Abstract
In his De immortalite animorum (1545), Cardano proves to be abreast of the contemporary debate over the individual immortality of the human soul. The debate had reached its peak when Pietro Pomponazzi published De immortalitate animae (1516). Cardano did not hesitate to measure himself with such complex topics as the nature of the passive, potential and active intellects, skilfully manoeuvring among the interpretations of a wide range of past commentators (Theophrastus, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius, Simplicius, Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas). From a speculative point of view, the boldest and most original part of the treatise is the solution given by Cardano to the question of the individual survival of human souls. Given the elements of the puzzle left by Aristotle (his views on the eternity of the world and on the productive and fully actualised nature of the intellect), the most plausible explanation for Cardano was to assume a plurality of active intellects, each characterised by both individuality and immortality, cyclically transmigrating from one body to another every time such bodies perish. This chapter shows how Cardano’s solution was powerfully influenced by Averroes’s doctrine of the intellect’s unity.
Translated from Spanish by Anna Akasoy and Guido Giglioni.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
From the point of view of Averroes, there is no place in the field of Aristotelianism to appeal for an afterlife. Thus, the expression of ‘collective immortality’ must be understood as referring to the intelligible contents of the eternal Material Intellect. These contents, initially extracted from the imaginative powers of particular perishing human beings, become subsequently immortal when they are collected by an intellectual entity which is in itself everlasting.
- 2.
Averroes, Commentarium magnum in Aristotelis De anima libros, ed. F. Stuart Crawford (Cambridge, MA: The Medieval Academy of America, 1953), p. 470; Id., Long Commentary on the De anima of Aristotle, ed. and trans. Richard C. Taylor (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009), pp. 374–375. See Amos Bertolacci’s chapter in this volume.
- 3.
See Aristotle, De anima, I, 1, 403a9; trans. W. S. Hett (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936), p. 15: ‘if this too is a kind of imagination, or at least is dependent upon imagination, even this cannot exist apart from the body.’
- 4.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, Ia, q. 75, a. 2; Quaestio de anima, a. 14.
- 5.
Thomas Aquinas, Quaestio de anima, a. 1.
- 6.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, Ia, q. 89, a. 1; Blackfriars edition, 61 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964–1976; repr. 2006), vol. XII, trans. Paul. T. Durbin, pp. 139–141.
- 7.
See Bruno Nardi, Saggi sull’aristotelismo padovano dal secolo XIV al XVI (Florence: Sansoni, 1958), p. 446.
- 8.
Pietro Pomponazzi, Tractatus de immortalitate animae, ed. Gianfranco Morra (Bologna: Nanni & Fiammenghi, 1954), p. 82.
- 9.
See P. O. Kristeller, Renaissance Thought and Its Sources (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979), p. 193. To have a comprehensive view of the controversy, including the most significant aspects of Pomponazzi’s De immortalitate animae, see Martin L. Pine, Pietro Pomponazzi: Radical Philosopher of the Renaissance (Padua: Antenore, 1986), pp. 124–234. I also would like to refer the reader to the impressive ‘Introduzione’ that Vittoria Perrone Compagni has provided with her Italian translation of De immortalitate (Florence: Olschki, 1999), pp. V-CI.
- 10.
Cardano, De immortalitate animorum, p. 257; Opera omnia, ed. Charles Spon, 10 vols (Lyons: Jean-Antoine Huguetan and Marc-Antoine Ravaud, 1663; reprint: Stuttgart and Bad Cannstatt: Frommann, 1966), II, p. 493b.
- 11.
See Aristotle, Physics, III, 5, 204a20-34.
- 12.
Cardano, De immortalitate animorum, pp. 141–142; Opera omnia, II, p. 463a.
- 13.
See Siger of Brabant, Quaestiones in tertium de anima, ed. Bernardo Bazán (Louvain: Publications Universitaires; Paris: Béatrice-Nauwelaerts, 1972), q. 9, pp. 25–26.
- 14.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, II, 75, n. 2; trans. Anton C. Pegis, James F. Anderson, Vernon J. Bourke, and Charles J. O’Neil, 5 vols (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), II (trans. Anderson), pp. 232–233.
- 15.
Ibid.
- 16.
Cardano, De immortalitate animorum, p. 294; Opera omnia, II, p. 505b.
- 17.
Themistius, In libros Aristotelis de anima paraphrasis, ed. Richard Heinze, in Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, ed. H. Diels, 23 vols (Berlin: Reimer, 1882–1909), V, iii (1890) pp. 103–104.
- 18.
Averroes, Commentarium magnum in Aristotelis De anima libros, pp. 411–412; Id., Long Commentary on the De anima of Aristotle, pp. 328–329.
- 19.
See Albertus Magnus, De unitate intellectus, in Opera omnia, 40 vols, ed. Bernhard Geyer et al. (Münster: Aschendorff, 1951-), XVII, i, p. 12; Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, II, 75, n. 4; De veritate, q. 11, a. 1, arg. 6; Summa theologiae, I, q. 117, a. 1 co.
- 20.
Cardano, De immortalitate animorum, p. 296; Opera omnia, II, p. 505b.
- 21.
See Aristotle, Metaphysica, VII, 8, 1034a7; XII, 2, 1069b30; XII, 8, 1074a33; De anima, II, 2, 414a25-27.
- 22.
Philip Merlan, Studies in Epicurus and Aristotle (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1960), pp. 159 ff.
- 23.
Cardano, De immortalitate animorum, p. 296; Opera omnia, II, p. 505b.
- 24.
Averroes, Commentarium magnum in Aristotelis De anima, p. 442; Id., Long Commentary on the De anima of Aristotle, p. 354.
- 25.
Cardano, De immortalitate animorum, p. 296; Opera omnia, II, p. 506a.
- 26.
Cardano, De immortalitate animorum, p. 296; Opera omnia, II, p. 506a. Cf. Averroes, Commentarium magnum in Aristotelis De anima, p. 411.
- 27.
Averroes, Commentarium magnum in Aristotelis De anima, p. 490.
- 28.
Cardano, De immortalitate animorum, p. 297; Opera omnia, II, p. 506a.
- 29.
Cardano, De immortalitate animorum, pp. 297–298; Opera omnia, II, p. 506a.
- 30.
On this question, see Edmond Barbotin, La théorie aristotélicienne de l’intellect d’après Théophraste (Louvain and Paris: Publications Universitaires de Louvain, 1954) and Dimitri Gutas, ‘Averroes on Theophrastus, through Themistius’, in Averroes and the Aristotelian Tradition: Sources, Constitution and Reception of the Philosophy of Ibn Rushd (1126–1198), eds Gerhard Endress and Jan A. Aertsen, with the assistance of Klaus Braun (Leiden: Brill, 1999), pp. 125–144.
- 31.
Themistius, In Aristotelis de anima paraphrasis, p. 108, 18–34; Id., On Aristotle’s On the Soul, pp. 133–134.
- 32.
Themistius, In Aristotelis de anima paraphrasis, p. 107, 30–108, 7; Id., On Aristotle’s On the Soul, p. 133.
- 33.
See Theophrastus of Eresus. Sources for His Life, Writings, Thought, and Influence, ed. William W. Fortenbaugh, Pamela M. Huby, Robert W. Sharples and Dimitri Gutas, 2 vols (Leiden: Brill, 1992).
- 34.
Averroes, Commentarium magnum in Aristotelis De anima, p. 432; Id., Long Commentary on the De anima of Aristotle, p. 345.
- 35.
See Themistius, In Aristotelis de anima paraphrasis, p. 103, 4–5, 13; Id., On Aristotle’s On the Soul, p. 129.
- 36.
See Themistius, In Aristotelis de anima paraphrasis, p. 105, 30–34; Id., On Aristotle’s On the Soul, p. 131.
- 37.
See Themistius, In Aristotelis de anima paraphrasis, p. 100, 37–101,1; Id., On Aristotle’s On the Soul, p. 125.
- 38.
See Themistius, In Aristotelis de anima paraphrasis, p. 101, 1–4; Id., On Aristotle’s On the Soul, p. 126.
- 39.
Cardano, De immortalitate animorum, p. 297; Opera omnia, II, p. 506a.
- 40.
Themistius, In Aristotelis de anima paraphrasis, p. 105, 30–34; Id., On Aristotle’s On the Soul, p. 131.
- 41.
Cardano, De immortalitate animorum, p. 297; Opera omnia, II, p. 506a.
- 42.
Simplicius, In libros Aristotelis de anima commentaria, ed. Michael Hayduck, in Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, ed. H. Diels, 23 vols (Berlin: Reimer, 1882–1909), XI (1882), p. 238, 5–13; Id., On Aristotle’s On the Soul, 3.1-5, trans. H. J. Blumenthal (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000), p. 104.
- 43.
Proclus, In Platonis Timaeum commentaria, ed. Ernst Diehl, 3 vols (Leipzig: Teubner, 1903–1906), III, p. 333, 29 and ff.
- 44.
Simplicius, In libros Aristotelis de anima commentaria, p. 247, 3–13; Id., On Aristotle’s On the Soul, 3.1-5, p. 116.
- 45.
Cardano, De immortalitate animorum, p. 301; Opera omnia, II, p. 506b.
- 46.
Cardano, De immortalitate animorum, p. 301; Opera omnia, II, p. 506b.
- 47.
Thomas Aquinas, De unitate intellectus contra Averroistas, in Aquinas against the Averroists: On There Being Only One Intellect, ed. Ralph McInerny (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1993), p. 133. See Aristotle, Categories, 2, 1a25-27.
- 48.
Cardano, De immortalitate animorum, p. 302; Opera omnia, II, p. 507a.
- 49.
Ibid.: ‘Nam formas materia exortas pro subiectis compositis numerare nullum est incoveniens.’
- 50.
Ibid.
- 51.
Ibid., p. 303; Opera omnia, II, p. 507a.
- 52.
See p. 163 and n. 41.
- 53.
Themistius, In Aristotelis de anima paraphrasis, p. 103, 32–34; Id., On Aristotle’s On the Soul, p. 129.
- 54.
Here I would like to mention an alternative interpretation that can be traced back to Thomas Aquinas, in his commentary upon this passage from book 3 of De anima. For Aquinas, it is not necessary that the active intellect contains the intelligibles or that it be their creator before they take shape in the material or potential intellect. This would be a contradiction; for, if the active intellect possessed in itself the determination of all the intelligibles, the material intellect would have no need to conceive and abstract from those intelligibles the imaginative forms that come from the senses. They would be actualised in the material intellect with the mere presence of the agent intellect. However, since the intelligibles can only be obtained through a process of abstraction that requires the availability of images, it is better – so Aquinas argues – to consider the intellect as a kind of immaterial power that makes other beings similar to it, i.e., immaterial. This is what is meant by the active intellect converting the potential into actualised intelligibles. See Thomas Aquinas, Commentaire du traité de l’âme d’Aristote, ed. Jean-Marie Vernier (Paris: Vrin, 1999), p. 357.
- 55.
Aristotle, De anima, III, 5, 430a10-14.
- 56.
Alexander of Aphrodisias, De anima, in Praeter commentaria scripta minora, ed. Ivo Bruns (Berlin: Reimer, 1887–1892), p. 89, 17–19.
- 57.
Averroes, Commentarium magnum in Aristotelis de anima libros, p. 439; Id., Long Commentary on the De anima of Aristotle, p. 345.
- 58.
Averroes, Commentarium magnum in Aristotelis de anima libros, p. 385: ‘ista substantia que dicitur intellectus materialis nullam habet in sui natura de formis materialibus istis. Et quia forme materiales sunt aut corpus aut forme in corpore, manifestum est quod ista substantia que dicitur intellectus materialis neque est corpus neque forma in corpore; est igitur non mixtum cum materia omnino.’
- 59.
Averroes, Commentarium magnum in Aristotelis de anima libros, pp. 499–500; Id., Long Commentary on the De anima of Aristotle, pp. 398–399.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Valverde, J.M.G. (2013). Averroistic Themes in Girolamo Cardano’s De Immortalitate Animorum . In: Akasoy, A., Giglioni, G. (eds) Renaissance Averroism and Its Aftermath: Arabic Philosophy in Early Modern Europe. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 211. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5240-5_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5240-5_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-5239-9
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-5240-5
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)