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Ottaviani · CERPHI Inscrit le: 28 Oct 2002 Messages: 335 Localisation: Paris / Lyon

This message is for Vasileios...

I asking myself a question : you work on biological metaphors, but did you think that, for Marsilius, the biologicals topics are only metaphorics, or did you show that they are more than that ?
He was an Abano's pupil, and, for me, he seems to try a real new way of thinking : he uses Aristoteles, but also Galien or Avicenna, in order to shift the discourses about the living being on the political theory, in the same way he does with the intellectual one. In this interpretation, it's impossible to part intelectual and biological problems, and I suppose that he tries to emphasis a sort of avicenian way of thinking, as the persian thinker does in his De anima, or in Directive's book (third group) : show the unity between body and soul, and study the soul's functions working in the body.
I don't know if i'm very clear (my english is so bad Crying or Very sad

, sorry), but for me there is a real mutation in his thinking, because he suppose that the form can be produced by the matter itself, in the case of a political body. In fact, it seems to be in his Defensor, book one, a theory inspired by Aphrodisias one (called "psychological materialism" by Albertus Magnus, in his De anima, for example). Latins thinkers always criticize Alexander, but the problems a realy differents in the case of a political thought : it's possible to say that the body (people) engendrate a form (law), and after that determinate the government (see my article about the distinction between generare and determinare, and the opposition with J. Quillet's interpretation in the french traduction), but this is only possible if we can suppose that the form can be produced by the matter herself. So it suppose a new interpretation of "potentia", different from aristoteles dunamis, that we can found in the "averroïst" treatise De beatitudine.
It's the thesis of my article about people in Marsilius Defensor, but I'm not absolutely sure to be in the right way.
So my questions :
- Did you work on the place of the arabic thought in Marsilius, or on his relation with John of Jandun about the intellect ?
- Did you know if someone wrote an article/book on that subject ?
- Do you think that biology is for Marsilius the basis in order to think the politicals problems ?

And, last but not least : I can read english quite well, but it's more difficult when I have to write. Do you read french ? If it's yes, I can write in french, and you can answer me in english (or in italian if you wish, but I can't read german). If answer is "no", no problem, we can continue in english (it's only longuer, and with some mistakes for me).
Did you wrote something on this questions ? If "yes", can you send me the works ? Thanks a lot...

(Virtualy) see you...
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Didier Ottaviani
École Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines (Lyon)
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