Robert Grosseteste: philosophy of intellect and vision

Abstract

Explores a particular aspect of the writing of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln 1235-53, his philosophies of intellect and vision, which are very influential to later philosophy. His philosophies combine Plato and Aristotle, Greek Commentators on Aristotle, Arabic Commentators on Aristotle, and Neoplatonists. Influence of his philosophies can be seen in the Franciscan School, Renaissance, and contemporary philosophical movements. Keywords: Robert Grosseteste (De luce; De lineis, angulis et figuris; Hexaemeron, Commentary on the Posterior Analytics, Commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy, Commentary on the Mystical Theology, Commentary on the Metaphysics, Commentary on the Physics, De Iride, De Motu Corporali, De Motu Supercaelestium, De Natura Locorum, De Sphaera, Ecclesia Sancta Celebrat), medieval philosophy, intellect, vision, perception, cosmology, passive intellect, active intellect, intelligible form, Oxford University, Franciscan School, Roger Bacon, John Peckham (Perspectiva Communis), John Wycliffe, William of Ockham, Erasmus Witelo (Perspectiva), Bartholomew the Englishman, Lincoln Cathedral, Pythagoras, Plato (Phaedo, Phaedrus, Philebus, Republic, Symposium, Timaeus), Plotinus (Enneads), Aristotle (De anima, Physics, Metaphysics, Posterior Analytics), Euclid (Elements of Geometry, Catoptrica, Optica), Alexander of Aphrodisias (De anima, De intellectu), Themistius (De anima), Saint Augustine (De Civitate Dei, De Musica, De Trinitate), Abu Nasr Alfarabi (De intellectu), Ibn Sina (Avicenna, De Caelo, Liber Naturalis, Metaphysica, Najat), Ibn Rushd (Averroes, Long Commentary on the De anima), Alkindi (De aspectibus, De intellectu), Theology of Aristotle, Liber de Causis, Avicebron (Fons Vitae), Boethius (Arithmetic, De Consolatione Philosophiae), Pseudo-Dionysius (Mystical Theology, Celestial Hierarchy, Divine Names, Ecclesiastical Hierarchy), Domenicus Gundissalinus (De anima), Proclus (Commentary on the First Book of Euclid’s Elements, Elements of Theology), Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Nicolas Cusanus (De circuli quadratura, De coniecturis, De docta ignorantia), Leon Battista Alberti, Marsilio Ficino (De amore, Theologia Platonica), Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (Oration on the Dignity of Man), George Berkeley (Alciphron, An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision), Piero della Francesca (De prospectiva pingendi), Athanasius Kircher (Ars magna lucis et umbrae, Musurgia universalis, Obeliscus Pamphilius, Primitiae gnomonicae catoptricae, Prodromus Coptus Sive Aegyptiacus), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit), Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason), Sigmund Freud (The Interpretation of Dreams), Jacques Lacan (The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis), Erwin Panofsky (Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism), Richard William Southern, Alistair Cameron Crombie, Vitruvius (De architectura