Abstract
Johann Jakob Brucker was not only the most prolific writer on the history of philosophy in Germany up to the middle of the eighteenth century, but it was he above all who understood how best to respond in his writings to the demands that the philosophical culture of the time was making of the historian of philosophy. The notion of eclecticism, which he inherited from the Thomasian current and which was originally a tool of philosophical argument against Aristotelian Scholasticism, was transformed into a historical notion of much greater importance, providing a technique for reading the past of philosophy that rendered it topical and placed it at the centre of philosophical debate. The eclectic is not indifferent when confronted with any manifestation of thought, even if it is very far from the spirit of his time, since he wishes to know about the sources and the possibilities of error, and to free the field of research from the prejudices and obstacles that have so far impeded the attainment of truth. The history of philosophy also shows the progress that man has made on this path, described as a progress out of the darkness of the sects and into the light of eclecticism, and marked by a gradual and increasingly secure recognition of the limitations and capabilities of human reason.
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Notes
- 1.
Brucker still remembered him with affection in 1767: “Half a century later we remember Carl Friedrich Buddeus, then a private teacher at the University of Jena, whose friendship and most elegant erudition we had the good fortune to enjoy as soon as, by the will of divine providence, we arrived at that school. It was he who first aroused our interest in the history of philosophy and urged us on with his essay ‘De Pyrrhonis scepticismo’ which we published in the Miscellanea Lipsiensia shortly before his death in 1716, when he was about to take the post of rector of the grammar school in Stettin, an essay that we have republished, after extending and emending it, in our Miscellanea” (Brucker, vi, p. 873).
- 2.
On the epistolary exchange between Brucker and Muratori, which took place from 1743 to 1748 cf. Edizione nazionale del carteggio di L.A. Muratori, Vol. 10/II, ed. F. Marri (Florence, 2003), pp. 236–251.
- 3.
Brucker, i, p. 7: “Est vero philosophia amor sive studium potius sapientiae: sapientia vero est solida cognitio veritatis, circa eas res sive divinae sint, sive humanae, quae ad veram hominis felicitatem faciunt, et ad usum et praxin applicari suo modo possunt, quae applicatio si recte instituatur, et ita felicitas hominis vera promoveatur, tum demum sapientiam genuina significatione sumtam exhibet, et hoc ipso sapientiam a philosophia distinguit, quae veritatis divinae et humanae principia et regulas exponit, et qua ratione felicitas humani generis inde vel acquiri vel conservari et augeri queat, tradit, adeoque suis fundamentis nixa scientiam gignit, nisi tamen in usum convertatur, sapientiae nomine indigna est”.
- 4.
“Jene aber erfordert so wohl 1. deutliche, unzweiffelhaffte und gewisse Principia und Grund-Sätze, aus welchen alles deutlich kan hergeleitet werden, als auch 2. einen gründlichen, ungezwungenen und natürlichen Erweiss der Sätze aus vorher fest gestellten Grund-Sätzen, durch welche sodann 3. die dargegen gemachte Einwürffe also können beantwortet werden, dass die wahrheit desto fester bekräfftiget wird” (Kurtze Fragen, i, p. 8).
- 5.
Cf. Santinello, “Il problema metodologico nella storia critica della filosofia di Jakob Brucker”, p. 301. In this definition of philosophy, in which the systematic character proved to predominate over the human interest, Braun also saw a clear symptom of the influence that Wolffian philosophy had over Brucker, compared with that of his iniitial training at the “eclectic” school of Buddeus (Braun, p. 132). Brucker’s movement towards Wolffian ideas, which took place in the 1730s and ‘40 s, in the period of the greatest spread of Wolffism, did not involve a rejection of all of his previous philosophical training, but rather its integration with a conception that responded better to the demands of systematicity and the rigorous foundation of philosophical questions, an aspiration that was in any case already present in Buddeus. Meanwhile, the echoes of the battle of the Pietest theologians against Wolff were fading away. According to the account that Brucker was to give in the sixth volume of the Historia critica, there was at the base of the polemic against Wolff’s Spinozism a misunderstanding, due to Buddeus’ misinterpretation of Wolffian metaphysics: “Although he [Buddeus] was distinguished for the incomparable breadth of his erudition, yet he was not sufficiently expert in Wolffian philosophy, and since he practised a more ‘popular’ style of writing he did not understand enough the profound and esoteric metaphysics of Leibniz and of Wolff and rejected with distrust the sense of those paradoxical hypotheses for fear of offending religion with the audacity of the human mind” (Brucker, vi, p. 899).
- 6.
In the “Vorrede” to the first volume of the Kurtze Fragen, (p.13), Brucker spoke of the two-fold usefulness of the biographical account: “Denn das hat einen doppelten Nutzen. Einmahl lernet man die Tugenden und Laster solcher Leute, ihre Bemühungen um die Weissheit, ihre Schichsale, ihre Lehr-Arten, Freunde und Feinde kennen, welches dann in der Sitten-Lehre und in der Klugheit zu leben fürtreffliche Dienste thun kan; und so denn lernet man auch diejenige besondere Umstände solcher Männer einsehen, welche in ihre Systemata und Haupt-Meinungen einen grossen Einfluss haben, welches man nicht entrathen kan, wenn man vernünfftig und gründlich davon urtheilen will”.
- 7.
Brucker, I, p. 13: “Non vero cautum tantum doctumque historicum desiderat historia philosophica, sed et philosophiae mysteriis innutritum; quisque enim in ipsa philosophia hospes est, nunquam vel veteres intelliget, vel recentiores mente assequetur, vel judicium quoque suum interponet feliciter”.
- 8.
Brucker, I, p. 15: “Ut itaque de sententia philosophorum sanum rectumque judicium ferri queat, totum ex eorum scriptis systema ita eruendum est, ut ante omnia principia generalia, quae fundamenti loco toti doctrinarum aedificio subjiciuntur, eruantur, et his demum illae superstruantur conclusiones, quae ex istis fontibus sponte sua fluunt”.
- 9.
Brucker, I, p. 21: “Est enim haec fatorum sapientiae humanae enarratio revera historia intellectus humani, quae, quid ille valeat, qua ratione tenebris ereptus et veritatis luce collustratus per varios casus, per tota discrimina rerum ad cognoscendam veritatem et felicitatem pervenerit, per quos anfractus aberraverit, qua ratione revocatus in regiam viam ad metam contenderit, quibusque mediis ita felicitati animi ministraverit, luculenter edisserit, et ita expositis ingenii humani fatis, quae via supersit, quae syrtes vitandae, quis portus anhelandus, verbo, quid ab intellectu humano adhuc expectandum sit, exponit”.
- 10.
The theme of usefulness (utilitas historiae philosophicae) is discussed at length in the “Dissertatio praeliminaris” (Brucker, i, pp. 21–31), following the framework that we have met in Gerhard and Heumann. Apart from its specific function, which is to be the history of the human intellect, a list of errors, and a summary of inventions and things still to be discovered, Brucker emphasizes its importance as an auxiliary science to the other disciplines, adminiculum omnium scientiarum, in particular to theology, jurisprudence, and medicine, which constituted, with philosophy, the four faculties of the university system of the period.
- 11.
Brucker, v, p. 4: “Nempe ille solus nobis eclecticus philosophus est, qui procul ire iusso omni auctoritatis, venerationis, antiquitatis, sectae, similiumque praeiudicio ad unam rationis connatae regulam respicit, exque rerum, quas considerandas sibi statuit, natura, indole, et proprietatibus essentialibus clara et evidentia principia haurit, ex quibus iustis ratiocinandi legibus usus, conclusiones deinde de problematibus philosophicis deducit: hac vero norma posita, in legendis aliorum philosophorum meditationibus ac expendendis examinandisque doctrinarum aedificiis nihil recipit, quod non rationum severitati et demonstrationis rigori faciat satis”.
- 12.
K. Alt emphasizes the centrality of the religious point of view in Brucker’s historiography: “Brucker ging in Buddeus’ Spuren den Weg des Ekletizismus. Aber nicht aus einem philosophischen Prinzip heraus geht er in dieser Richtung, sein Ziel und Zweck ist rein religiöser und theologischer Art […]. Dem ‘Reiche Gottes’ soll alle Philosophie und ihre Geschichte dienen, das ist Bruckers Meinung und Ziel. Deshalb werden alle philosophischen Systeme und Schulen daraufhin geprüft, ob sie diesem Ziele dienen oder nicht und dementsprechend eingeschätzt und beurteil” (Alt, Jakob Brucker, pp. 78–79). J. Proust, on the contrary, defines Brucker’s Christianity as “liberal and near to deism”: “Le rationalisme de Brucker n’est pas le masque mondain d’un apologiste habile, mais bien une option fondamentale de sa pensée. La preuve en est qu’à la différence de plusieurs de ses prédécesseurs il n’exclut pas la religion du domaine de ses investigations. […]. Il est cependant un point au-delà duquel il ne saurait s’aventurer, c’est celui où le rationalisme poussé jusqu’à ses extrêmes conséquences substitue à la croyance en une religion révélée qui s’accorde en tout point avec la religion naturelle, l’absence de toute croyance, c’est-à-dire l’athéisme”; however, these consequences went further than Brucker intended: “Il est pasteur autant que philosophe, et son ouvrage a pour but d’incliner vers la religion chrétienne les bons esprits, soucieux d’accorder la foi qu’on leur propose avec les exigences de leur raison” (Proust, Diderot et l’Encyclopédie, pp. 246 and 254).
- 13.
“Lectori benevolo”, p. [3]: “Cuncta enim ex originibus suis derivabimus, ipsorumque, ubi copia erat, auctorum verba dedimus, quod haud raro factum est, ut tota eorum systemata essent explicanda”.
- 14.
On the sources of Plato’s thought, “as he was of a somewhat syncretist way of thinking and inclined to mix up systems” (Brucker, i, p. 632), there is more detail also in the Historia critica (pp. 631–641) in the following paragraphs: “Disciplina socratica”; “Studia philosophiae post Socratis mortem”; “Itinera literaria”; “An Hebraeos doctores Plato habuerit?”; “Disciplina Platonis Pythagorica”; “Fontes philosophiae Pythagoricae”.
- 15.
Kurtze Fragen, i, p. 590; cf. Brucker, I, p. 637: “in this matter, they [the Church Fathers] gave greater proof of their piety than of their critical judgement”.
- 16.
The birth of the notion of “idea” is related in the Historia critica as an example of synthesis between opposing teachings: “As a young man he was taught by Cratylus the Heraclitan that matter is always in movement; it is always changing, it does not remain the same as itself but becomes something other. He maintained this doctrine and at the same time he added to it the numbers of Pythagoras, that is to say his ideas and those eternal and immutable principles, and thus he defined as fixed and immutable that which for Heraclitus was by nature always in movement, and he defined as identical in itself and permanent what was for the other always different” (Brucker, i, p. 666).
- 17.
Kurtze Fragen, i, p. 639: “Die Philosophie seye eine Liebe der Weissheit, da die von dem Leib und dessen Banden sich lossmachende Seele sich zu der ächten Wahrheit, und demjenigen, was würcklich ist, und allein mit dem Verstand begrieffen wird, wendet”. For a comparison, see the same definition in Albinus: “Philosophy is the desire for knowledge or for the release and separation of the soul from the body; by means of it we turn towards intelligibles and towards beings that truly exist; wisdom is the science of divine and human things”, in G. Invernizzi, Il Didaskalikos di Albino e il medioplatonismo (Rome, 1976), Vol. ii, p. 3.
- 18.
Kurtze Fragen, i, pp. 650–651: “1. Aus nichts werde nichts. 2. Es seyen von Ewigkeit her zwey unendliche einander entgegen gesteze Principia, Gott und die Materie, aus jenem kommen alle geistliche, aus diesem alle materielle Dinger her”. In the Historia critica these two “philosophemes” are repeated: “1. Nothing is created from nothing […] 2. There are therefore two causes of all things, one by which all things exist, the other of which all things consist. The first is God, the other is matter, which as they are opposed to each other are thus eternal and not dependent on each other” (Brucker, i, pp. 676–678).
- 19.
Cf. Paulsen, Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts, Vol. i, p. 572; Alt, Jakob Brucker, p. 67. Among Hübner’s textbooks are: Kurtze Fragen aus der neuen und alten Geographie (Leipzig, 1722); Genealogische Tabellen, nebst denen darzu gehörigen genealogischen Fragen, zur Erläuterung der politischen Historie (Leipzig, 1723).
- 20.
Kurtze Fragen, “Vorrede”, i, p. [18]: “einmahl bin ich offt genöthiget worden bey vielen Umständen zu einem historichen Pyrrhonismo meine Zulflucht zu nehmen, ob man es gleich bissher für eine unstreitige Wahrheit angenommen hat, weil die Gesetze des historischen Glaubens dergleichen Vorsichtigkeit erfordert haben. Und so denn habe ich mich auch bemüssiget befunden, sehr viele Fabeln und ungegründete Mährlein auszumertzen, welche uns die alten und mittlere Zeiten auf den Ermel gebunden, und man gemeiniglich so richtig als ein Evangelium gehalten hat”.
- 21.
Brucker, i, p. 1143: “Sed et ipsa Eleatica secta inter se distinguenda est, inque duas classes separanda, quarum illa metaphysice magis, haec physice de rerum natura disseruit, utraque sibi in multis e diametro adversa”.
- 22.
Brucker, i, p. 49: “Quod si enim philosophiae propria significatio pro norma fuisset adhibita, si distinctum fuisset, inter eruditionem et cognitionem rerum a vulgo diversam, et inter philosophiam, si philosophandi initia ab incrementis et formali habitu fuissent separata, si modus tradendi sapientiam per auctoritatem parentis et magistri a philosophandi methodo accurata et meditatione cuncta per causas et principia sua inquirente fuisset segregatus, facile tota controversia in logomachian abitura evanuisset”.
- 23.
Brucker, i, p. 232: “Quod vero imprimis probe ponderandum putamus, et Posidonii fidem suspectam facit, illud est, quod modus philosophandi per hypotheses et principiorum systemata, quem ab introductis atomis philosophi secuti sunt, indoli philosophiae Barbaricae, quae tota traditiva simplex nudisque assertis constans fuit, adversa sit, et aperte ingenium Graecanicum sapiat”.
- 24.
Brucker’s guide in his treatment of neoplatonism is a significantly-titled dissertation by L. Mosheim (Moshemius), inserted in the second volume of the previously-mentioned Latin translation of The True Intellectual System of the Universe: L. Moshemius, De turbata per recentiores Platonicos ecclesia, in R. Cudworth, Systema intellectuale huius universi seu de veris naturae rerum originibus (Jena, 1733; Leyden, 1773), Vol. ii, pp. 747–808. Other works by Johann Lorenz Mosheim (1693–1755) that can be mentioned are his successful textbooks of ecclesiastical history, among them Institutiones Historiae Christianae antiquioris (Helmstädt, 1737); Institutiones Historiae Christianae recentioris (Helmstädt, 1741). A collection of essays recalls the model of the eccelesiastical history of G. Arnold: Anderweitiger Versuch einer unparteiischen und gründlichen Ketzergeschichte (Helmstädt, 1746–1748).
- 25.
Brucker, iii, p. 554: “Ut enim ipsa philosophia situ squaloreque obducta et abiecta iacuit, ita humani quoque intellectus historia prorsus neglecta est”.
- 26.
Brucker, iii, p. 895: “Qui cum incertas et obscuras voces pro rerum principiis supposuisset, nacti hi homines talem ducem ad dialecticas et metaphysicas tricas totam scientiam naturalem revocarunt, et tam amplum rerum creatarum theatrum, in ontologiam quandam, vel, ut rectius dicamus, in terminorum confusorum et nihil significantium chaos transformarunt, entia sibi naturalia fingentes, quae solae formaverunt abstractiones absurdissimae”.
- 27.
Brucker, i, pp. 800–805: i. “Ineluctabilis obscuritas scriptorum Aristotelis”; ii. “Scopus philosophiae Aristotelis”; iii. “Philosophiae aulae moribus aptata”; iv. “Philosophia naturalis incerta et vaga”; v. “Mathematica intempestive immixta”; vi. “Aristotelis philosophiae non omne denegandum pretium”.
- 28.
Brucker, ii, pp. 357–382: i. “Indolem accepit a patria Aegypto, ubi exclusa est, et in qua syncretismus religionum diu iam regnaverat”; ii. “Occasio huius syncretismi ad philosophiam translati dissensiones Phil. Alex.”; iii. “Philosophia Pythagorico-Platonica loco fundamenti electa”; iv. “Sed cum Aristotelica conciliata et cum reliquis sectis”; v. “Enthusiasmus finis huius philosophiae”; vi. “Tota philosophia enthusiasmo superstructa. Platonicum systema adulteratum”; vii. “Caussae electi enthusiasmi”; viii. “Philosophia orientalis sibi vindicata”; ix. “Attemperata Christianorum rationibus”; x. “Superstitionis facies picta et emendata”; xi. “Philosophorum dissidia sublata”; xii. “Vitae philosophorum sanctae Christianis oppositae”; xiii. “Receptae doctrinae Christianorum”; xiv. “Christus numero philosophorum adscriptus”; xv. “Philosophis non minora miracula vindicata, quam essent Christi”; xvi. “Fraudes, suppositiones, mendacia habita […]”; xvii. “Severior et praestantior doctrina de Deo divinisque exculta”; xviii. “Sanctior philosophia moralis revocata”.
- 29.
The prevalence of biographical items in the division of the historiographical material and their use in the explanation of systems was to be judged by the historians of philosophy of the subsequent period as a sign of Brucker’s lack of philosophical spirit. Note what Tennemann states in A Manual of the History of Philosophy, I, p. 15: “Brucker published the most complete work yet known, which, by a laborious assemblage of documents, by the judiciousness of his remarks, and particularly by what it contains on the biography of the philosophers, continues to be useful; but it is deficient in philosophical spirit”.
- 30.
The two first paragraphs are taken from the Discourse on Method: “Cogitationes Cartesii de methodo inveniendi verum”, v, pp. 287–289; “Regulae morales Cartesii”, v, pp. 289–291. The final paragraph is taken from The Passions of the Soul: “Cartesii dogmata de passionibus animae”, v, pp. 323–330. In his account of metaphysics and physics Brucker used not the Metaphysical Meditations, but the Principles of Philosophy, which he could repeat almost word for word because of its arrangement by theses: “Metaphysica Cartesii, de principiis cogitandi”, v, pp. 291–304; “Cartesii philosophemata de rebus materialibus”, v, pp. 304–311; “Principia Cartesii de mundo aspectabili”, v, pp. 311–318; “Cartesii sententia de terra”, v, pp. 318–323.
- 31.
Because of Brucker’s tendency to apply the theoretical frameworks of the present to the history of philosophy, his method would later be regarded by Hegel as anti-historical: “Brucker’s method is to endow the single theorem of an ancient philosopher with all the consequences and premises which must, according to the idea of the Wolffian Metaphysics, be the premises and conclusions of that theorem, and thus easily to produce a simple, naked fiction as if it were an actual historical fact” (G.W.F. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, translated by E.S. Haldane (London, 1892–1896), Vol. i, p. 43).
- 32.
Brucker was defined by Braun as the builder of the historico-philosophical science, according to the Enlightenment ideal of clarity and definition: “Ce que Montesquieu entreprend dans le domaine des constitutions ou A. Smith dans celui de l’économie, Brucker le tente dans celui des opinions philosophiques. C’est en cherchant à les expliquer, à faire apparaître le principe de leur devenir et de leur transformation, qu’il en change le statut. Elles ne valent plus désormais comme des absolus, qu’il conviendrait simplement de répéter. Elles s’intègrent dans un enchaînement complexe qui les comprend et qui en fait des moments nécessaires” (Braun, p. 122).
- 33.
The text by Scipio Aquilianus that Brucker had in mind was the De placitis physicis veterum philosophorum ante Aristotelem (Venice, 1604), which his son, Carl Friedrich Brucker, reprinted in Leipzig in 1756 “ex scriniis paternis”; the work by Burnet was the famous Archaeologia philosophica, added to the Theoria telluris sacra (Amsterdam, 1699; London, 17332, 17343).
- 34.
Cf. W.H. Beckher, Catalogus scriptorum, qui de Cartesio in ejus vel vitae momumenta, vel doctrinam, novasque hypotheses inquirendo pluribus disseruerunt, in Num Cartesius recte atheis annumereretur? (Königsberg, 1724).
- 35.
Cf. A. Baillet, La Vie de Mr. Des-Cartes (Paris, 1690); a summary of it appeared shortly after: La Vie de Mr. Des-Cartes abrégée (Amsterdam, 1693).
- 36.
The edition of Sextus Empiricus used by Brucker was the Opera omnia edited by Fabricius: Sexti Empirici Opera Graece et Latine, Codd. castigavit, versiones emendavit, supplevitque et toti operi notas addidit Jo. A. Fabricius (Leipzig, 1718). The De placitis philosophorum, on the attribution of which to Plutarch there were already strong doubts (“although it is uncertain whether this book […] was written by Plutarch”: ii, p. 181) is cited in W. Xylander’s translation (Frankfurt, 1606). The most important of the ancient histories of philosophy is considered to be Laertius’ De vitis (“quam ubique adhibuimus”: ii, p. 624), which Brucker read in the translation of M. Meibom (Amsterdam, 1693) without, however, forgetting Menage’s famous commentary.
- 37.
One of these refers to the figure of Zoroaster: “Horn should not be listened to; he seems to identify Zoroaster with the Bilea mentioned by Moses; this opinion is not at all likely, apart from the art of magic attributed to both of them, which led him to confuse many famous magicians with Zoroaster” (Brucker, i, p. 120).
- 38.
A proof of this is provided by the introduction of the clinamen into the atomistic system on the part of Epicurus; this does not have a rational justification, but can be explained by Epicurus’ desire to save the contingency of the world and the liberty of man, in opposition to the Stoics: “Whence does this clinamen come to atoms? The cause is not explained in those of Epicurus’ texts that have come down to us, nor in Gassendi […]. He affirmed this fortuitous deviation in order to oppose Democritus’ necessity, without however thinking about how the atoms could have deviated, given their necessity and the law of gravity” (Brucker, i, pp. 1264–1265).
- 39.
When, once again for the Acta eruditorum, Heumann reviewed the volumes of the Kurtze Fragen, he emphasized the completeness of the documentation gathered by Brucker and his systematic use of historical criticism: “He also corroborates the subjects that he expounds with the testimonies of the best writers, after consulting recent, and also contemporary, writers who have seriously studied this kind of history. In fact, he never displays credulity but examines everything in the correct way. Thus he throws doubt on many things that up to now were considered as very sure, and he rejects from among the myths many stories that very learned men previously believed” (AE, 1731, p. 559). Further on he praised Brucker’s work as one written “very carefully and with the most refined judgement”, as the first Historia philosophica to be completed “something that had not previously been done by any of the learned men” (NAE Suppl., i, p. 124; ii, p. 427).
- 40.
The publishing of charts or mnemonic tables for the Historia critica had been requested of Brucker himself, especially by Italian scholars (maxime apud Italos). In response to this demand, as an appendix at the end of Vol. vi there is a “Tabula mnemonica”, apparently by an author unknown to Brucker himself (“he was not identified to us except by the initials of his name I.C.B”). There is also a mention (Historia critica, vi, pp. 32–33) of six tables “engraved on copper and also coloured to make them easier to memorize” by the engraver Matthäus Seuterus: Philosophiae universae origines et successiones a mundi ortu ad praesens seculum iuxta observationes recentissimas, quas in Historia critica philosophiae excussit Jacobus Bruckerus succincte Diatyposi aere exhibitas (Augsburg, 1753).
- 41.
G. Mollowitz, “Kants Platoauffassung”, Kantstudien, xl (1935), p. 18. For Mollowitz, three aspects of Platonism that Kant inferred from Brucker were of importance: 1. The distinction between the sensible world and the intelligible world; 2. The Platonic notion of idea, in the double sense of the object of the intellectual intuition of God, and archetype of sensible things; and 3. The difference between human and divine knowledge.
- 42.
The Histoire abrégée is divided into three books, corresponding to the three periods of Brucker’s history: 1. “Depuis la création du monde, jusqu’à la fondation de Rome”, pp. 29–153; 2. “Depuis la fondation de Rome jusqu’au rétablissement des Lettres”, pp. 154–204; 3. “Depuis le rétablissement des lettres jusqu’à présent”, pp. 205–320. The work is preceded by an “Introduction”, pp. 9–26, in which the author explains the concept of philosophy and the criteria that he intends to follow. The Histoire abrégée was soon translated into English: A Concise History of Philosophy (London, 1766).
- 43.
J.A. Naigeon, Philosophie ancienne et moderne (Paris, 1791), Vol. i, p. x: “On est étonné, sans doute, que l’énorme compilation de Brucker et de Stanley n’apprenne au fond que fort peu de choses, qu’on sauroit même mieux, et avec moins de peine et d’ennui, en consultant les sources […]. Tant de passages accumulés, tant d’expériences réunies, lorsque l’esprit philosophique n’a pas guidé le savant, et éclairé le pas de l’osservateur, ne prouvent souvent que la patience de l’un et les petites vues de l’autre”.
- 44.
Casini managed to identify 43 articles in the Encyclopédie drawn almost entirely from the Historia critica; among them: “Antediluvians”, “Arabs”, “Chaldeans”, “Chinese”, “Eclecticism”, “Eleatics”, “Epicureanism”, “Hobbesism”, “Ionic”, “Bruno”, “Leibnizianism”, “Locke”, “Megaric”, “Peripatetic”, “Platonism”, “Pyrrhonism”, “Pythagorism”, “Scholastics”, “Socratic”, “Stoicism”, “Thomas Aquinas” (cf. Casini, Diderot “philosophe”, p. 259).
- 45.
According to Proust, there is no substantial difference between the historico-philosophical and philosophical articles of the Encyclopédie: “La différence qui les sépare est formelle. L’exposé des systèmes philosophiques ou religieux des anciens n’est qu’un moyen habile de répandre le pyrrhonisme, l’athéisme, et le matérialisme. Les articles non historiques ont pour rôle d’exprimer en termes clairs les idées à peine dissimulées ailleurs sous le voile de ce qu’on pourrait appeler l’allégorie historique” (Proust, Diderot et l’Encyclopédie, p. 264).
- 46.
G.B. Vico, The New Science, translated from the third Edition (1744) by T.G. Bergin and M.H. Fisch (Ithaca, N.Y., 1948), § 347, p. 92. Mentioned again in G.B. Vico, L’autobiografia. Il carteggio e le poesie varie, eds. B. Croce and F. Nicolini (Bari, 1929²), p. 256. A lively criticism of the Historia doctrinae de ideis can be found in the Platonist Paolo Mattia Doria (cf. above, Chapter 4, Introduction), who was linked to Vico by friendship and by cultural interests: P.M. Doria, Difesa della metafisica degli antichi filosofi contro il signor Locke ed alcuni altri moderni autori (Venice, 1732), “Prefazione”: “I again question the book by an anonymous author, entitled the Historia philosophica de ideis: and I question it because although he may protest that he does not wish to do other than write the history of those authors who discussed the subject of ideas, in one place he gives the impression that he is favourable to the Sensists and against Plato”.
- 47.
Cf. above, Chapter 4, Introduction; P. Zambelli (La formazione filosofica di Antonio Genovesi, pp. 378–379) points out the analogy of the notion of “eclecticism” in Genovesi and in the Encyclopaedists, explained by their common reference to the Thomasius-Buddeus-Brucker current.
- 48.
GLF, T. vi, Part iv (1753), p. 88. This attitude is traced back to the intelligence of the Germans: “Bear in mind that in this country studies on logic and metaphysics are more in vogue than those on physics and mathematics, otherwise, the omissions made by Mr. Brucker would be less excusable” (p. 89).
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“Agatopisto Cromaziano, or Appiano Buonafede, achieves a strange mixture of the erudition of Brucker and the lighter tones of Voltaire: strange, because he was a friar and ‘Voltairized’ in the name of the faith and the Church” (B. Croce, Storia della storiografia italiana nel secolo decimonono (Bari, 1921), Vol. i, p. 286). Garin speaks of “a not always successful compilation based principally on Brucker’s Historia critica philosophiae, often badly cobbled together” (Garin, iii, p. 1000).
- 50.
A. Cromaziano, Kritische Geschichte der Revolutionen der Philosophie in den drey letzen Jahrhunderten. Aus dem Italianischen mit prüfunden Anmerkungen und einem Anhange über die Kantische Revolution versehen von K.H. Heydenreich, 2 Vols. (Leipzig, 1791).
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Cf. Pereira Gomes, Os começos, p. 28. Manuel do Cenáculo Vilas Boas (1724–1814), after receiving a doctorate at Coimbra, travelled in 1749 to Rome, where he probably came to know Brucker’s work. A friend of the Marquis of Pombal, whose school reforms he inspired, he was bishop of Beja and then archbishop of Évora, where he founded a large public library. Cf. F. da Gama Caeiro, Frei Manuel do Cenáculo, Aspectos da sua actuação filosófica (Lisboa, 1959); J. Marcadé, Frei Manuel de Cenáculo Vilas Boas, évêque de Beja, archevêque d’Évora (1770–1814) (Paris, 1978); J.A. Gomes Machado, Un coleccionador português do sêculo das luzes: D. Frei Manuel do Cenáculo, Arcebispo de Évora (Évora, 1987); Frei Manuel do Cenáculo, construtor de bibliotecas, eds. F.A.L. Vaz and J.A. Calixto (Casal de Cambra, 2006).
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The work is divided into five parts, the first two of which are specifically historical: “Pars prima: origines, fata et incrementa logicae expendens”; “Pars secunda: fertur iudicium de praeexplicatarum sectarum logicali doctrina” (Gama Caeiro, Frei Manuel do Cenáculo, pp. 186–196 and 197–206).
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We recall as an example the criticism made of Ch. Thomasius: “The question of the number of the operations of the mind is by no means without value. The very first principle is not this: whatever things accord with human reason, that is with the senses and ideas, are true, while those that do not accord are false” (Gama Caeiro, Frei Manuel do Cenáculo, p. 204). Brucker had written: “The question of the number of the operations of the mind is obscure and pointless. This is the very first principle: whatever things accord with human reason, that is with the senses and ideas, are true, while those that do not accord are false” (Brucker, v, p. 493).
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The first volume contains, as well as the “Preface”, a schema summarizing the topics (“An epitome of the history of philosophy”, pp. xiii–xxvii), some observations on the usefulness and the method of the history of philosophy (“Preliminary observations”, pp. 2–13), and the first period (pp. 14–503). The second volume sets out the other two periods (ii, pp. 1–618) with an Appendix on the non-European peoples (“Hints relative to the modern state of philosophy in Asia”, ii, pp. 619–628). William Enfield (1741–1797) was rector of the academies at Warrington and Norwich. Among his works – as well as commemorative addresses, collectios of prayers and sermons – are: An Essay towards the History of Liverpool, 1773; The Speaker, or Miscellaneous Pieces collected from the Best English Writers, 1774; Discourse on the Progress of Religion and Christian Knowledge, 1780; Institutes of Natural Philosophy, 1785. Cf. DNB, ii, pp. 787–788.
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In the manual based on the Geschichte der Philosophie Tennemann distinguished three periods in modern philosophical historiography, the first from Bayle to Leibniz, the second from Brucker to Kant, the third after Kant. In the period characterized by Brucker “philology and criticism improved the materials collected; some imperfections of the works of preceding age were corrected, and the science assumed more elevated pretensions”; in the third period the writers worked on perfecting the theory and method and they reached a more appropriate way of exposition “under the influence, more or less sensible, of a philosophical system” (Tennemann, i, p. 15).
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Buhle’s opinion confirms this type of assessment, which was stated in the age of Kant: “Er hat zwar die Geschichte der Philosophie mit dem Auge eines Literators angesehen, und aus diesem Geschichtspuncte behandelt” (J.G. Buhle, Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie und einer kritischen Literatur derselben, Vol. i, Göttingen, 1796, p. 8). Cf. Gumposch, p. 223: “An Fleiss hat diesen Mann nicht leicht Jemand übertroffen. Und wie ihn seine Zeitgenossen durch Aufnahme in die Berliner Akademie, Leipziger deutsche Gesellschaft u.s.w. geehrt, so nennt man noch jetzt seine Werke dankbar als Materialiensammlungen. Zur richtigen Würdigung der philosophischen Systeme fehlte ihm aber die nöthige Geistesfreiheit”.
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Cousin, Cours de philosophie, p. 355 (English transl., p. 234). Cousin formulated the link between philosophy and the history of philosophy in a general law: “A great philosophical movement is then the indispensable condition, and at the same time the certain principle of an equal in the history of philosophy. Every great speculative movement contains in itself, and sooner or later produces necessarily, its history of philosophy, and even a history of philosophy which is conformed to it” (pp. 346–347; English transl., p. 230). Hence the three great German histories of philosphy of the 18th century are related to the three philosophies that characterize modern thought: Cartesian rationalism (Brucker), empiricism (Tiedemann), Kantism (Tennemann).
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DSPh, p. 386. The sources of Brucker’s historiography are found in Bayle’s “critique” and in Leibnizian philosophy: “Si on veut indiquer les vrais fondateurs de l’histoire de la philosophie, c’est à Bayle et à Leibniz que ce titre doit être décerné. Le premier a mis au monde la critique et le second a tracé le plan de la nouvelle science; Brucker a eu l’honneur de lui élever son premier monument” (ibid.).
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See the opinion expressed by Schopenhauer in opposition to the historians of his time: “Moreover, it may be reckoned that such a money-making writer of the history of philosophy can have read scarcely a tithe of the writings about which he furnishes a report. Their real study demands all of a long and studious life, such as the stout-hearted Brucker formerly devoted to them in the industrious times of old” (A. Schopenhauer, “Fragments for the History of Philosophy”, in Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], transl. E.F.J. Payne (Oxford, 2000), I, p.31).
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To Braun, Kantian philosophical historiography is different: “C’est désormais la raison elle-même qui assume la responsabilité des formes historiques, mais d’une manière nouvelle, en tant qu’elle s’y reconnait comme l’activité informante et constituante. Le passé n’apparait plus comme ce qui diffère d’un ordre donné, valable en soi et par rapport auquel il ne peut se déterminer que comme erreur: mais comme le résultat d’un exercice, dont on a surpris le fonctionnement” (Braun, p. 257).
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The source of Buddeus’ philosophical historiography was not the eclecticism of Leibniz but that of Thomasius and Buddeus, which, directly inspired by the anti-Scholastic and anti-Aristotelian polemic, was on principle against every kind of reconciliation or syncretism both of ancient with modern philosophy and of Graeco-pagan thought with Christianity. Note what is stated by Enrico Berti, on the other hand, who detects the premises of Brucker’s history of philosophy, through the mediation of Leibniz, in Renaissance Platonism, and more precisely in Steucus. Steucus, “by means of the concept of perennial philosophy, managed to give the history of philosophy a continuity and a unity of development of a kind that it had never known” (E. Berti, “Il concetto rinascimentale di philosophia perennis e le origini della storiografia filosofica tedesca”, Verifiche, vi (1977), pp. 6–7). Apart from the criticisms made of Steucus in the Historia critica (“he did not pay enough attention to the authenticity of the written records or to the true meaning of teachings and dogmas, but he used corrupt and debased works as if they were trustworthy testimonies; in this way he corrupted the sense of the teachings of the sects and sometimes also of sacred teachings, and in declaring his full approval of Plato he betrayed the [Christian] religion”: Brucker, iv, p. 754), it is notable that Brucker identified in the “concordant” attitude of the young Leibniz the major obstacle to the realization of the project of “a history not of philosophers but of philosophy” which he found in Jakob Thomasius: “Following his guidance, while very young he compared the ancients and the moderns, examined their teachings, revealed the underlying reasons, and distinguished himself to such a point that if he had not, I do not know by what unfortunate chance, become dominated by his study of syncretism among the ancients and the moderns, philosophical history could have hoped for great developments from him while he was still young” (Brucker, V, p. 374).
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Cf. J.E. Schubert, Historia philosophiae. Pars prima (Jena, 1742). Here the author makes use of the geometric method, proceeding by definitions, scholia and corollaries, but according to Brucker he did not take enough account of historical and philological criticism: “Given that he does not set out a critical history of the opinions of the ancients, but puts forward an apology of ancient physiology and ancient theology, it is not surprising that the ancient teachings should have appeared to him in a form different from the way we have described them in our critical history, free from all prejudice of hypotheses and based exclusively on the testimony of the ancients and supported by an accurate logical examination” (Brucker, vi, p. 31).
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Longo, M. (2010). A “Critical” History of Philosophy and the Early Enlightenment: Johann Jacob Brucker. In: Santinello, G., Piaia, G. (eds) Models of the History of Philosophy. International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives internationales d'histoire des idées. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9507-7_8
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