Routledge History of Philosophy Volume IV

82 RENAISSANCE PHILOSOPHY OUTSIDE ITALY
10 Henry More is discussed in vol. 5, Chapter 1, as is another Neoplatonist, Ann
Conway. For a discussion of the connection between these two philosophers,
F.M.van Helmont and Leibniz, see Brown [2.170].
11 Van Helmont, [2.62], 13.
12 On the influence of Champier, see Copenhaver [2.115]. On the ‘ancient theology’
in sixteenth-century France, see Walker [2.108], ch. 3.
13 For the encouragement of Aristotle’s philosophy, see note 29 below. The fate of
Bruno discussed at the end of the previous chapter is symptomatic of the reaction
against Neoplatonism in Catholic orthodoxy. For an account of the reaction against
the occult philosophy, see also Yates [2.109].
14 Thus Berkeley, in his late work Siris (1744), sought to argue that ‘the
Pythagoreans and Platonists had a notion of the true System of the World’ (sec.
266) and explicitly acknowledged key Neoplatonic figures such as Plotinus,
Proclus and Iamblichus.
15 Some of those discussed as sceptics on pp. 85–7, such as Montaigne, may also be
classed as Christian humanists. Erasmus, Vives and perhaps Agrippa can also be
discussed under both heads.
16 See pp. 83–4. See also Allen [2.75] and Jungkuntz [2.93].
17 There is a version of this debate edited and translated by E.W.Winter as Erasmus-
Luther: Discourse on Free Will, New York, 1961.
18 See Miles [2.137].
19 See Limbrick [2.162], 3off.
20 See Mariana [2.54]. See also Talmadge [2.148],
21 Agrippa [2.46], from the preface ‘To the Reader’.
22 Agrippa also (see pp. 77 and 85–6) had positive commitments to the occult
philosophy, in particular to natural magic. Whether his overall position is a
consistent one has puzzled those who have studied his work. See Bowen [2. 127],
Nauert [2.128] and Zambelli [2.129],
23 Quoted from Paracelsus [2.42], 55.
24 See Redgrove and Redgrove [2.166].
25 See Debus [2.111],
26 The Paracelsians invoked an ‘Archeus’ or ‘world soul’ as a kind of universal cause
and the Neoplatonists generally sought to defend a vitalistic view of the world in
opposition to the mechanical philosophy. Leibniz frequently criticized them for
doing this (e.g. L.E.Loemker (ed.) Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Philosophical
Papers and Letters (Dordrecht, Reidel, 2nd edn, 1969), p. 409; P.Remnant and
J.Bennett (eds) G.W.Leibniz: New Essays on Human Understanding (Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 72). That is partly why he distinguished the
Renaissance Neoplatonists from and contrasted them unfavourably with Plato.
Thus he criticized Ficino for launching into extravagant thoughts and abandoning
what was more simple and solid. ‘Ficino speaks everywhere of ideas, soul of the
world, mystical numbers, and similar things, instead of pursuing the exact
definitions Plato tries to give of notions’ (C.I. Gerhardt (ed.) Die Philosophischen
Schriften von G.W.Leibniz (Berlin, 1875–90), vol. i, p. 380).
27 Lefèvre d’Étaples was not exclusively interested in Aristotle. He was also
influenced by Neoplatonism and edited Neoplatonic works.
28 Leibniz cast himself as such a reformer of philosophy, as a reviver of the true
Aristotle against the distortions of the scholastics in a letter to his former teacher,