THE YOUNG PAUL OSKAR KRISTELLER AS A PHILOSOPHER

THE YOUNG PAUL OSKAR KRISTELLER
AS A PHILOSOPHER
PAUL RICHARD BLUM
THE BOOK THAT SECURED Paul Oskar Kristeller lasting fame in Renaissance
studies was at the same time his final attempt at establishing himself as a
German philosopher. The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino was not only in great
part written in Germany and in the German language, but was also his most
valuable tribute to the culture of the country where he was born and educated.
This is true in spite of the fact that the book appeared first in English in 1943,
then in Italian in 1953, and only in 1972 in its original German version. 1
The most notable as well as sad evidence is the dedication of his book — as
it reads in the Italian edition:
In memory of my parents Heinrich and Alice Kristeller, and in memory of
the men, women, and children, of the houses, cities, and works of art, of
1. The history of publication of this book is told in the prefaces; therefore just a
few remarks. In the German version (Die Philosophie des Marsilio Ficino, Frankfurt:
Klostermann, 1972) the author quotes (p. vii) "from the discolored, brittle, and
almost unreadable manuscript": "Preparations begun in Freiburg, fall 1931. Writing
started in Berlin, Spring 1933 to Winter 1933 (to chap. [6] causality, incl.). After a
break of half a year brief continuation (primum-chap. [7], incl.). After a long break
continued, with interruptions, in Pisa, since spring 1936 and finished in Sangodenzo
on August 25, 1937." (All translations into English are mine, if not stated otherwise.)
In 1981 Kristeller recounted that for the publication of the German original he had
to provide a new transcription because the publisher could not find a person capable
of deciphering the original Gothic script; he further remarked that he took the disap-
pearance of this script from German schools as a minor sign of what was missing
in culture since 1945; see The Reminiscences of Paul Oskar Kristeller. Typescript, Oral
History Collection of Columbia University, 1983. The interviews took place between
13 March 1981 and 25 February 1982. Interviewer: William Liebmann, 23.
19

the books, thoughts, and feelings that perished under the reign of evil in
Europe 1933-1945. 2
The dedication makes the book a monument of the very culture the author
was forced to leave. In our times, when memory has undergone a conceptual
inflation, it is worth noting that Kristeller actually intended to keep up the
memory of the personal and interpersonal values that had made his study
possible, ranging from his parents, who were killed in the concentration camp
of Theresienstadt, 3 to the books, thoughts, and feelings which the German Nazi
regime intended to destroy. This interpretation is enhanced by a quotation
from Tacitus Agricola, chaps. 2-3, which talks about the expulsion of the
philosophers and of all the arts: "Had we been able to forget what we were to
keep silent about we might have lost our memory together with our voice." But
— we may add — Tacitus/Kristeller did speak up for the sake of honesty and
liberty. He added a reflection on the experience that the destruction of humans,
values, and goods is faster than their recovery and restoration. Kristeller was
preparing the Italian printing in 1947 (see the Prefazione), and so the span of
time of the "reign of evil," 1933-45, fits almost perfectly when he continued
the quotation in the dedication to encompass Tacitus' comment that "fifteen
years is a long time for mortals," to the effect that "a young man has grown
into an old man." That is to say, the author considered his book a life's work
which preserved the best of a culture that was almost lost.
Kristeller's book on Ficino was a seminal force for more than one generation
of scholars in the twentieth century. Its influence is best illustrated by the
revised bibliography in the 1988 reprint, where most of the entries date from
after the first edition of 1943. But its author had always been aware that
this book on Ficino not only opened a new era of research for him but also
2. II pensiero filosofico di Marsilio Ficino (Florence: Sansoni, 1953; rev. ed. Florence:
Le Lettere, 1988): "Alia memoria dei miei genitori HEINRICH e ALICE KRISTELLER, e alla
memoria degli uomini, donne e fanciulli, delle case, città ed opere d'arte, dei libri,
pensieri e sentimenti che perirono sotto il regno del male in Europa 1933-1945."
This dedication does not appear in the 1972 German edition.
3. Strauss, Herbert A., Werner Röder, et al., eds., Biographisches Handbuch der
deutschsprachigen Emigration nach 1933 / International Biographical Dictionary of Central
European Emigrés 1933-1945, 3 vols, in 4 (Munich-New York-Detroit: Saur, 1980-83),
2.1:666-67. Only in recent times has it become known that Heinrich Kristeller was
Paul Oskar's stepfather, whereas his father, Oskar Gräfenberg, died on the day his son
was born (May 22, 1905): Eckhard Keßler, "Paul Oskar Kristeller," in Deutsche Biog-
raphische Enzyklopädie 11.1 (Munich: Saur, 2000), 111-12. Keßler's source might have
been an autobiographical text by the title "Recollections of My Life" that circulated
as a typescript among his friends (I am grateful to John Monfasani for sharing with
me a copy) and was eventually published as the article, "Recollections," in 1996 (I
am indebted to Thomas Gilbhard for informing me of this publication).
20

concluded his German experience. The book also documented his aspirations
to become a German philosopher. So let us look at certain aspects of his prior
education that had fostered these aspirations.
At the Mommsen-Gymnasium in Berlin Kristeller met the classicist Ernst
Hoffmann (1880-1952), and it was because of Hoffmann, who subsequently
became professor of philosophy at the University of Heidelberg, that Kristeller
started his university studies at Heidelberg. 4 Hoffmann was a specialist in
Plato and Platonism who later extended his research to the Renaissance
thinker Nicholas of Cusa. 5 So it does not come: as a surprise that Kristeller
chose Plotinus as the topic of his doctoral dissertation with Hoffmann acting
as his supervisor. But as he himself has noted, 6 he also studied the "idealistic
interpretation of Kant" with Heinrich Rickert and was much influenced
by Rickert's theory of cultural history. At the same time Karl Jaspers (who
already had been Hoffmann's teacher) introduced Kristeller to Kierkegaard
and existentialism. Decades later Kristeller described the influence of Jaspers
by observing:
Jaspers and the reading suggested by him gave me an entirely different dimen-
sion [not found in Kantism, Plato, or Hegel] that is — and it goes back to
Kierkegaard — the idea of internal experience which is not irrational, but is
an excess of, is beyond sense perception, and beyond the reasoning in science
and in logic... I suspect that when I later on worked on Plotinus, and still
later on Ficino, my interpretation of these thinkers is very much influenced
by existentialism both from Jaspers and from Heidegger. 7
In 1926 in Marburg he got to know Martin Heidegger and struck up a
friendship with Karl Löwith and Hans-Georg Gadamer. 8 Later on in Freiburg
(1931) he not only worked with Heidegger, but also heard lectures of the
phenomenologist Edmund Husserl and knew the Hegelian Richard Kroner. 9
But the height of his philosophical experience had been Heidegger, who
was writing his groundbreaking Sein und Zeit (published in 1927) during
the year 1926 in Marburg. 10 Kristeller remembered: "I attended one of his
4. See Margaret L. King, interviewer and ed., "Iter Kristellerianum: The European
Journey (1905-1939)," Renaissance Quarterly 47 (1994): 907-29, 912.
5. See especially Ernst Hoffmann, Das Universum des Nikolaus von Cues, in Sitzungs-
berichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse
1929/30, Abh. 3 (Heidelberg: Winter, 1930 ).
6. Kristeller-King, "Iter Kristellerianum," 914; and Reminiscences, 100 sq.
7. Reminiscences, 104.
8. Kristeller-King, "Iter Kristellerianum," 914. Neither Löwith nor Gadamer men-
tion their playing trios with Kristeller; see Karl Löwith, Mein Leben in Deutschland
vor und nach 1933 (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1986), 64, on the circle of friends around
Gadamer. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Gesammelte Werke (Tübingen: Mohr, 1985-95),
21

lecture courses, I believe on Aristotle, and was greatly impressed with his
precise command of the original Greek text, and with the precise, profound
and convincing method of his interpretation." 11 I will come back to this
remark, which shows that Heidegger combined even more than Hoffmann
philological precision and philosophical acumen. I believe one can, ideed,
prove the influence of existentialism, as acknowledged on hindsight, in the
book on Plotinus. 12
It should be noted that the book printed in 1929 was not the text of the
dissertation as submitted for the doctorate at the University of Heidelberg;
What the young scholar had earlier submitted to Hoffmann "was only part of
what he had originally planned," and it earned him only the second-highest
rating, magna cum laude. 13 What was then published in a series edited by
Hoffmann and Rickert was "a new section" which, Kristeller said, he "had
written in Berlin and which was different from the one I had submitted for
the degree, and in my opinion better." 14 "They were two different parts of
autobiographical pieces in vols. 2 and 10, and his Philosophische Lehrjahre (Frankfurt:
Klostermann, 1977), mentions Löwith only in scholarly contexts.
9. Kristeller-King, "Iter Kristellerianum," 914. Kroner became professor in Dresden
in 1924. Walter Asmus, Richard Kroner (1884-1974): Ein Philosoph und Pädagoge unter
dem Schatten Hitlers (Frankfurt: Lang, 1990), does not mention his teaching in Freiburg.
Kroner was a Jew, and being practically prevented from teaching after 1934, he was
invited by the same Giovanni Gentile who also helped Kristeller to lecture for a short
period at the University of Rome. He fled Germany in 1938 and lectured later in the
USA, including at Yale University in New Haven in 1940-41. In America he shifted
his interest from idealism to philosophy of religion. It is worth noting that Kroner
had been shortlisted for the professorship in philosophy in Marburg which Martin
Heidegger got in 1923; see Rüdiger Safranski, Ein Meister aus Deutschland: Heidegger
und seine Zeit (Munich: Hanser, 1994), 155 sq.
10. Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, in his Gesamtausgabe 2 (Frankfurt: Klostermann,
1977), which has the now standard page numbers of the first edition of 1927; on the
circumstances of its composition see idem, Die Grundbegriffe der antiken Philosophie,
in Gesamtausgabe 22 (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1993), 333.
11. Kristeller-King, "Iter Kristellerianum," 914. Kristeller seems to have made use of
the structure of Heidegger's lectures on Greek philosophy in his first course he gave
at Columbia University in 1944; see Richard H. Popkin, The History of Scepticism from
Savonarola to Bayle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), vii-viii.
12. Paul Oskar Kristeller, Der Begriff der Seek in der Ethik des Plotin (Tübingen: Mohr,
1929. Heidelberger Abhandlungen zur Philosophie und ihre Geschichte 19). The se-
ries was edited by Ernst Hoffmann and Heinrich Rickert. Its earlier numbers included
Rickert's Das Eine, die Einheit und die Eins, 2nd. ed., in 1924; Hoffmann's Die Sprache
und die archaische Logik in 1925; and Heinz Pflaum's Die Idee der Liebe: Leone Ebreo in
1926.
22

the same project. They dealt with the same author, but they were different
in content." 15
More than an interpretation of a historical text, Kristeller's The Concept
of Soul in the Ethics of Plotinus was a philosophical study in its own right,
following in the traces of Plotinus. This becomes immediately evident from
the book reviews it received in the most respectable scholarly periodicals
of the day. In order to make sure that I am not forcing my interpretation, I
prefer to start with these contemporary responses. Probably the first reviewer
chronologically was the famous scholar of Neoplatonism E.R. Dodds. 16
Despite his positive expectations from a student of Hoffmann's, Dodds noted
Kristeller's "own angle of approach to the Enneads." He criticized "a good
deal of fatiguing repetition" and the fact that the author started "from what
Plotinus ought (logically) to have thought": "I suspect that Plotinus was a less
tidy and systematic thinker than Dr. Kristeller." But what Dodds viewed as
repetitions and "terminological clothing" must be understood as an attempt
at philosophical precision, which Dodds did not appreciate because the
terminology was not that of Plotinus but of the interpreter. Dodds raised the
question about the "proper content" of metaphysical consciousness — the key
term of the interpretation — but he declined to listen to the young German's
answer. Kristeller insisted on the difference between objective knowledge and
interior awareness (Bewußtsein), so that the question about the object of this
consciousness is pointless unless one makes an effort to refute Kristeller's
philosophical search from the outset. Émile Bréhier, 17 whose recent book on
Plotinus was quoted by Kristeller with reverence, 18 misinterpreted Kristeller's
new claim of ethical relevance in Plotinian metaphysics, as stated in the
very title of the book, boiling it down to the general attitude of the Stoics.
Furthermore he complained that in the book soul is referred to exclusively
as the "drame moral intime...dans l'âme humaine," while apparently the
13. Reminiscences, 134-35; cf. Kristeller-King, "Iter Kristellerianum," 916. There is no
copy of the original dissertation in the University of Heidelberg archives, and files re-
garding his studies and doctorate will be accessible only ten years after his death (e-mail
letter from the Universitätsarchiv Heidelberg, Archivamtfrau Hunerlach, dated January
12, 2001). There seem to be no copies of the original in the University of Heidelberg
library (e-mail letter from Anette Philipp, Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, dated Janu-
ary 15, 2001) or in the library of the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin. See Addendum.
14. Reminiscences, 139.
15. Ibid., 141.
16. In The Classical Review 44 (1930): 153.
17. Revue des Études Grecques 44 (1931): 439-40.
18. Begriff der Seele,, iv; Émile Bréhier, La philosophie de Plotin (Paris: H. Boivin,
1928).
23

world soul, the stars, and the vegetative soul, i.e., cosmology and nature,
are left aside. On the other hand, Kristeller had gently criticized Bréhier for
having interpreted the operations of the soul as vie interieur, i. e., as merely
subjective achievement distinct from ontology. 19
Paul Henry, SJ, seems to have seconded Dodds' criticism in calling Kristeller's
interpretation "une construction dans toute la force du terme." He too suspected
that the author "borrow[ed] elements of his demonstration from his own
subjective metaphysical consciousness rather than from objective data of the
Enneads." 20 Henry referred explicitly to page 27 of Kristeller's dissertation, where
he said: "Since all elements of thought concur in Plotinus' presentation without
showing themselves in every passage with the same clarity, it was necessary for
the sake of understanding to locate them within the framework of the basic
problem." What Kristeller was doing here was justifying his use of the famous
hermeneutic circle as discovered by Heidegger and later on developed by
Gadamer, namely, the principle that no interpretation can do without a previous
understanding. The circle consists basically in rearranging these notions with the
help of the text which is being interpreted. 21 Thus Henry suggested that the book
might "please more the philosophers than the historians and the philologists." 22
Indeed, the German philosopher Max Wundt liked Kristeller's linking of
ethics and metaphysics, and acknowledged that Kristeller's philosophical
argument had been developed "entirely from the subjective point of view,"
to the effect that Plotinian metaphysics was presented as interior experiences
of consciousness (innere Bewußtseinserlebnisse) 23 However, Wundt's statement
also insinuates that Kristeller read his own philosophy into the classical text.
Similarly, the classicist Isaak Heinemann described Kristeller's method as
"starting from a systematic exposition of the problems in order to find evidence
for them in the text." 24 From Heinemann's rendering of Kristeller's approach
it is even more evident that Kristeller thought of himself as a philosopher of
his own time. According to Heinemann the difference is that to a modern
philosopher metaphysics is possible only as "an event within consciousness,
while for Platonists thought is the adequation of the thinker to what he
19. Begriff der Seele, iv.
20. Nouvelle Revue Théologique 69 (1932): 799-803, at 801.
21. See Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 153, §32; cf. 314 sq., §63. Hans-Georg Gadamer,
Wahrheit und Methode, in his Gesammelte Werke 1 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1990), Part II, II
1 a, 250-255 (the page numbers are the same as the original 1960 edition).
22. Nouvelle Revue Théologique 69 (1932): 802.
23. Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 50 (1931): 229-30.
24. Deutsche Literaturzeitung 52.1 (1931): 1205-8. There was one more review in a
German periodical by Wilhelm Nestle in Philologische Wochenschrift 51 (1931): 976
sq., but this is just a plain summary.
24

thinks. Thus the turn of perspective [towards the transcendent] implies a
substantial change in the thinking subject, and Kristeller," said Heinemann,
'tries in vain to bend Plotinus' frequent statements back to denotations of
processes within consciousness." 25 However, most of the reviewers explicitly
look forward to reading more from this young scholar.
From the reception it received, we may conclude that Kristeller's first book
was a work of philosophy with a rather sovereign command of the textual
material on which it relied. As "an existentialist interpretation of Plotinus," 26
it was intended neither as doxography nor as philosophical dogmatics, but
rather as a contribution to a current debate. I will now comment on the
philosophy itself and after that on its method.
Kristeller of course had perfect command of the Greek language and the
sources relating to his main topic. He also learned from Hoffmann and
others modern interpretations of Greek philosophy. Just as an example I may
refer to Hoffmann's article on Plato's concept of a world soul. 27 After having
shown that Plato's Ideas/Forms call for a mediation with things, Hoffmann
described the world soul as that being which encompasses any vicissitude
in the world and all possible contraries. He called it the place of all ideal
content that is immersed in real life. From there he detected a double meaning
of soul, namely, as the organ which receives immutable ideal content and
as the principle of life in nature. On this basis Hoffman points out that the
philosophical problem is not general animation but rather the question:
"what is soul at all (das Seelische) apart from its individual bearer?" At stake
is the interrelationship of soul and intellectual being.
Kristeller was well informed about this debate. He called it "philosophical
dualism," which appears in a very attenuated way as the opposition of I and
World or subject and object and has its origin in Plotinus. 28 What he wanted
to show with the help of the founder of Neoplatonism is the complexity of
this dualism within the human soul. In doing so he did not strive toward
subjectifying Platonist idealism, but rather toward making this idealism
accessible to modern thought, in which — as Heinemann had correctly stated
— the transcendent is normally conceived as a product of the subjective human
25. Deutsche Literaturzeitung 52.1 (1931): 1207-8.
26. Kristeller, Recollections, 1866.
27. Ernst Hoffmann, "Platans Lehre von der Weltseele/Soқrates 41 (1915): 187-211;
quoted from his Drei Schriften zur griechischen Philosophie (Heidelberg: Winter, 1964),
9-28.I shall paraphrase from pp. 21-24 and 28.
28. Kristeller, Begriff der Seele, 11.
25

mind. Drawing upon the basic distinction between form and matter and upon
the notion of the separatedness of the soul from body, Kristeller elaborated the
fundamental distinction in Plotinus between objective and actual thought. 29
Now, while objective thought is concerned with the contents of what is
known, actual thought refers to consciousness insofar as it experiences and
enhances itself internally. 30 On the one hand, this actual interior enhancement
of consciousness is the realm of ethics; on the other, it also determines the
consciousness of the external world (awareness, not knowledge). Its ultimate
elevation is the contemplation of God, and in achieving this, consciousness
transcends the opposition of the objective and the actual. It is on this level that
the well known Plotinian ontology starts, which consists of the partitions of
the soul, the hypostases, and the unity of all beings in God. 31 This interpretation
seems in accord with the views of Kristeller's teacher Ernst Hoffmann, who
maintained that Plotinus thought of the possibility of ekstasis of the soul as
the transcendent within this world. 32
At this juncture it might be legitimate to refer to Hegel, who enunciated
two points about Plotinus which recur in Kristeller's interpretation. One is an
emphasis on the ethical importance of Plotinus' philosophy of spirit. According
to Hegel, knowing reality is not at stake but rather positioning the spirit (soul)
and directing it to virtue and to intellectual contemplation of the Eternal and
One as its own source. In a standard textbook by the above mentioned Hegelian
Richard Kroner the Platonic Idea is rendered as a general logical concept and,
at the same time, as the actually working substance in everything. 33 And in
his book of 1928 on The Self-Realization of Spirit, 34 Kroner contended that
consciousness is the basic concept of metaphysics inasmuch as it combines
Meaning and Being. Kristeller's dualism of objective and actual appears here
as that of meaning and being in consciousness. The other Hegelian point is
29. These notions, "objective" (gegenständlich) and "actual" (aktual), are peculiar to
this book. "Objective" here has no direct connotation with anything like real or true
(in German: objektiv), but refers to an object of thought unmistakably different from
thought itself. Accordingly, "actual" here is not opposed to potential, but implies the
process of any intellectual movement and can therefore be connected to ethics.
30. Kristeller, Begriff der Seele, 5 sq.
31. I am paraphrasing ibid., 6 sq. This section shows that Bréhier's criticism was
unjustified, as Kristeller dealt with problems of consciousness before the partition
into cosmology and ontology.
32. Ernst Hoffmann, Platonismus und Mystik im Altertum, in Sitzungsberichte der Hei-
delberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, 1934/35, Abh.
2 (Heidelberg: Winter, 1935), 79.
33. Richard Kroner, Von Kant bis Hegel, 2nd ed., 2 vols. in 1 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1961;
reprint of the 1921-24 edition), 36.
26

the insistence on the unsystematic outlook of the Enneads, which deserves a
systematic interpretation. Toward the end of his book Kristeller even restated
Hegel's observation about Plotinus' figurative way of speaking. 35
Kristeller never quoted Hegel, even though his interpretation occasionally
had an Hegelian ring. 36 But it sounded an even more Heideggerian tone,
and Heidegger was never mentioned either. Various notes from Heidegger's
lecture course he had attended as a student during the summer semester 1926
in Marburg ("I believe on Aristotle," Kristeller recalled) 37 have since been
published. It was an introduction to Greek philosophy that now carries the
title Die Grundbegriffe der antiken Philosophie. In point of fact, Heidegger took
Book 1 of Aristotle's Metaphysics as his guide. 38 In the introduction Heidegger
explained the distinction which was to be essential for his Sein und Zeit,
namely, that between seiendes and Sein. 39 He strove to emphasize the presence
of Sein in whatever there is, which entails its "lying forth" and its transcending,
with the result that Sein is equivalent to transcendence. But, he added, it is
"nothing supersensual, metaphysical in a bad sense, since this, again, would
mean something being." 40 Kristeller followed his teacher in addressing the
very problem of the transcendent as a given within the world of objects and
in assigning philosophy the task of finding an approach to unconditioned
Being without either giving up reality or reifying it.
As mentioned before, Kristeller's book on Plotinus as published was written in
or after 1928. So the author might have had a chance to look at Heidegger's Sein
und Zeit since the latter came out in 1927. In this book Heidegger established
Dasein as the human condition. His explicit aim was to analyze its specific
mode of being. In §10, he differentiated the task of philosophy from that of
the anthropology, psychology, and biology of his time, quoting among others
34. Richard Kroner, Die Selbstverwirklichung des Geistes: Prolegomena zur Kulturphil-
osophie (Tübingen: Mohr, 1928), 18 and 20.
35. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie, 2.1,
III C 2, in his Werke, ed. E. Moldenhauer and K.M. Michel, 19 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp,
1971), 439 and 463. Cf. Kristeller, Begriff der Seele, 98-100.
36. In 1981, Kristeller averred: "I would say I never became a Hegelian, but certain
features of Hegel, and I would say his logic rather than his philosophy of history left
a permanent impression on me, and Kroner played a part in developing this interest."
(Reminiscences, 107)
37. See n. 12 above.
38. Heidegger, Grundbegriffe, 205.
39. Ibid., 7: "Sein ist nicht."
40. Ibid, 10: "Sein überhaupt liegt hinaus. Dieses Hinausliegen (...) ist transcend-
ere — 'übersteigen,' Transzendenz. Nicht Übersinnliches, Metaphysisches in einem
schlechten Sinne, womit gemeint ist wieder ein Seiendes."
27

Edmund Husserl, Max Scheler, and Wilhelm Dilthey. His conclusion is that a
person, the human being as such, cannot be an object as it exists exclusively
in "the performance of its intentional acts." 41 This is what Kristeller took as
the basis of his reading of Plotinus, the fundamental distinction between
objective and actual consciousness, or, as we might call it, the difference between
orientation toward external objects and mere performative thought. Only the
latter gains access to the highest being, and in determining its relationship to
objects it acquires ethical implications. A difference, however, should be noted:
while Heidegger aimed at a concept of being different from 'being an object’,
Kristeller relied on Plotinus in showing that being human is a state of moral
being through consciousness which is not subject to but possibly master of
the relationship to the ultimate and the finite.
Even more convincing is the similarity between Kristeller and his teacher
at Marburg in the appropriation of In-der-Welt-sein ("being-in-the-world").
According to Heidegger, knowledge is not simply an epistemological skill.
Moreover, it is only poorly understood as a relationship between subject
and object. Knowledge as such is one of the features of Dasein in the form of
In-der-Welt-sein. As he says: "Knowledge is a mode of being of being-in-the-
world." 42 As we saw, for Kristeller objective and actual consciousness are two
sides of the potential of the soul. There is no unbridgeable separation between
them. Rather, it a case of the elevated soul turning its own self-perfection
into the knowledge of the ontological structure of the world. This, however,
is only true in the sense that the soul never gives up its relating to objects.
Objective consciousness is one mode of being of the soul. On the other hand,
both Heidegger and Kristeller insist on the fact that the relation towards
the world is at the same time the source of error about both the objective
being and the specific being of the Dasein/soul. 43 Hence Kristeller takes in
an existential sense the traditional "mixture" of body and soul in humans
and observes: "In natural consciousness man is directed to the world and
dependent on it. All natural consciousness supposes that man is in the world
and finds himself in a peculiar place. It is this moment of finding-oneself-in-
the-world which determines human behavior in the condition of empirical
consciousness." 44 According to him, it is this natural consciousness which
impedes the soul to achieve metaphysical consciousness, but it is nevertheless
an interior feature of the soul or of consciousness which guarantees "that
consciousness is conscious of belonging to the world." 45
41. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 48: "Zum Wesen der Person gehört, daß sie nur existiert
im Vollzug der intentionalen Akte, sie ist also wesenhaft kein Gegenstand."
42. Ibid., 61, §13: "Erkennen ist eine Seinsart des In-der-Welt-seins."
43. For Heidegger see his §§15 ff.
28

Plotinus presented his interpreter Kristeller with the possibility of seeing the
priority of (metaphysical) consciousness over being since the soul encompasses
both empirical, or objective, consciousness and metaphysical consciousness.
The metaphysical consciousness, however, constitutes the actual operation of
the soul. 46 Hence, the young philosopher transferred the existential problem
into a genuine Platonic concept on the borderline between psychology and
metaphysics. It should be noted that in his book on Ficino Kristeller identified
the interior experience with existence as conceived since Kierkegaard. 47 We
thus have another small indication that early twentieth-century philosophy of
existence fostered a renewed interest in Renaissance thought. To my knowledge
this point has not yet been studied. 48 To say the least, Kristeller's remark
concerning interior experience is an evidence that he continued to think within
an existentialist framework while studying Ficino's philosophy.
As we saw above, Kristeller admired Heidegger's method of interpretation.
Heidegger's method was certainly not that of a standard classicist. Even in
the introductory lecture to his course of 1926, he reflected on the method of
interpretation. He claimed to be doing philosophy by interpreting a historical
text; but this did not mean to force one's interpretation in an unhistorical way
(unhistorisch hineindeuten) . 49 Heidegger went as far as to say that the interpreter
understands the historical text better than did the author (if he understood
it at all!) in the sense that he carries the author's intentions to their end. He
exemplified what he meant in the radical way he took Aristotle as the model
of an interpreter. According to Heidegger, Aristotle, in forcing his interpretation
upon his ancient predecessors, was in a way unhistorical; but in understanding
them and in radicalizing their intentions, he was "historical in a genuine
sense." 50 The meaning of history, according to Heidegger, is "appropriation of
the past. " 51 As already mentioned, some remarks in Kristeller's study of Plotinus
approximate Heidegger's hermeneutic circle and, not coincidentally, in the
44. Kristeller, Begriff der Seele, 15: "Im natürlichen Bewußtsein ist nämlich der Mensch
auf die Welt gerichtet und von ihr abhängig. Nun geht alles natürliche Bewußtsein
davon aus, daß sich der Mensch in der Welt und an einem bestimmten Platze vor-
findet. Von diesem Moment des Sich-in-der-Welt-Vorfindens wird alles menschliche
Verhalten im Zustand des empirischen Bewußtseins bestimmt."
45. Ibid., 15: "Dieses Moment ist nichts Äußeres, sondern besteht für das Bewußtsein
selbst. Es macht, daß das Bewußtsein sich als zur Welt gehörig weiß."
46. Ibid., 15: "Wenn man nun, wie Plotin, das metaphysische Bewußtsein für die
reine Aktualität der Psyche hält...."
47. Kristeller, Pensiero filosofico, 218.
48. I may mention Jacques Maritain, who in his Humanisme Intégral of 1936 also linked
his Christian concept of humanism to an existentialist approach to metaphysics.
49. Heidegger, Grundbegriffe, 12.
29

Marburg lectures of 1926, which Kristeller attended, Heidegger provided a
radical and rudimental statement of the hermeneutic circle. The most striking
evidence, however, of Kristeller's methodological awareness is the opening
of his book: "The interpreter of a philosophical text," he says, "is obliged to
special caution, as he shares his tool with the philosopher, namely, thought....
The way from interpretation to text has to be as secure as that from text to
interpretation." 52 This is the self-reliant modesty of a great scholar in his first
publication. Not much later, in a review of a book on Neoplatonism by the
famous Willy Theiler, Kristeller noted that "it is in the uncertain and arduous
journey toward facts that philosophical understanding eventually begins." 53 So,
it comes as no surprise that Kristeller had chosen Heidegger as his supervisor
in order to write his second book, which was the requirement for habilitation,
i.e., the precondition for becoming a professor at a German university. 54
There can be no doubt that the young scholar did have a philosophical agenda
in choosing Plotinus as his topic. In a review of the new German translation
of the Enneads by Richard Harder, he remarked approvingly that the generally
growing interest in Platonism is due to the "changing tasks of philosophy since
the collapse of positivism and of epistemological formalism." 55
Before continuing his academic career, Kristeller returned to Berlin in
order to obtain the state board examination, a requirement for becoming a
teacher at a Gymnasium. Unfortunately his thesis for this examination, De
Formarun sive ldearum apud Ciceronem Notione ("On the Concept of Forms
50. Ibid., 32.
51. Ibid., 214: "sich die Vergangenheit anzueignen."
52. Kristeller, Begriff der Seele, 1: "Dem Interpreten eines philosophischen Textes ist
besondere Vorsicht geboten, da er mit dem Philosophen sein Werkzeug gemeinsam
hat: den Gedanken.... Von der Deutung zum Text muß der Weg ebenso sicher führen
wie vom Text zur Deutung." Note the sequence from interpretation to text.
53. Review of Willy Theiler, Die Vorbereitung des Neuplatonismus (Berlin: Weidemann,
1930) in Deutsche Literaturzeitung 53 (1932): 438-445, at 439. Theiler for his part
had mentioned Kristeller approvingly in his book (59 sq. and 89 sq.), and also in his
Porphyrios und Augustin, in Schriften der Konigsberger Gelehrten Gesellschaft, Geistesw.
Klasse 10 (Halle: Niemeyer, 1933), reprinted in his Forschungen zum Neuplatonismus
(Berlin: de Gruyter, 1966), 160-251, at 193 [28].
54. The fact that Hoffmann could not accept him in Heidelberg because he could
not possibly support two Jewish candidates at the same time (the other candidate
was Raymond Klibansky) is told in Kristeller-King, "Iter Kristellerianum," 915.
55. Review of Plotins Schriften, trans. Richard Harder, vol. 1 (Leipzig: Meiner, 1930) in
Deutsche Literaturzeitung 52 (1931): 57-61. In spite of generous praise of Harder's labor,
Kristeller practically destroyed the edition, rejecting what was original in it, namely, its
terminology and its chronological ordering of the parts of the Enneads. In fact, both
remain weaknesses of the translation, which is still being reprinted today.
30

or Ideas in Cicero") has never been published, but we do have a document
which reflects about sixty years later what Kristeller was working on. It is his
talk at the Heidelberg Academy published in 1989 on "Ideas as Thoughts of
the Human and the Divine Mind." 56 Without going into the detail of this
paper, which was addressed to classicists, the philosophical problem, to
which Kristeller now returned, was that of the relationship between human
metaphysical consciousness and the ideas in God. In his view there are three
options: the Stoic position, according to which the Platonic ideas are mere
phantasms of human understanding; a second position, known from Cicero,
sees the ideas as ideals common to all humans and working as measure and
model to human conduct and acting; the third position ascribes the ideas
to God alone, but takes them as the model of the sensual world. Having the
young philosopher of Berlin in mind, one can read this paper as a belated
reply to the criticism of the philosophical agenda of his book on Plotinus. The
56. Paul Oskar Kristeller, Die Ideen als Gedanken der menschlichen und der göttlichen
Vernunft, in Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-
Historische Klasse, 1989, Bericht 2 (Heidelberg: Winter, 1989). There is an ambiguity
about the thesis and the publication: here, on p. 5 the author calls it "Examensarbeit
über Cicero," giving the Latin title as quoted; on p. 9 he seems to refer to it as an
unpublished Seminararbeit, which should be less than a thesis. In his Recollections (p.
1867), Kristeller refers to the same paper when he recounts: "For one of Jaeger's semi-
nars I wrote a paper entitled 'Plato's Ideas in Panaetius and Cicero'," and states that he
published it as Platos Ideen als Gedanken der menschlichen und göttlichen Vernunft. From
their apparent contents, I suggest that "De formarum...notione" and "Plato's Ideas in
Panaetius and Cicero" were the same paper, dated to 1930 by Kristeller in his Academy
talk (n. 1). See Addendum. In his autobiographical notes of 1994 (Kristeller-King,
"Iter Kristellerianum," 916), Kristeller also refers to a paper "on Cicero's Orator, which
I published much later." This paper on the Orator is the source not of the Academy
talk of 1989, but rather of pp. 118-22 of Kristeller's Greek Philosophers of the Hellenistic
Age, trans. Gregory Woods (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), which is
a translation of his Filosofi greci dell'età ellenistica (Pisa: Scuola Normale Superiore,
1991). A manuscript of the "Interpretation von Cicero Orator 168-173, "dated 23 Feb.
1930, is now in Columbia University's Rare Book and Manuscript Room. In the same
passage of Kristeller-King, Kristeller also mentions a thesis, never published, on the
first speech of Pericles in Thucydides, a typescript of which is in fact extant in the same
collection. Also extant is a manuscript of mostly philological nature, "Referat über
und die davon abgeleiteten Worte," dated January 1930. On these papers and on
Kristeller's training in classical studies see John Monfasani, "Toward the Genesis of the
Kristeller Thesis of Renaissance Humanism: Four Bibliographical Notes," Renaissance
Quarterly 53 (2000): 1156-1173, at 1157 sq. The archives of Humboldt-Universität
Berlin (letter from its director, Dr. Winfried Schultze, dated [an. 11, 2001) confirms
the date of immatriculation Oct. 30, 1928 - August 8,1931 (Matrikel Nr. 1526/119),
but has no copies of any theses by Kristeller.
31

eviewers had taken the first option for granted since it had been popularized
by John Locke, as Kristeller tellingly mentions; and they did not grasp that
the third option is the most difficult to understand from a human point of
view and still is the one which dominated philosophy through the time of
Kant and Hegel, and including the time of Marsilio Ficino. 57 It is only the
concept of the ideas as droughts of God which permits us to understand
the human soul as His image, to the effect that human thought may be
understood as image of the divine. This, indeed, might solve the problem of
the immanence of the metaphysical realm within the natural world, which
the early reviewers did not want to buy from his book. On the surface, the
paper of Kristeller as a senior historian of philosophy is just about a detail,
but at the very beginning he states with his full authority that "my field is the
history of philosophy, and I see it as my task to understand and interpret the
thought of past philosophers." 58 Bearing in mind what he had learned from
Heidegger, we see that this is more than a modest captatio benevolentiae.
The time in Berlin between his doctorate and the beginning of his Ficino project
in Freiburg must have been very important for the development of Kristeller's
scholarly profile. Here he received the technical training for editing manuscript
sources. As John Monfasani argues, even Kristeller's specific interpretation of the
notion of humanism might have had its origins in his classical studies in Berlin. 59
While Kristeller was finishing the published version of his Plotinus study, he
also must have got the idea of studying Ficino. And while he started preparing a
genuine philosophical study of the Florentine thinker, he also felt compelled to
do the extensive archive and library research that resulted in his Supplementum
Ficinianum, the great documentation of unpublished works and sources relating
to Ficino. In a way the young philosopher turned into a skilled philologist. 60 To
my knowledge, Kristeller never commented on this turn, and maybe he even did
not perceive it as such. The fact that he published his Berlin paper on Cicero more
than fifty years later proves that he considered himself to be a philosopher.
Unfortunately Freiburg was to be Kristeller's last stop in his attempt at a
German academic career. It must have been the question of method which
made Heidegger accept him for habituation because it cannot have been his
topic, the philosophy of Marsilio Ficino, since Heidegger as his supervisor
"had no special knowledge of Ficino (or for that matter of Plotinus)." 61 The
57. Kristeiler, Ideen, 16-17.
58. Ibid., 5.
59. Monfasani, "Toward the Genesis."
60. Walther Ludwig presents the Ficino studies as the origin of Kristeller's famous
manuscript inventory, Iter Italicum: "Zum Gedenken an Paul Oskar Kristeller," Neula-
teinisches Jahrbuch 2 (2000): 13-23, at 16-18. Frank-Rutger Hausmann gives a similar
view in his obituary in Romanische Forschungen 111 (1999): 622-27, at 624.
32

great book on Ficino was to become much different from the dissertation on
Plotinus. It is much larger; it claims to present the thought of an author in
its entirely; and it also abounds with quotations from the original text, while
the dissertation had been reproached for its scarcity of such references. Of
course, Plotinus was available and rather well known, whereas the Renaissance
author was not. There is also an internal continuity, as Kristeller drew the
attention to Ficino as the translator and commentator who had transmitted
Neoplatonist ideas to modernity. As for the content of the Ficino study, one
recognizes easily from it the writer of the book on Plotinus, for instance, from
the beginning of Part 2, where Kristeller explained the difference between
pre- and post-Kantian metaphysics. And unsurprisingly he started this part by
explaining the interior experience and drawing upon the difference between
empirical and interior consciousness. 62 As noted earlier, Kristeller also hinted
at the existentialist background of his philosophical interest, and he repeats
his rejection of positivism and rationalism. 63 I do not intend to interpret
the substance of his interpretation of Ficino. However, as a conclusion to
Kristeller's German experience, the methodological questions he raised in
the first chapter are worth considering.
In terms of structural complexity Kristeller found that, as in the case of Plotinus,
he had again met with an author whose particular concepts are expressed and
repeated in many various ways. Hence, he explained, Ficino's doctrines have to
be explained with respect to the whole of his philosophy. 64 This is equivalent
to a philosophical interpretation 65 and is connected with Ficino's "lack of
originality," a superficial impression due to his being rooted in the Platonic
tradition. But, according to Ficino (and Kristeller) being a philosopher means
to have "an immediate relation to truth." 66 Such a truth claim (pretesa di verità,
canone del vero) 67 is, admittedly, a subjectivist approach in the sense that there
cannot possibly be an understanding which is not the activity of a thinking mind.
Hence everything depends on the interpreter's capability and will to make sense
out of the object of his study and to learn from it. 68 Once again we are presented
61. Kristeller-King, "Iter Kristellerianum," 917. It should be mentioned that he ex-
pressed his gratitude in the dedication of his Supplementum (1:ii): "Martino Heidegger
qui principia, Ioanni Gentile qui finem studiorum meorum consilio et auxilio suo
honoraverunt."
62. Kristeller, Pensiero filiosofico, 215 sq.
63. Ibid., 218 sq. From this angle the anonymous review of this book in Revue phi-
losophise de la France et de Étranger 73 (1948): 224-26, was typical as it derided the
Renaissance as not having survived l'effort d'analyse and being confined to romantisme.
64. Kristeller, Pensiero filosofico, 9, n. 2: "ha bisogno fin da principio di essere inteso
e spiegato in funzione del tutto."
65. Ibid., 8.
33

with the hermeneutic circle: we do not understand a philosopher without our
own philosophical input. Interpretation of another's philosophy converges with
philosophizing. 69 Philosophical history of philosophy is the appropriation of
the past as Heidegger said and his student kept asserting. "Philosophizing in the
Western tradition does not mean superficially repeating traditional concepts, but
rather appropriating them for the sake of truth because they are meaningful and
expressing them again for oneself." 70
In order to mark the specificity of this approach, it is worth looking at
his main teacher, Ernst Hoffmann. In an essay on method in the history
of philosophy published in 1937, Hoffmann made a series of interesting
distinctions, such as diachronical, synchronical, and monographic studies
as well as structural and linear interpretations of historical developments. 71
However, he opposed problem-oriented history (Problemgeschichte) and favored
the method of historiography in which cultural history and philosophy are
conjoined. 72 In contrast with the hermeneutical approach, Hoffmann saw
philosophy only as embedded in a kind of universal history. Even if philosophy
remains at the center, this is due only to a temporary and passing attention. The
66. Ibid., 7: "un apparente mancanza di originalità"; and "la genuità di un filosofo
consiste nel suo rapporto immediato colla verità." On the question of originality and
Ficino see Paul Richard Blum, Philosophenphilosophie und Schulphilosophie: Typen des
Philosophierens in der Neuzeit (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1998), 66-73.
67. Kristeller, Pensiero filosofico, 6.
68. Ibid., 6 sq.: "bisognerà prima possedere un canone del vero...la soggettività del
conoscere non si può mai interamente eliminare, bensì si può ridurre ai suoi limiti
indispensabili con un orientamento deciso e onesto verso loggetto. Del resto le stesse
formulazioni grezze di una dottrina, senza l'influenza positiva di un punto di vista
soggettivo si possono forse appena constatare, ma non certo scoprire o utilizzare per
la conoscenza."
69. Ibid., 6: "Così il significato dell'interpretazione filosofica è fondato sullo stesso
processo specifico del filosofare...."
70. Ibid., 4: "Filosofare in questa tradizione [occidentale] non signifies però ripetere
esteriormente dei concetti trasmessi...ma bensì appropriarsene in funzione della
verità perché significativi e esprimerli di nuovo da sé stessi." Cf. his "Philosophy and
its Historiography," Journal of Philosophy 82 (1985): 618-25; and "The Philosophical
Significance of the History of Thought,” Journal of the History of Ideas 7 (1946): 360-65.
This also entails that Kristeller's is not a naive appropriation in the sense of partisan-
ship, as Michael J.B. Allen justly states in his obituary in Bruniana et Campanelliana 5
(1999): 259-62, at 261.
71. Ernst Hoffmann, "Über die Problematik der philosophiegeschichtlichen Meth-
ode," Theoria (1937): 3-37, quoted from his Platonismus und christliche Philosophie
(Zürich-Stuttgart: Artemis, 1960), 11.
34

totality and interrelatedness of life and culture is the permanent aim of such
study. No wonder that Hoffmann repeatedly referred to the Warburg Library
(then still in Hamburg) and to his friend and teacher Ernst Cassirer. 73 For
Heidegger/Kristeller, however, a problem vs. culture division was a misleading
dichotomy in doing history of philosophy. Their alternative is that between
'telling stories about' versus really thinking what other philosophers thought. 74
In the first sense one can be a kind of historian of philosophy without being a
philosopher, but only in the second sense does the philosophy of the historical
person come to life. Most thinkers agree that a philosophy which actually is not
thought is no philosophy. So only that philosophy of the past which is being
interpreted and brought to life can be recognized as such.
In the end, when leaving Germany and taking with him in the form of his
incomplete manuscript on Ficino a monument of the culture that had trained
him, Paul Oskar Kristeller transmitted a question which has not been much
discussed. If he was correct to assert that the philosopher and the historian
share the same tool, namely, thought, is it possible for a philosopher to be
such if he has no awareness of the history of philosophy?
Differently than in art and poetry, knowing its own history is for philosophy
the task that concerns itself and arises from its own essence. 75
72. Ibid., 19 sq.
73. Ernst Hoffmann's book on Die Sprache und die archaische Logik (Tübingen: Mohr,
1925) was dedicated to "Ernst Cassirer dem Lehrer und Freund." Cassirer wrote a recom-
mendation for Kristeller in 1933: Kristeller-King, "Iter Kristellerianum," 918.
74. Cf. Paul Richard Blum, "'Istoriar la figura': Syncretism of Theories as a Model
of Philosophy in Frances Yates and Giordano Bruno," American Catholic Philosophical
Quarterly 77 (2003): 189-212.
75. Kristeller, Pensiero filosofico, 3: "Diversamente che per l'arte e la poesia la cono-
scenza della propria storia è compito che riguarda lei [la filosofia] stessa e che risulta
dalla sua propria essenza." In a letter, dated November 2, 1992, Kristeller wrote to
me: "Ich finde ein wenig Trost in meiner Arbeit und in dem Gedanken, dass alles
was war staendig bleiben wird, und nicht nur in unserer kurzlebigen Erinnerung.
Ueber die Zukunft unserer Studien bin ich sehr pessimistisch, sie haben auch in der
akademischen Welt ihre Basis verloren. Die Dark Ages stehen nicht nur vor der Tuer,
35

ADDENDUM
As I mentioned in my paper Kristeller's book Der Begriff der Seele in der
Ethik des Plotin of 1929 was not identical with the actual dissertation he
had submitted for his doctoral degree in philosophy in 1928. Very recently
John Monfasani has found a copy of the original dissertation in the Paul
Oskar Kristeller Papers of Columbia University, Butler Library. It is located
in "Box 10 of 24, 1992 Additions: unprocessed" of the collection.
The thesis is bound (stapled) with blue cover-sheet and bears, in Kristeller's
hand, the indication: "POK Original thesis on Plotinus submitted in 1928."
The format is 12.875 by 8.75 inches (32.7 by 21 cm). It contains the title
page, 2 unnumbered plus 133 numbered sheets, with typed text on one
side with an average of 40 lines per page. This is a carbon copy on regular
paper, with Greek quotations inserted by various hands and with several
handwritten corrections and additions. Some loose small sheets of paper
are inserted that contain notes in pencil referring to Plotinus.
The full title is: Der Begriff der Seele im System Plotins. Inaugural-Dissertation
zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde einer Hohen Philosophischen Fakultät der Bad.
Ruprecht Karls-Universität zu Heidelberg vorgelegt von Paul-Oskar Kristeller aus
Berlin. 1927. Apart from the specific subject matter, the title conforms to
the standard formula of German dissertations. It should be noted that the
author spells his first names with a hyphen.
The title-page is followed by the plan of the work, "Disposition," divided
into five chapters and a conclusion (Schluß), subdivided into continuously
numbered sections, 53 in all, marked §§ as was customary at this time.
These chapters were, according to the Disposition:
1. Kapitel. Gegenständliche Philosophic (§§4-19)
2. Kapitel. Ethik (§§20-25)
3. Kapitel. Verhältnis von Ethik und Ontologie (§§26-29)
4. Kapitel. Daimonologie (§§30-32)
5. Kapitel Systematik (§§47-49)
However, the volume just described contains only §§1 through 19, i.e.,
the first three paragraphs that serve as an introduction and the first chapter.
Either there is more to search for or Kristeller submitted only the first chapter.
The latter hypothesis is supported first by the fact that Kristeller noted on
the cover "Original thesis on Plotinus submitted in 1928" without any
sie haben schon angefangen." ("I find some consolation in my work and in thinking
that what was will remain permanently, i.e. not only in our short-lived memory. I am
quite pessimistic as for the future of our studies, they have lost support even in the
academic world. The Dark Ages are not imminent, they have already begun.")
36

qualification that these pages were only part of the thesis, and second by
the bound volume's length of 133 pages, which was quite sufficient for a
philosophy thesis at the time. Also, the use of the term Disposition, instead
of Inhalt (contents), suggests that the list of paragraphs was not to be taken
as the contents of the typescript. A reason to suspect that this was a plan
for an expanded version of the submitted thesis is the fact that there exist
manuscript fragments of the subsequent paragraphs (see below).
The typescript version of §1 begins with the same words as the printed
book (p. 1 in each version): "Dem Interpreten eines philosophischen
Textes...." Apart from that, the two books are considerably different, as the
different keywords in the titles indicate (System vs. Ethik): In his study the
doctorandus presented the "system" of Plotinus' philosophy, of which ethics
was only a part. A detailed analysis of this new finding would go beyond
the scope of an addendum.
The same "Box 10 of 24" also contains fragments of the manuscript of
the dissertation:
a) In a file folder inscribed "Early manuscripts (German)" there are sheets
of paper, numbered 54 through 88, handwritten with ink on both sides,
on Plotinus (on fol. 80r appears "§30", on fol. 82r "§31"); the manuscript
breaks off on fol. 88r with the writing of simply the number "§33," followed
by nothing else. This is likely a draft of the missing parts of the disserta-
tion. The folder also contains one handwritten sheet with the Disposition,
essentially as in the typescript.
b) In a blue file folder inscribed with ballpoint pen "Ms Plotinus" and
with pencil "Plotin II. Kapitel [space] Ergänzung [remainder illegible]" there
are sheets of paper, written in the same way and ink as the other fragment,
numbered 49, 50, 51, 51a through 51i, 64 through 72. Fols. 49-51i match
the printed book §3, pp. 22-50; fols. 64-72 contain §§10-11, pp. 78-98.
From the inscription on the cover we may conclude that the printed book
on Plotinus' ethics was originally drafted as chapter 2 of the dissertation
according to the original plan. This conclusion would support the notion
that Kristeller did not submit more than chapter 1, since he confirmed that
the printed book was not the thesis submitted.
It is worth noting that for the submitted thesis Kristeller used a peculiar
way of referring to Plotinus' Enneads, namely, Greek capital letters, Roman
and Arab numerals. The manuscript fragment has the same references,
whereas for the printed book he returned to the standard way of citing
(only Arab numerals).
The "Box 10 of 24" also contains three more items of interest in this context:
(1) The typescript of the thesis on Cicero De formarum sive idearum apud
Ciceronem notions (see note 56 of my article). It is bound (stapled) in a dark
37

38
blue soft cover (back cover missing), has 63 fols. and one non-numbered
sheet with Kristeller's Vita (in Latin); format 32.2 by 21 cm. Fol. 1 contains
in the upper left margin in pencil the name "Oppenheimer." I am unsure
whether this was Kristeller's friend Klaus Oppenheimer (see Reminiscences,
pp. 159 f.) or a reviewer of the thesis. It is noteworthy that Kristeller mentions
in his Vita that he was born "patre Oscario Graefenberg" and only later was
entitled to name himself Kristeller. The existence of the Vita testifies that this
was, indeed, the thesis for graduation in classical studies at Berlin. (Among
other notations the cover is inscribed "Ms. thesis on Cicero.") The thesis
defends at length a conjecture to Cicero's text, repeated in the 1989 Academy
talk Die Ideen als Gedanken der menschlichen und der göttlichen Vemunft, p. 8
note 8, to which the reviewer added on p. 10 a lengthy, approving, remark
that begins with: "Satis audacter" ("quite brave!").
(2) In a green file folder, inscribed "Draft, Cicero thesis" there is the
manuscript of this thesis.
(3) A yellowish file folder, inscribed "Early ms (German)" contains a
treatise in Kristeller's hand: "Abhandlung Weltproblem und Dingbegriff,"
incipit: "Die philosophische Entwicklung der letzten Jahrzehnte." It would
be worth studying this text in order to further understand Kristeller's early
philosophical interests.