Resultados

Bruno’s rejection of infinity when dealing with the small side of things may seem surprising and may also give the impression of an excessive antagonism to Aristotle. There is, nonetheless, an intrinsic necessity for Bruno to hold this position, which is not the merely mathematical necessity that we saw in the last section; rather, it is the very possibility for man to dwell in an intelligible world. As Sandro Mancini puts it: «If, as a matter of fact, knowing is measuring, as Bruno assumes from Nicholas of Cusa, the infinite as such does not amount to a principle of intelligibility but of indifference, uniformity; so that, having welcomed the infinite from the side of composition, Bruno is forced to put a limit on the opposite side and to look for a criterion of measurement in a definite minimum»⁸³. By measuring Bruno does not imply the correctness dictated by an objective standard but a condition for man to experience the world extensively; such an experience takes the form of ordering, measuring and composition, which allow for the infinite variety and the endless vicissitude of the world. Were a division to infinity possible, it would not make sense to speak of ordering and composition, as any attempt in that direction would be lost within the indifference of the infinite, as Bruno showed through the examples of distance and time. There is another reason for it, which is even more fundamental:

Bruno’s intuition – unwittingly suggested by Mordente’s invention – that the minimum is not the result of a mechanical or arithmetic division, but the assumption needed to carry out a mathematical numeration and therefore a physical composition.

83 S. Mancini, La sfera infinita. Identità e differenza nel pensiero di Giordano Bruno, Mimesis, Milano, 2000, p. 198. My translation from Italian: «Se, infatti, conoscere è misurare, come Bruno assume da Cusano, l’infinito di per sé non costituisce un principio di intellegibilità, ma di indifferenza, di uniformità; onde accolto operativamente l’infinito dal lato della composizione, Bruno è costretto a porre un limite nel lato opposto, e a cercare il criterio di misura in un minimo definito».

In this instance De Bernart clarifies why we speak of its omni-relational nature:

«Thus the minimum is an assumption, it is always and in any way what is presupposed as the ultimate component of a “whole” that one intends to analyze in its internal relations and without which those very relations are not construable or determinable»⁸⁴. The minimum, then, makes sense only in relation to a whole which is its way of relating to other minima, whether the whole is a word, whose minimum is constituted by its letters, a galaxy in relation to its planets, a stone in relation to its crystals or the World Wide Web in relation to its websites: Bruno ensures that, at every level, nature becomes intelligible through the notion of minimum. That is why he cannot identify the minimum with the Democritean/Lucretian atom, whose main feature was to be the smallest part characterized by the absence of void, i.e.

impenetrability. He even makes one further distinction according to different spheres of reality where the metaphysical minimum is identified with the monad, the physical one with the atom and the geometrical one with the point:

Number is an accident of the monad, the monad is the essence of number; composition requires the atom and the atom is the essence of the compound. The principle of number is the monad with the number, as the principle of magnitude is the atom with the magnitude itself: in a subordinate or primary manner they belong to the genus of quantity; in it all things are reduced to unity as, truly, all numerically diversified atoms are reduced to the foundation of the atom, according to the species. For those who look at bodies, the substance of all things is the minimum body, i.e. the atom. For those who look at the straight line or the plain, the minimum is the point.⁸⁵

84 L. De Bernart, Numerus quodammodo infinitus. Per un approccio storico-teorico al «dilemma matematico» nella filosofia di Giordano Bruno, p. 234. My translation from Italian: «Dunque il minimo è un’assunzione, è sempre e comunque ciò che si presuppone come componente ultima di un ‘intero’ che ci si prefigge di analizzare nelle sue relazioni interne e senza di cui le relazioni stesse non sono costruibili e determinabili».

85 G. Bruno, “De triplici minimo et mensura”, in G. Bruno, Opera latine conscripta, edited by F.

Tocco and H. Vitelli, vol. I.3, Florence 1889, p. 140. My translation from Latin and rendition in prose, also based on the Italian translation by Carlo Monti in G. Bruno, Opere latine, edited by C.

Monti, Mondadori, Milano 2008, p. 98:

«Numerus est accidens monadis, et monas est essentia

numeri; sic compositio accidit atomo, et atomus est essentia com- positi. Principium numeri monas cum numero, sicut et principium magnitudinis atomus cum ipsa magnitudine, reductive vel princi- paliter sunt in genere quantitatis, et accidentia substantiae, quae est monas antecedens, vere et per se minimum principium magni-

The minimum, then, seems to become the essential substratum of reality: it has no size or duration but it is extensively expressed as relation; it is not an object then, therefore it retreats from a merely extensive perception. The minimum is what guarantees that, as letters compose a word, as bricks compose a building and atoms compose a molecule, beings are only understood in terms of their compositional relations and not as isolated objects. Not possessing determinations such as size and duration, the minimum coincides with the infinitely large and it is intensively present in each being, although it does not reveal itself. What is intensive hides and retreats from mere perception and yet, through its retreat, it offers beings as we know them in their extensive determinations. The twofold understanding of the minimum appears to reproduce the movement of Heidegger’s notion of ἀλήθεια in its game of unconcealment through the safekeeping of Being. This similar dynamics shows that whenever the subject/object dichotomy is not present, the multiplicity of beings, of which we are part, can only be sustained by what is taken away from what is determinable through measurement and calculation. Man, although fully involved in the multiplicity of beings, is the place where the two thoughts of what is determined and what is concealed can be held at once. Furthermore, the notion of minimum does not project a mathematical model upon nature but lets nature operate in its infinite variety. It comes as no surprise, then, if in one of the Latin poems he wrote during his sojourn in Frankfurt, the De triplici minimo et mensura, Bruno even refers to the minimum as substance:

The Minimum is the substance of things: you will see nevertheless that it is still greater than any other thing. The monad, the atom and all the spirit that pervades everything derive from the minimum, which has no dimensions and constitutes everything with its

tudinis, in quo non ex quo; et in hac omnia sunt unum, sicut in

veritate atomi secundum speciem omnes atomi secundum nume- rum. Ad corpora ergo respicienti omnium substantia minimum corpus est seu atomus, ad lineam vero atque planum minimum quod est punctus».

mark, total essence and, if you look well, everything is made of it, even matter itself.

[…]

If the monad did not exist, there would not be any numbers either; as a matter of fact, it ordered the species, constituting every kind. […] It is said that it is the constant element in all things and the principle that determines the finite above them and pervades the infinite space constituting, tying, integrating, propagating, eternal, everything that is composite and whatever is created simple; because the maximum derives from the minimum, is in the minimum, tends to and through the minimum.⁸⁶

The minimum is here characterized as substance in a way that cannot prescind from the infinite. It will now be obvious that it cannot be considered as a part of the infinite but that it actually coincides with it: as there is no difference between an instant and eternity from the point of view of the infinite, then the minimum and the infinite are substantially coincident⁸⁷. This apparent paradox makes sense only when it is

86 G. Bruno, “De triplici minimo et mensura”, in G. Bruno, Opera latine conscripta, I.3, edited by F. Tocco and H. Vitelli, Florence 1889, pp. 138-139. My rendition in prose and translation from Latin, also based on the Italian translation by Carlo Monti, in G. Bruno, Opere latine, edited by C.

Monti, Mondadori, Milano 2008, pp. 95-96:

Ergo cluit constans in cunctis, et super haec qui Claudit finitum, infinitum permeat amplum, coincident, as in the maximum heat he singles out the principle for the movement towards the cold, in the same way as “in the last part of the decayed is the principle of the generated”, for one is the principle of decay and of generation. “The way up and the way down are one and the same”, continues Heraclitus, affirming, like the Taoists, the fundamental union of every couple of opposites and the consequent relativity of all concepts». From G. del Giudice, La coincidenza degli opposti.

Giordano Bruno tra Oriente e Occidente, Di Renzo Editore, Roma 2005, p. 48. My translation from Italian: «[…] per Bruno il minimo caldo e il minimo freddo sono tutt’uno, in quanto nel massimo calore egli individua il principio del moto verso il freddo, così come “nell’ultimo del corrotto è il principio del generato”, perché uno è il principio della corruzione e generazione. “La via all’insù e

considered from an omni-relational point of view: Bruno needs to make sense of the experience of finite things in an infinite universe and he can only do it by indicating a discrete substratum that is the condition for things to exist, which exactly corresponds to saying for things to be composed, ordered and measured without reducing the minimum to a mere object that happens to be indefinitely small. The minimum «has no dimension» and, as such, it cannot be conceived as a small particle that adds up to an actual object. As Saverio Ansaldi puts it: «To each kind of being and to each form of life corresponds a minimum that defines the “nature” itself of the thing in question, starting from the incessant vicissitude and metamorphosis of the atoms. That is why the minimum allows us to explain the existence of the atom without thereby identifying itself necessarily with it. Without the combined action of the atoms, no

“natures” would exist within the infinite matter, but each of these natures represents respectively a minimum if related to another greater nature (human nature is minimal if related to the nature of the sun)»⁸⁸. What Ansaldi here underlines is one of the most important aspects of the Brunian ontology, which frontally attacks the Aristotelian prominence of form over matter: the nature of a being is not provided by a form towards which things should strive in order to fulfil their intimate nature, indeed, the form emerges only once the compound has been intended in its internal relations dictated by the vicissitude of the universe and understood by the actor; there is no teleology, no preconceived end in the Brunian infinite universe. Bruno endorses some kind of materialism but a sort of materialism that needs to fit into his infinite picture and that accounts for the metamorphoses and the vicissitude that characterize the universe. The adoption of a simple materialism could not account for such a degree of all’ingiù è una sola e medesima”, continua Eraclito, affermando, come i taoisti, la fondamentale unità di ogni coppia di opposti e la conseguente relatività di tutti i concetti».

88 S. Ansaldi, Giordano Bruno. Une philosophie de la métamorphose, Éditions Classiques Garnier, Paris 2010, p. 238. My translation from French: «À chaque genre d’être et à chaque forme de vie correspond un minimum définissant la ‘nature’ même de la chose en question, à partir de la vicissitude et de la métamorphoses incessante des atomes. C’est pourquoi le minimum permet d’expliquer l’existence de l’atome sans pourtant s’identifier nécessairement avec lui. Sans l’action combinée des atomes, il n’existerait pas de ‘natures’ au sein de la matière infinie, mais chacune de ses natures représente à son tour un minimum par rapport à une autre nature plus grande (la nature humaine est minime par rapport à la nature du soleil)».

life, as it would leave the universe as a sum of inert bodies, which is exactly what Bruno dismantles from the very beginning. Michele Ciliberto stresses, while commenting on Bruno’s Latin works written in Frankfurt, how the ontology developed in the Italian dialogue De la Causa Principio et Uno has finally reached maturity: «These are symptomatic texts on the conceptual and on the linguistic level.

It is not by chance that Bruno’s passage to a monism oriented in a clearly physical-immanent sense has been found here. This is true, but only in part. The Brunian monism is and remains structurally inscribed in the organic connection of absolute being and communicated being, of “shadow” and “light”. It is here that that the bond between God and Infinite Life is tightened. Obscuring one of these two sides means depriving this position of one of its specific traits. In Bruno “material” and

“corporeal” are not identified. This means that the valorisation of the bodily (of bodily matter) does not, as such, deprive the incorporeal (incorporeal matter) of foundation. They are both aspects of the same substance»⁸⁹. Ciliberto confirms our earlier claim that Bruno’s ontology can only conceive the multiplicity of beings, what Ciliberto calls «communicated being», through a unity that is concealed, for it is not grasped through the determinations of duration and size, what Ciliberto calls

«absolute being». It is the “light” of truth that is kept safe and it is only revealed through a “shadow”, the image of its being hidden: the Heideggerian movement of truth as unconcealment encountered in Heidegger, finds here a further confirmation.

Bruno’s philosophy is striking in that it functions as a mirror of the reality it is trying to account for: it does not provide a description of a static ontology, it does not announce a truth to be correctly met, it actually puts this truth into practice by

89 M. Ciliberto, Giordano Bruno, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2005, pp. 240-1. My translation from Italian:

«Sono, questi, testi sintomatici sia sul piano concettuale che su quello linguistico. Non per caso, proprio qui si è individuato il passaggio di Bruno a un monismo orientato in senso nettamente fisico-immanentistico. Questo è vero, ma solo in parte. In effetti quello bruniano è, e resta, un monismo strutturalmente imperniato nella connessione organica di essere assoluto e di essere comunicato, di ‘ombra’ e di ‘luce’. È qui che si stringe il nesso organico tra Dio e Vita infinita.

Offuscare uno di questi lati, in un senso o nell’altro, vuol dire togliere a questa posizione il suo carattere specifico. In Bruno ‘materiale’ e ‘corporeo’ non si identificano. Il che vuol dire che la valorizzazione del corporeo (della materia corporea) non toglie, di per sé, fondamento all’incorporeo (alla materia incorporea). Sono l’uno e l’altro aspetti di una stessa sostanza».

progressively inhabiting all the faces truth presents itself with. That is why commentators such as Ciliberto often recall the importance of light and shadow when dealing with Bruno, which applies to his writings, where all affirmations are never absolute but work as shadows, understood extensively, created by a light that can never be captured as it is always understood intensively, concealed. We, philosophers, are part of this shadowy game and have to move within it; our effort is to manage where Admetus failed, bearing two thoughts at once. In the case of matter, then, Bruno is not inverting the ontological role of matter and form in order to object to Aristotle. Rather, he shifts from a point of view of difference to a point of view of identity and vice versa in order to make sense of the universe. Before going deeper into the notion of shadow, which will be explored in Chapter V, we should take a look at the foundations of the Brunian ontology as expressed in De la Causa, Principio et Uno. Here the dialectic of identity and difference is clarified by the distinction between Cause and Principle, as Dicsono exposes them to a complacent Teofilo, who is Bruno’s mouthpiece:

I think you take ‘principle’ to be that which intrinsically contributes to the constitution of things and remains in the effect, as they say of matter and form, which remain in the composite, or else the elements from which a thing is composed and into which a thing is resolved. You call ‘cause’ that which contributes to the production of things from outside, and which exists outside the composition, as is the case of the efficient cause, and of the end to which the thing produced is directed.⁹⁰

It is customary for Bruno to make use of well-established concepts. In this passage he refers to the Aristotelian four causes in order to twist them to his own advantage.

Here the difference between Cause and Principle is very neat: the former is characterized as transcendent and it embraces efficient and final causality, the latter is characterized as immanent and embraces matter and form. While setting the stage, Bruno seems to proceed in a rather ordinary metaphysical manner, clarifying the main concepts he will adopt throughout his dialogue and on which his ontological

90 G. Bruno, Cause, Principle and Unity, and Essays on Magic, p. 37.

system is going to be built. Indeed, he will introduce some rather widespread Neoplatonic terminology and inscribe it within the aforementioned Aristotelian notions. Nevertheless, that is a mere appearance, which is necessary for Bruno’s ontology to function and for establishing the light/shadow game that we shall explore deeply in the second Part of this work. As we shall often make note of, Bruno adopts Aristotelian and Neoplatonic terms in order to disembowel them, flatten them and render them suitable for the vicissitudinal and transient nature of truth, often even adopting neologisms, in open contrast with «grammarians» and «pedants». His lexicon, thus, is highly experimental, as Saiber rightly summarizes: «In sum, Bruno’s motivation for such linguistic labour was to convey his notion that the “realest”

language is the one most able to express the multiplicity of human thoughts, feelings and inventions and most able to express the infinite variety of nature. Agrimi⁹¹, building on Ciliberto’s study, notes Bruno’s continual use of polisemy, homography, graphic oscillation and semantic mobility to help further his effort to name and describe the innumerable things and thoughts – as well as their ineffable essences –

91 Saiber is here referring to the work by Mario Agrimi, “Giordano Bruno, filosofo del linguaggio”, in Studi filosofici 2 (1979), Olschki, Firenze 1981, p. 113, 131: «For Bruno, then, the linguistic

91 Saiber is here referring to the work by Mario Agrimi, “Giordano Bruno, filosofo del linguaggio”, in Studi filosofici 2 (1979), Olschki, Firenze 1981, p. 113, 131: «For Bruno, then, the linguistic