Fast Reviews of Books in Renaissance Intellectual History:
Review R20040108

Contact: Dr. Heinrich C. Kuhn (hck@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)
Document created: 2004-01-08
Last update: 2004-01-08

Item reviewed:

Weigel, Erhard
Behme, Thomas (ed.)

Universi Corporis Pansophici Caput Summum
Werke I
Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt [Frommann-Holzboog] 2003
XXXI, 328 S. : Ill.
ISBN: 3-7728-1625-8
Series: Clavis Pansophiae ; 3.1

Price: € 117

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This title was reviewed by: Martin Mulsow of "Seminar für Geistesgeschichte und Philosophie der Renaissance"

Item arrived at GGREN on: 2003-10-21
Review was finished on: 2004-01-08

The Review

• Today, Erhard Weigel (1625-1699) is mostly only remembered as the teacher of Leibniz. But he was an interesting thinker in his own regard, no less encyclopaedic than his famous pupil. His fields of interest included mathematics, philosophy, pedagogy, astronomy, physics, jurisprudence, architecture, history, geography, ethics and mechanics. As a professor at the university of Jena, Weigel was highly influential through his many students, such as — apart from Leibniz — Samuel Pufendorf or Johann Christoph Sturm. Therefore one can appreciate that now an edition of Weigel's main works is being undertaken, including, as its first volume, the central part of Weigel's "Corpus pansophicum" (1673).
• This central part contains an epistemology ("Pantognosia") and a logic ("Pantologia"). In it, Weigel makes the attempt to use mathemathics as a paradigm for philosophy. For example, definitions of the essence of a thing (with genus and species) are conceived of as numbers, located in a logical space. In an age of computers like ours, Weigel would have had it much easier to convince a great audience of such an account.
• In his introduction (pp. IX-XXXI), Behme stresses the philosopher's transformation of the logical traditions of contemporary university teaching (especially the scotistic tradition), and explains the main features of Weigels thought. Particularly valuable are Behme's erudite notes (pp. 269-316) to the text. Here the reader is provided with explanations and with references to other books by Weigel.

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Author1:               Weigel, Erhard
Author2:               Behme, Thomas (ed.)
Author3:               
Author4:               
Author5:               
Author5:               
main Title:            Universi Corporis Pansophici Caput Summum
subtitle:              Werke I
edition:               
series:                Clavis Pansophiae ; 3.1
place of publ.:        Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt
publisher:             Frommann-Holzboog
year:                  2003
no of pages etc.:      XXXI, 328 S. : Ill.
ISBN:                  3-7728-1625-8
currency:              €
price:                 117