Giacomo (or Jacopo) Zabarella (5 September 1533 – 15 October 1589) was an Italian Aristotelian

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

and

logician Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure of arg ...

Life

Zabarella was born into a noble Paduan family. He received a

humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential, and agency of human beings, whom it considers the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humanism" ha ...

education and entered the

University of Padua The University of Padua (, UNIPD) is an Italian public research university in Padua, Italy. It was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from the University of Bologna, who previously settled in Vicenza; thus, it is the second-oldest ...

, where he received a doctorate in 1553. His teachers included Francesco Robortello in humanities, Bernardino Tomitano in logic, Marcantonio Genua in physics and metaphysics, and Pietro Catena in mathematics. In 1564 he succeeded Tomitano in the chair of logic. In 1577 he was promoted to the first extraordinary chair of

natural philosophy Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics, that is, nature and the physical universe, while ignoring any supernatural influence. It was dominant before the develop ...

. He died in Padua at the age of 56 in 1589. His entire teaching career was spent at his native university. His successor was Cesare Cremonini.

Work

Zabarella's work reflects his teaching in the Aristotelian tradition. His first published work was ''Opera logica'' (Venice 1578), followed by ''Tabula logicae'' (1578). His commentary on Aristotle's ''

Posterior Analytics The ''Posterior Analytics'' (; ) is a text from Aristotle's '' Organon'' that deals with demonstration, definition, and scientific knowledge. The demonstration is distinguished as ''a syllogism productive of scientific knowledge'', while the de ...

'' appeared in 1582. His great work in

was ''De rebus naturalibus'', published posthumously in 1590. It constituted 30 treatises on Aristotelian natural philosophy, the introduction to which was written only weeks before his death. His two sons edited his incomplete commentaries on Aristotle's texts, also published posthumously (the commentary on the ''

Physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

'' in 1601 and the commentary on ''

On the Soul ''On the Soul'' ( Greek: , ''Peri Psychēs''; Latin: ) is a major treatise written by Aristotle . His discussion centres on the kinds of souls possessed by different kinds of living things, distinguished by their different operations. Thus pla ...

'' (1605).''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' Zabarella consulted newly recovered Greek commentators such as

Alexander of Aphrodisias Alexander of Aphrodisias (; AD) was a Peripatetic school, Peripatetic philosopher and the most celebrated of the Ancient Greek Commentaries on Aristotle, commentators on the writings of Aristotle. He was a native of Aphrodisias in Caria and liv ...

, Philoponus, Simplicius, and

Themistius Themistius ( ; 317 – c. 388 AD), nicknamed Euphrades (, "''eloquent''"), was a statesman, rhetorician and philosopher. He flourished in the reigns of Constantius II, Julian, Jovian, Valens, Gratian and Theodosius I, and he enjoyed the favo ...

, as well as medieval commentators like

Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas ( ; ; – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican Order, Dominican friar and Catholic priest, priest, the foremost Scholasticism, Scholastic thinker, as well as one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in the W ...

Walter Burley Walter Burley (or Burleigh; 1275 – 1344/45) was an English scholastic philosopher and logician with at least 50 works attributed to him. He studied under Thomas WiltonHarjeet Singh Gill, ''Signification in language and culture'', Indian I ...

, and

Averroes Ibn Rushd (14 April 112611 December 1198), archaically Latinization of names, Latinized as Averroes, was an Arab Muslim polymath and Faqīh, jurist from Al-Andalus who wrote about many subjects, including philosophy, theology, medicine, astron ...

. Unlike some earlier scholastic philosophers, he was literate in Greek and was therefore able to use the Greek texts of Aristotle. He devoted much effort to presenting what he considered to be the true meaning of Aristotle's texts.

Writings

* 1st edition (Venice, 1578). Contains: * (Venice, 1586). * ''De rebus naturalibus: libri XXX'' (Koln, 1590). * 3rd edition (Koln, 1597). With the addition of: * (Venice, 1601). * ''Commentarii in III libros De anima'' (Venice, 1605).

Editions and translations

* ''Opera logica'', anastatic reprint of the Kōln 1597 edition by Wilhelm Risse (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1966). * ''Tables de logique. Sur l'Introduction de Porphyre, les Catégories, le De l'interprétation et les Premiers Analytiques d'Aristote: Petite synopse introductive à la logique aristotélicienne'', tr. Michel Bastit (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2003). * ''La nature de la logique'', tr. Dominique Bouillon (Paris: Vrin, 2009). * ''On Methods'' and ''On Regressus'', ed. and tr. John P. McCaskey (I Tatti Renaissance Library; Harvard University Press, 2014). ** Volume 1, ''On Methods'', Books I–II. ** Volume 2, ''On Methods'', Books III–IV and ''On Regressus''. * ''De rebus naturalibus libri XXX'', ed. José M. García Valverde (Brill, 2016). See also:

References

External links