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Gaspar Lax (1487 – 23 February 1560) was a Spanish mathematician, logician, and philosopher who spent much of his career in Paris.


Biography

Lax was born in Sariñena, the son of Leonor de la Cueva and Gaspar Lax, a physician, and had two brothers and four sisters. He studied the
Seven Liberal Arts 7 (seven) is the natural number following 6 and preceding 8. It is the only prime number preceding a cube. As an early prime number in the series of positive integers, the number seven has symbolic associations in religion, mythology, supers ...
and theology at the University of Saragossa, where he acquired a master's degree. Also during this period of time, all along with another friend, Lax fatally wounded another student by hitting his head. He later moved to Paris, and there he taught in 1507–1508 at the Collège de Calvi and then at the
Collège de Montaigu The Collège de Montaigu was one of the constituent colleges of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Paris. History The college, originally called Collège des Aicelins, was founded in 1314 by Gilles I Aycelin de Montaigu, Archbishop of Na ...
, where he was a student of
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(or Major) and simultaneously was a teacher himself. In Paris he was known as the "Prince of
Sophist A sophist () was a teacher in ancient Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. Sophists specialized in one or more subject areas, such as philosophy, rhetoric, music, athletics and mathematics. They taught ''arete'', "virtue" or "excellen ...
s," and his works and lessons were very praised. He taught in Paris until 1516, and then returned to Spain. Some researchers think there was an attempt by some of king
Charles V Charles V may refer to: Kings and Emperors * Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558) * Charles V of Naples (1661–1700), better known as Charles II of Spain * Charles V of France (1338–1380), called the Wise Others * Charles V, Duke ...
's servants to appoint him University of Saragossa's High Master, just as they had tried to appoint
Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus ( ; ; 28 October c. 1466 – 12 July 1536), commonly known in English as Erasmus of Rotterdam or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Christian humanist, Catholic priest and Catholic theology, theologian, educationalist ...
as High Chancellor of the same university during the same months. In the end this was not possible, and he was appointed as a teacher in the University of
Huesca Huesca (; ) is a city in north-eastern Spain, within the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Aragon. It was the capital of the Kingdom of Aragon between 1096 and 1118. It is also the capital of the Spanish Huesca (province), ...
, that same year. There he taught until 1520, when he became University of Saragosa's High Master (similar to a dean), vice-chancellor and rector, and also was simultaneously one of the four Masters of Arts, a position very similar to Arts faculty's professor in other universities. There he had his brilliant nephew Michael Servetus as a student in the same university, who also became in 1525 one of the four Masters of Arts. During this period of time Lax, who had Erasmian friends, permitted that Erasmus's works be read and taught in the university. In 1527 apparently Lax attacked his nephew and colleague Michael Servetus in a violent brawl of which no other details are known, but that got Servetus expelled. The most probable causes of this clash is that Servetus would have started talking of his "heretic" theological ideas, or that Lax had silenced Servetus's probable collaboration in his work ''Quaestiones phyisicales'', which just 11 days before had started to get in print. Lax remained University of Saragossa's High master, teaching Arts, until his death at
Saragossa Zaragoza (), traditionally known in English as Saragossa ( ), is the capital city of the province of Zaragoza and of the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It lies by the Ebro river and its tributaries, the ...
in 1560, blind and with gout in his hands.González Ancín, Miguel & Towns, Otis. (2017) pp. 371-373


Works

* ''Tractatus exponibilitum Propositionum'', 1507 * ''De Syllogismis'', 1509 * ''De Solubilibus et Insolubilibus'', 1511 * ''De Oppositionibus Propositionum cathegoricarum et earum Aequipollentiis'', 1512 * ''De Impositionibus y Obligationes'', 1512 *
Arithmetica speculativa
', 1515 *
Proportiones
', 1515 * ''De proportionibus arithmeticis'', 1515 * ''Quaestiones phisicales'', 1527


References


Bibliography

* The ''Arithmetica'' of Lax is discussed in David Eugene Smith ''Rara Arithmetica'', Boston, London 1908. * The logic and philosophy of Lax are discussed in Marcial Solana ''Historia de la filosofia española, Época del Renacimiento (siglo XVI)'', Madrid 1941, Vol. III, pp. 19–33.


External links


William A. Wallace ''Gaspard Lax''
in
Dictionary of Scientific Biography The ''Dictionary of Scientific Biography'' is a scholarly reference work that was published from 1970 through 1980 by publisher Charles Scribner's Sons, with main editor the science historian Charles Coulston Gillispie, Charles Gillispie, from Pri ...

Lax, Gaspar – The Galileo Project
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lax, Gaspar 16th-century Spanish mathematicians 1487 births 1560 deaths Logicians University of Zaragoza alumni 16th-century Spanish philosophers