Aandacht voor Fausto Meli (1908-1931), "Spinoza e due antecedenti italiani dello spinozismo"

Nu ik weer eens deze cover tegenkom [van hier– ik had eerder op 12-07-2016 dit blog over deze uitgave] wilde ik er eens iets meer over weten en zocht naar een review.

Ik stuitte op deze van ene R. McK. die verscheen in The Journal of Philosophy, [Vol. 31, No. 15 (Jul. 19, 1934), pp. 412-413].

We komen heel wat interessants te weten.

Spinoza, e due Antecedenti Italiani dello Spinozismo. FAUSTO MELI. Prefazione di Guiseppe Saitta. (Studi di Lettere Storia e Filosofia. Publ. dalla R. Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. III.) Florence: G. C. Sansoni. 1934. viii + 199 pp. 18 Lire.

Fausto Meli died in 1931 at the age of twenty-two, leaving behind him the memory of great intellectual promise and three essays which are now published by one of the professors to whom he acknowledged indebtedness. The first essay, "II Pensiero Religioso e Politico di Fausto Socino," states the thesis which all three essays illustrate: the Reformation, which arose from the spiritual renovation of the Renaissance, nonetheless negated that spirit and involved itself in contradictions which are resolved in the work of Fausto Socino, Jacopo Aconcio, and in general in Spinozism. In Spinozism, or in its anticipations, are contained the foundations of what is modern in philosophy. The revolt against scholasticism still figures large in this version of the history of philosophy, but the intellectual revolt is posterior to, and even directed against, the work of the Reformation: Luther was the great hero of faith, Melanchthon the most liberal and tolerant spirit, but it was Fausto Socino who laid bare the foundations of human action, saw its effective value, revealed the inner reason from which it flowed and laid the foundations of modern, unprejudiced, autonomous culture (pp. 15-16). Socinianism resolved in the philosophical monism, which was the great achievement of Humanism, the numerous dualisms which the author finds in earlier thought: it abandoned a theology which no longer corresponded to the effective needs of culture, it abandoned the interminable discussions which smashed the vital germ of religion into infinite sects, it unified the sphere of the divine with that of the human and the world of grace with that of nature (pp. 42-43). In sum, it substituted a rationalism, according to which truth is a process and a conquest, for the medieval intellectualism, according to which it was a datum. Scholastic intellectualism had defined its truths in fixed dogmas that led-as did the Protestant reform-to intolerance; Socino, by casting off useless theology, prepared the typically modern concept of tolerance. S. Meli can, therefore, find numerous echoes of the Socinian doctrine, not only in the philosophies of Bruno and Spinoza, but in the moral and religious ideas of the Cambridge Platonists (who were called Socinians by their opponents) and in the political history and organizations of Holland and England. The brief second essay, "Iacopo Aconcio" (pp. 87-95), based on the Stratagemata Satanae rather than the De methodo, presents a similar philosophic vision of man, naturalistically conceived, endowed with vices, passions, and errors, conquering a growing truth. When one turns therefore from his predecessors to Spinoza himself (Parte II. "Sulla Metafisica Razionalistica dello Spinoza"), it is to find the chief value of his philosophy not in a dogmatic metaphysics, but in a method, which is real, concrete, and rationalistic in this modern sense. The method is "cognitio reflexiva," and therefore, S. Meli finds, emphasizes, no longer some cognizance the mind may have of the system of reality, but rather the spontaneous and productive activity of the mind. S. Meli labors with considerable ingenuity to substantiate his idealistic version of Spinoza, and frequently the ingenuity results in striking and fantastic interpretations. Thus he contrasts Thomas Aquinas and Spinoza (p. 100) by arguing that for the former the metaphysical object remains always extraneous to speculative thought, the object of faith and intuition, of induction rather than of demonstration, whereas for Spinoza, "thought seeks to adequate itself to its object by resolving the opacity of its immediate position in the clarity of reason." This surprising statement is substantiated by Spinoza's argument that God is Causa sui in refutation of Thomas's objection to the a priori demonstrations of the existence of God on the grounds that God has no cause! But the interest of this book does not lie primarily in the historical or philosophical accuracy of S. Meli 's interpretation. Rather it lies in the insight it contributed to the history of thought by adding one more to the interpretations of the modern spirit and its revolt against the frigidities and rigors of the Middle Ages.

R. McK.

Een aardige bespreking gaf deze R. McK., maar wie die R. McK. was, heb ik niet kunnen achterhalen. Wel kom je meer recensies van hem tegen, bv. Zijn review van The Philosophy of Spinoza and Brunner by Walter Bernard, in: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 33, No. 9 (Apr. 23, 1936), pp. 248-249 of over Die Introductiones in Logicam des Wilhelm von Shyreswood (nach 1267), in Volume 35, Issue 25, December 1938, maar over wie  hij was vond ik niets.
Michele Federico Sciacca schreef ook een review van Meli's boek (cf.]

Fausto Meli's levensdata worden hier gegeven.