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South Slavs, philosophy of

DOI
10.4324/9780415249126-N003-1
DOI: 10.4324/9780415249126-N003-1
Version: v1,  Published online: 1998
Retrieved March 28, 2024, from https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/overview/south-slavs-philosophy-of/v-1

1. Philosophy in Latin

Until the Renaissance, philosophy among the South Slavs (on the territory of the former Yugoslavia) was practised only within the theological framework of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. In the fifteenth century, the Ottoman conquest and the resulting intermittent warfare had greatly impeded intellectual activity. At the same time Renaissance humanism penetrated the coastal towns of the Adriatic (which were not exposed to the Ottoman onslaught). In the Republic of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) especially, an indigenous literature flourished in the local Serbo-Croat dialect, as well as in Italian and Latin. The growth of interest in philosophy nurtured philosophers of South Slav origin who subsequently taught philosophy and published their philosophical works in Latin in various countries of Europe, principally in Italy, Austria and Germany.

Among the first of the South Slav humanist philosophers was Juraj Dragišić (Georgius Benignus de Salviatis), born in Bosnia in 1450 and educated in Dubrovnik, Paris, Oxford and Florence. A Franciscan monk, he was a courtier to Lorenzo di Medici and later a professor of philosophy at the University of Pisa. Philosophically, he was inclined towards Platonism, and in his polemical works he defended Pico della Mirandola as well as Savanarola. His main works were in logic (Artis dialecticae praecepta vetera ac nova 1520) and metaphysics (De natura caelestium spirituum 1499). The humanist Matija Hvale, born in what is now Slovenia, was active at the University of Vienna in the early sixteenth century.

Matija Vlačić (Mattias Flacius Illyricus) born in Labin in Istria, was educated in Germany where he became one of the leading Lutheran theologians and polemicists of the sixteenth century, firmly opposed to any compromise with Roman Catholicism. In his theological treatise Clavis Scripturae Sacrae (A Key to the Holy Scriptures) he not only offered a systematic linguistic exegesis of the Bible, but expounded a succinct philosophy of language and of translation. Language is a sign or image of things, that is, ‘glasses, as it were, through which we look at things’. The meaning of words is determined by the historical context in which they are used, and is thus subject to change. This contextual view of meaning guides Vlačić’s own Biblical exegesis, which Wilhelm Dilthey considered the forerunner of modern hermeneutics (1914–90 (5): 325).

Also in the sixteenth century, Franjo Petrić (Franciscus Patricius) was born in Cres, Dalmatia, educated in Germany and Italy and taught philosophy at the Universities in Ferrara and Rome. His youthful La citá felice (The happy city) belongs to the tradition of Renaissance utopianism exemplified by Campanella’s City of the Sun. His philosophical system, expounded in his Nova de universis philosophia (The new universal philosophy), is an attempt to synthesize Catholicism and Platonism: the light, as a spiritual force, is the first cause, the source of all movement and life in the universe; the spiritual thus permeates the whole universe and in this the human microcosm reflects the universe’s macrocosmic order. In this, as in his earlier works, he rejected Aristotle’s philosophy as false and godless, which resulted in his work being briefly placed on the Roman Catholic Index of prohibited books.

Rudjer Josip Bošković, (Roger Joseph Boscovich), a native of Dubrovnik who joined the Jesuit order, was educated and taught philosophy in Rome. A scientist and mathematician, he is today best known for his theory of non-extended atoms or puncta. In Article 164 of his Theoria philosophiae naturalis (A Theory of Natural Philosophy) (1763), he claims that ‘Matter is composed of perfectly indivisible, non-extended, discrete points’. Having no mass, these points do not exert force in the Newtonian sense but still interact with each other. They repel each other at very small distances, reaching an equilibrium, beyond which the points attract and then again repel each other. This process is governed by Bošković’s law of oscillation. Within the framework of their spatial relations, pairs of oscillating points form minute composite particles. Assemblies of these first-order particles form larger particles which, in turn, form seemingly hard bodies. The collision of impenetrable atoms, he observed, would introduce non-continuous or sudden change in their velocity (Art. 18). In order to avoid this violation of the law of continuity, he conceived atoms as non-extended and impenetrable; in contrast, observable, hard bodies are held to be extended and penetrable. Thus Bošković attempted to uphold the law of continuity which he derived from Leibniz and held to be an axiom. As L.L. Whyte (1961) shows, his deductive kinematic theory of non-extended atoms was highly influential until experimental research on the composition of atoms began early in the twentieth century.

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Citing this article:
Lazovic, Zivan and Aleksandar Pavkovic. Philosophy in Latin. South Slavs, philosophy of, 1998, doi:10.4324/9780415249126-N003-1. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Taylor and Francis, https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/overview/south-slavs-philosophy-of/v-1/sections/philosophy-in-latin.
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