Routledge History of Philosophy Volume IV

40 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE
class. 133 The treatise, which had little impact in the sixteenth century, was
reissued in 1670 by Leibniz, who was interested in Nizolio’s nominalism and in
his attempt to produce a linguistic reform of logic. Leibniz, however, pointed out
a number of errors committed by Nizolio, not least his failure to appreciate
Aristotle’s real merits. 134
He also criticized Nizolio’s claim that there were serious doubts about the
authenticity of the works attributed to Aristotle. This line of attack had appealed
to Nizolio because it made Aristotelians appear foolish as well as servile by
suggesting that the ipse of their revered ipse dixit was not the genuine
Aristotle. 135 The evidence for his assertion was borrowed, with acknowledgement,
from Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola (1469–1533), a follower of Savonarola,
who had learned from him to distrust all human learning and to rely solely on the
divine philosophy of the Scriptures. In his Examen vanitatis doctrinae gentium et
veritatis Christianae disciplinae (1520), Gianfrancesco set out to prove the
futility of pagan doctrine and the truth of Christianity. The first half of the work
employs arguments from the ancient Greek sceptic Sextus Empiricus—virtually
unknown in the West—to discredit secular knowledge by showing that on every
conceivable issue scholars have disagreed with one another and adhered to
incompatible views. The second half targets Aristotle, by far the most influential
pagan thinker and therefore the most important to subvert. Displaying immense
erudition about the Aristotelian tradition, particularly the Greek commentators,
Gianfrancesco revealed that all facets of Peripatetic philosophy lacked certitude:
the works assigned to Aristotle were doubtfully authentic; his sense-based
epistemology could not produce reliable data; his doctrines, often presented with
deliberate obscurity, had been disputed by opponents and followers alike and had
been criticized by Christian theologians; even Aristotle himself was uncertain
about some of them. 136 Aristotelian philosophy, the pinnacle of human wisdom,
was therefore shown to be constructed on the shakiest of foundations. Christian
dogma, by contrast, was built on the bedrock of divine authority and therefore
could not be undermined by the sceptical critique. Or so he believed, unaware
that scepticism, which he had revived as an ally of Christianity, would eventually
become a powerful weapon in the hands of its enemies. 137
By stressing the dissension among competing philosophical schools and their
fundamental irreconcilability with each other and with Christianity,
Gianfrancesco was intentionally deviating from the path set out by his famous
uncle Giovanni Pico. 138 Giovanni, the literal and metaphorical ‘prince of
concord’—he was the hereditary ruler of Concordia and Mirandola—devoted his
brief life to demonstrating that, although different philosophical and religious
systems appeared to be in conflict, their disagreements were primarily a matter
of words, which disguised an underlying unity. The centrepiece of his project
was an attempt to reconcile the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, partially
realized in his De ente et uno, a treatise which managed to antagonize both
Platonists and Aristotelians. 139 Another part of his synthesis involved bridging the
gap between the humanist and scholastic approaches to Aristotle. Differing from