Routledge History of Philosophy Volume IV

38 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE
Progressive Aristotelians in the second half of the sixteenth century took
advantage of both the Arabic and Greek traditions. Jacopo Zabarella (1533–89),
a professor of logic and natural philosophy at Padua, developed an extremely
influential theory of method by drawing in equal measure on Averroes and
Simplicius. Certain knowledge, he concluded, could be attained through a
demonstrative regression, proceeding first from effect to cause (resolutio), and
then working back from cause to effect (compositio). 122 Zabarella regarded
induction, which dealt only with the effects known to the senses, as an inferior
form of ‘resolutive’ or a posteriori demonstration, but he recognized that it was
essential for disciplines like natural philosophy. 123 Zabarella was himself a great
believer in observation, often calling on his experience of meteorological
phenomena or his acquaintance with contemporary technological processes to
corroborate Aristotelian theories. 124 The best Peripatetic science in this period
showed a similar empirical basis: Andrea Cesalpino (1519–1603), who revised
the Aristotelian taxonomy of plants, made extensive use of the botanical garden
at Pisa and even took into account specimens recently brought back from the
New World. 125
Yet even the most advanced Aristotelians did not progress from empiricism to
experimentalism. They remained content to observe nature passively in order to
confirm established doctrines rather than trying to devise methods of active
intervention or validation. They saw their task not as searching out new
approaches to the study of nature but as explaining and at best extending the
Aristotelian framework within which they operated. This also meant leaving aside
matters on which Aristotle had not made explicit pronouncements, such as the
immortality of the soul—a problem which Zabarella referred to the
theologians. 126
Territorial disputes between philosophy and theology were not, however, at an
end. Zabarella’s successor Cesare Cremonini (1550–1631) was attacked by the
Inquisition for discussing from a Peripatetic viewpoint the eternity of the world
and the absence of divine providence in the sublunary realm. Reiterating the
traditional Paduan commitment to a naturalistic exposition of Aristotle,
Cremonini replied: ‘I have acted as an interpreter of Aristotle, following only his
thought.’ 127 This statement was a strong reaffirmation of the autonomy of
philosophy. 128 But in the context of the early seventeenth century, it also
signified that Aristotelian natural science was a spent force, reduced to sterile
and pedantic exegesis of set texts. Cremonini, the most eminent (and highly
paid) Aristotelian of his day, was a completely bookish philosopher, lacking the
interest in direct observation displayed by the previous generation but sharing
their unwillingness to question the doctrinal foundation of Aristotelian
philosophy. He is best remembered—appropriately, if perhaps apocryphally—as
the man who refused to look in Galileo’s telescope, preferring to learn about the
heavens from the pages of Aristotle’s De caelo. 129