unity, be absolute Being. Hence, in Book II, chapters 12 and 13, as elsewhere, Bruno defined the universe, rather than God, as the Eleatic One Being of which all sensible things were transitory modes. To complement this interpretation Bruno reascribed the scholastic definition of God as an infinite sphere to the Eleatics and applied it to his «second God», the universe. The concept of perfection, as formulated in Book II, chapters 12 and 13, led Bruno to clarify, perhaps more concisely than on any other occasion, the cohesion of some key ideas in his «new philosophy».
The relation God/world and the necessity of the infinite universe · The aim of this chapter is to present the most relevant points of De immenso’s first book, focussing on the differences from the Italian dialogue De l’infinito, and in... more
The relation God/world and the necessity of the infinite universe · The aim of this chapter is to present the most relevant points of De immenso’s first book, focussing on the differences from the Italian dialogue De l’infinito, and in particular on the a priori demonstration that the infinity of the universe proceeds necessarily from the divine cause as Bruno conceives it. The essay follows the tri- partite structure of Book i, paying attention to Bruno’s idea of planetary systems (synodi ex mundis) as the basic cosmological structure of the infinite universe as well as to his polemics with the scholastic distinction between the absolute and the ordained power of God.
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... To the administrators and staff I owe a special debt of gratitude. Equally generous with their more specialized collections on the campus of the University of Toronto were the libraries of Emmanuel, Knox, Wycliffe, and Regis colleges.... more
... To the administrators and staff I owe a special debt of gratitude. Equally generous with their more specialized collections on the campus of the University of Toronto were the libraries of Emmanuel, Knox, Wycliffe, and Regis colleges. ...
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... To the administrators and staff I owe a special debt of gratitude. Equally generous with their more specialized collections on the campus of the University of Toronto were the libraries of Emmanuel, Knox, Wycliffe, and Regis colleges.... more
... To the administrators and staff I owe a special debt of gratitude. Equally generous with their more specialized collections on the campus of the University of Toronto were the libraries of Emmanuel, Knox, Wycliffe, and Regis colleges. ...
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This volume includes some of the papers from the second and third instalments of the series Festival Bruniano, held in Geneva in 2015 and in Tours and Wittenberg in 2018, respectively. By picking up the baton from the inaugural edition of... more
This volume includes some of the papers from the second and third instalments of the series Festival Bruniano, held in Geneva in 2015 and in Tours and Wittenberg in 2018, respectively. By picking up the baton from the inaugural edition of 2014 and the two preparatory colloquia that preceded it in 2013, this volume aims to discuss Giordano Bruno’s contribution to sixteenth-century ideas by focusing on some theological, moral, and legal-political aspects of his philosophy. Starting from a re-evaluation of Christianity after Luther’s Reformation, the four sections of this volume pay special, but not exclusive, attention to Bruno’s later philosophical teaching, including his Wittenberg period and the ‘Frankfurt trilogy’.
Research Interests: Intellectual History, History of Ideas, Theology, Early Modern History, Renaissance Studies, and 15 moreRenaissance Humanism, Legal History, Renaissance Philosophy, Reformation Studies, Natural philosophy, History of Political Thought, Early Modern Church History, Church History, Scholastic Philosophy, Giordano Bruno, History of International Legal Thought, Second Scholasticism, Early Modern Philosophy, Reformation, and Early Modern English Literature and Drama
Il De immenso viene composto, in otto libri, nel 1583, in Inghilterra, e poi pubblicato a Francoforte nel 1591. Insieme al De triplici minimo e al De monade esso fa parte di una trilogia dedicata al duca Enrico Giulio di Braunschweig e... more
Il De immenso viene composto, in otto libri, nel 1583, in Inghilterra, e poi pubblicato a Francoforte nel 1591. Insieme al De triplici minimo e al De monade esso fa parte di una trilogia dedicata al duca Enrico Giulio di Braunschweig e Lüneburg. Nonostante una ricca bibliografia critica, ampiamente descritta nell’introduzione del volume, mancava fino ad oggi uno studio dedicato interamente al De immenso, nel quale si offrisse una presentazione integrale del contenuto dei singoli libri tenendo sempre presente il contesto intellettuale europeo al quale Bruno risponde e con il quale si confronta. Con questo obiettivo si è tenuto a Barcellona, nell’aprile del 2018, il convegno internazionale «Giordano Bruno, De immenso et innumerabilibus. Letture critiche», dove l’esame degli otto libri dell’opera è stato accompagnato da interventi su aspetti generali del poema. Se ne presentano qui i risultati, nella speranza di offrire agli studiosi una sorta di ‘guida’ alla lettura del De immenso che possa contribuire alla più ampia attenzione, da parte di curiosi e di specialisti, verso questa opera così importante del pensiero bruniano.