The Doctrine of Beings of Reason in Renaissance Lullism. Its Late-Medieval Background and Early-Modern Repercussions
(2022) Documenti e Studi sulla Tradizione Filosofica Medievale — Vol. 33, p. 289-323 (2022)
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- The doctrine of beings of reason (entia rationis) found in eclectic Lullism around 1500, in particular in the works of Pere Daguí and Jaume Janer, may be seen against the background of early Scotist discussions of the relationship between real beings and beings of reason; the very context of Daguí’s and Janer’s discussion of this topic is their engagement with Scotist literature on distinction theory. Given this background, Daguí and Janer formulate an original doctrine of two kinds of beings of reason (corresponding to two kinds of distinctions of reason), one of which has a foundation in reality, whereas the other is a pure product of an intellect. Agrippa von Nettesheim adopted important elements from their doctrine, but they otherwise do not seem to have had any long-lasting influence on the discourse on beings of reason. Their explanations of the two kinds of beings of reason, however, do have certain features in common with later approaches. This especially goes for their reduction of one kind of beings of reason to language phenomena and their consideration of chimeras as being possible real monsters. Their distinction between two kinds of beings of reason also resembles the later division of these kinds of beings into “entia rationis ratiocinantis” and “entia rationis ratiocinatae”. Finally, Janer’s digression on “ideated” and “ideating” ideas echoes the well-known distinction between “natura naturata” and “natura naturans”. All the essential elements of Daguí’s and Janer’s rather idiosyncratic doctrine of beings of reason thus have some counterpart in the later history of philosophy.
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Andersen, C. (2022). The Doctrine of Beings of Reason in Renaissance Lullism. Its Late-Medieval Background and Early-Modern Repercussions. Documenti e Studi sulla Tradizione Filosofica Medievale, 33, 289-323. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/275367 (Original work published 2022)