Commentary On Cardano

Commentary on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's Article on Gerolamo Cardano (Originally Written on February 4, 2023).

Introduction 

The very first sentence introduces us to this great man Gerolamo Cardano. It says that he was born in Pavia, Italy, in the year 1501, and he died in Rome, in the year 1576. The first sentence also says that he “occupies an important place in the history of Renaissance philosophy;” which makes sense considering Cardano was a polymath whose interest were practically infinite. The second sentence expounds more on the first, giving what Cardano’s accomplishments were in the field of philosophy; saying that he gave a “comprehensive account of order in all of its various meanings (natural, human, and divine);” as well as providing an explanation of knowledge and its progress, from a theory on the immortality of the soul to an analysis on the role of practical wisdom (prudentia) in various aspects of human affairs such as medicine and political action.  

Life and Philosophical Works 

Just like in the introduction, we are told when and where Cardano was born, but this time we are told who his parents were: Fazio Cardano and Chiara Micheri, At the time, Chiara was a single mother with 3 kids, aged 30, while Fazio was an already established jurist consult, aged 56. To avoid a potential scandal concerning the illegitimate birth of Gerolamo, Fazio married Chiara, and only recognized Gerolamo in 1524, the same year he died. Cardano was born on the 24th of September, at 6:30 AM as told to us by Cardano himself in his De Consolatione (On Consolation). We are told in the 3rd sentence that he had a difficult childhood thanks to the overbearingness of his father. Gerolamo’s father, Fazio (1445-1524), was a man of extraordinary erudition. He was a jurist by trade but was exceptionally skilled in Euclid’s 6 books on Geometry, and was often consulted by Leonardo da Vinci for help in geometrical matters. He was also very acquainted with the whole of ancient philosophy, from Plato and Aristotle to Cicero and Plotinus. Fazio is most known for his commentary on John Peckham’s Perspectiva Communis (General Optics), written around 1265. As Cardano recalls of his father's early lessons with him, “My father, in my earliest childhood, taught me the rudiments of arithmetic, and about that time made me acquainted with the arcana; whence he had come by this learning I know not. This was about my ninth year. Shortly after, he instructed me in the elements of the astronomy of Arabia, meanwhile trying to instill in me some system of theory for memorizing, for I had been poorly endowed with the ability to remember. After I was twelve years old, he taught me the first six books of Euclid, but in such a manner that he expended no effort on such parts as I was able to understand by myself.”  

In 1520, Cardano enrolled at the university of Pavia, and was determined to study philosophy and science, to the anguish of his father. Cardano recalls his decision to ultimately pursue this path, “Accordingly, I embraced this pursuit and not jurisprudence. Thereupon, deliberately, I not only rejected the advances of friends engaged in the law, contemning riches, power, and honors, but even shunned these influences. My father actually wept in my presence when he learned that I had given over jurisprudence to follow the study of philosophy, and felt deeply grieved that I would not apply myself to his same interests. He considered jurisprudence a more ennobling discipline-repeatedly he quoted Aristotle on this point-and a profession better adapted to the acquisition of wealth and influence, and to the improvement of the family position. He realized that his office of lecturing in the law schools of the city, together with the honorarium of a hundred crowns which he had enjoyed for so many years, would not, as he had hoped, fall to me, but that another would succeed him in his post. Nor would that commentary of his ever be published, which I was to annotate. For not long before this there had dawned a faint hope that he might achieve some renown as the critic of The Commentaries of John, Bishop of Canterbury, on Optics and Perspective.” It’s rather a shame that Fazio was not accepting of his son’s decision, but one could understand the sadness Fazio might have felt. The text then goes on to explain how Cardano finished school. As a result of the 4 years’ war, particularly the battle of Pavia, 1525, the university of Pavia was shut down, and thus, Cardano had to finish his medical degree somewhere else. He entered the University of Padua and graduated in medicine in 1526.  

After this, Cardano was a physician for about six years in the town of Saccolungo, a village close to Pavia. During this six-year period, Cardano met and Married Lucia Bandareni in 1531, where they went on to have 3 kids: Giovanni Battista (1534), Chiara (1537), and Aldo (1543); all the while attempting to become a member of the college of Physicians in Milan. He was consistently rejected by the college because of his illegitimate birth coupled with his difficult personality. Shortly afterwards, Cardano moved back to Pavia in 1532. It was in Pavia that he divided his time, as the article says, “… between practicing medicine in Gallarate, a town nearby Milan, and teaching mathematics in the Piattine schools of Milan.” All the while, Cardano’s reputation as a physician began to spread, and in 1539, after many rejections, was finally accepted as a member in the college of Physicians in Milan.  

The article then talks about Cardano’s mid-life career. From 1541 to 1552, Cardano taught medicine at the university of Pavia. That was until in 1552 where he went to Scotland to treat the Archbishop of Edinburgh, John Hamilton, who suffered from asthma. Upon returning to Milan in 1553, he received a hero’s welcome, and rejoiced in the fact that he had achieved world recognition as the greatest physician of his time. He then resumed teaching in Pavia.  

The article then begins to talk about the later years of Cardano’s life as well as his eventual death. In 1560, his son Giovanni Battista was beheaded due to poisoning his wife, Brandona Seroni; this woman boasted openly that she had committed infidelity, and that her kids were not of Giovanni’s stock. Cardano had warned his son that Brandona was a woman not to be trusted, but, against his father’s wishes, married her anyway in 1557. This marked a turning point in the life of Cardano; his writings around this period were more personal and spiritual in nature. Cardano, anguished by the fate that beset his oldest and favorite son, wrote voluminously to distract himself from the pain he felt. He thought that he could have prevented his son’s death and felt like a failure for letting the situation happen the way it did. Cardano wrote of the situation as such, “And is it not worse for the father to be involved in the punishment of his son than in his own destruction? If I am killed, one man perishes-one about to die without another descendant; if you kill the son, you cut off all hope of succession. Imagine each one of all mankind pleading with you for his son, for whom he feels responsible, though he may be a youth of hasty temper, struggling with difficulties, overtaken by the basest dishonor and deceived in a dowerless wife, having married against a father's wish and knowledge, a worthless, shameless woman-what would you? Is this not every man's plea? Does not everyone understand? No one is so bitter an enemy of me or of my son who would not voluntarily grant life to him whose death would move even the iron gods of the underworld to pity! Although I brought forward these arguments and their like, it availed naught except in so far as it was decreed by the court that if I should be able to come to terms with those who had brought the charge against him, his life would be spared. But the very indiscretion of my son forbade this; for he had boasted of riches which I did not possess, and the accusers tried to exact what did not exist.” A rather unfortunate situation indeed.  

After this tumultuous event, aside from writing, Cardano moved from Pavia in 1562 to teach at Bologna instead. After some time, on October 6th, 1570, Cardano was arrested on suspicion of spreading heretical views, that is, views that go against what is generally accepted, and was later released on the 22nd of December of the same year. The article then goes on to explain that in February 1571, Cardano was required to acknowledge and reject his crimes against the faith, having been declared vehemently suspect of heresy; he swore to no longer publish books or teach. After the arrest, Cardano worked as personal physician to Pope Pius V and then Pope Gregory XIII in Rome, where he later died on September 20th, 1576. The last year of Cardano’s life was devoted to finishing his autobiography, “De Vita Propria,” which he started in September of 1575, and finished in May of 1576.  

The second paragraph of the first section talks of Cardano’s great philosophical works, to the neglect of his other works, but this makes sense considering this is a philosophy entry. They make mention of De arcanis aeternitatis (“The Mysteries of Eternity”, began at the end of the 1530s and published partially in the posthumous Opera omnia in 1663); De consolatione (“On Consolation”, 1543); De sapientia (“On Wisdom”, 1544); De animi immortalitate (“On the Immortality of the Soul”, 1545); De subtilitate (“On Subtlety”, 1550), and its twin book De rerum varietate (“On the Variety of Things”, 1557; De utilitate ex adversis capienda (“On Gaining Advantage from Misfortunes”, 1561); Encomium Neronis (“Praise of Nero”);  De Socratis studio (“On the Earnestness of Socrates”, 1566); and Dialogus Hieronymi Cardani et Facii Cardani ipsius patris (“Dialogue between Girolamo Cardano and His Father Fazio”). The 3rd paragraph talks on Cardano’s philosophical knowledge in general. The first sentence says that he was strongly influenced by the trends of “late scholastic Aristotelianism, with strong penchant for Averroist interpretations.” This sentence essentially means that Cardano enjoyed and devoured the works of Averroes and appreciated his interpretation on the works of Aristotle. In this context, interpretation refers to how Averroes viewed the work of Aristotle. To explain quickly who these men are, Aristotle (384-322 BC), was one of the most important philosophers in ancient Greece and is considered the father of western thought. A disciple of Plato, alongside Euclid, Aristotle attended the Academy of Plato, the first formal educational institution in the western world. This was a place men went to hear/learn about interesting ideas and debate each other in the fashion of Socrates, himself a teacher to Plato. Within the Academy, Aristotle stood out among the rest with his great memory, and skillful tact, he always questioned the great Plato on his interpretation of nature, the soul, and views on history. Upon leaving the Academy, Aristotle went on to start his own school, “The Lyceum.” From here, Aristotle expounded on his ideas and theories, which later turned into one of the three major ancient schools of thought in Philosophy: Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Epicureanism.  

Averroes, on the other hand, was closer to the time of Cardano, but still considered old. Ibn Rushd (1126-1198 CE), also known as Averroes, was a towering figure during the Islamic Golden Age, and was known in the western world as “The Commentator and Father of Rationalism.” He represented the culmination of all the great golden age philosophers that came before him such as Al-Farabi, Al-Kindi, Al-Biruni, Avicenna, and Omar Khayyam. Where he differed from these men, however, is how he viewed the works of Aristotle. Averroes, like Cardano, was well read in the works from those who came before him and thought that the works of Aristotle were mangled by interpretations from the Neoplatonist, which was a popular school of thought in the 10th and 11th centuries, and attempted to restore the works of Aristotle in the way in which he thought Aristotle intended them. Averroes is probably best known for his idea on the unity of the intellect, which posits that there is a single intellect that unifies all people. The Averroes interpretation later became known as Averroism, which attracted people up to the 16th century, including Cardano. Lastly, Averroes is responsible for the incorporation of Aristotle’s ideas in Muslim culture, which was summarized in his work “The Incoherence of the Incoherence,” which caused great controversy with his contemporary Al-Ghazali.  

The 2nd sentence tells us that Cardano was interested in Averroes’ idea that there is one intellect that “performs intellective functions for all human beings” but differed from Averroes in how to interpret this idea as shown in the 3rd sentence. Averroes thought that the intellect was a concept that exist within all human beings, and that we call upon this otherworldly concept to receive a portion of its infinite intellect when we question or think about something; as the entry says of it “the one intellective power that actualizes the life and knowledge of the sublunary world as a whole.” This was a purely epistemological speculation about where human beings receive intellect, that is to say, it was an idea that was proposed to answer the question of where humans acquire knowledge from. In that sense, it almost seems like Averroes viewed the concept of knowledge much like the Greeks viewed the natural phenomenon of the world, as a response from the gods for some arbitrary thing, like Zeus throwing thunderbolts from Olympus as the cause of lightning, but in this case, the intellect is a godlike entity contained within all human beings. However, Cardano’s interpretation of this idea, I think, correctly gets at the heart of what the unifying intellect truly is; as the entry said of Cardano’s interpretation of it, “…he looks at the one intellect as the varying amount of learning accumulated by mankind throughout the centuries.” In this sense, Cardano viewed the unifying intellect as the sum of all knowledge man has acquired since the beginning of man’s existence. I think this is the correct way to view a unifying intellect; we human beings are all limited and unified by the total sum of our knowledge, that is to say, we can only know the things that are currently known and have been shown to be true, and it’s up to us and us alone to take what knowledge we have acquired through the centuries and ruminate upon it to further push forward our knowledge, and open up new horizons in our understanding.  

The 4th sentence says that Cardano’s philosophy was also influenced by the works of Plotinus and Iamblichus, which, at the time, were recently translated by the great 15th century Humanist Marsilio Ficino, essentially saying that his philosophy showed traces of Platonic ideals. To explain these men quickly, Plotinus (204/5-270 CE) was a philosopher of the early 3rd century, after the works of Ptolemy had become popular but before the advent of large-scale Christian belief. He is regarded as the founder of Neoplatonism, a school of thought that was a drastic change from the Platonic tradition, Platonic referring to the philosophy of Plato. He was a student of the self-taught philosopher Ammonius Saccas, who himself belonged to the Plotinic tradition. The term Neoplatonism refers to the philosophy of Plotinus, which was very influential during early antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Most of what we know about him comes from Porphyry’s preface to his edition of Plotinus’ The Enneads, his most famous work, which is essentially a compilation of his lecture notes from when he taught. Plotinus metaphysical writings were a massive change from Greek tradition, stating that there are three fundamental principles: the One, the Intellect, and the Soul. The one was a “supreme, totally transcendent” entity, containing no division, distinction, or multiplicity beyond all categories of being and non-being. Plotinus identified his concept of the one with goodness and beauty, and that nothing should be added to it to avoid a deficiency. As he put it, “… if we insist on describing it further, we must call the one a sheer potentiality (dynamis) without which nothing could exist.” The soul, as Plotinus described, is rather complicated; the first emanation is Nous (Thought/Reason), and from this thought, we give forth the World Soul, which was divided into an upper and lower portion. Plotinus identified the lower aspect of the soul with nature, and the upper soul with material beings. Plotinus thought that the world soul is what gives life to the human soul, and from there, matter, which is the lowest level of being, and thus, the least perfected level of the cosmos. The intellect is a combination of the one and the soul, seeing as the upper portion of the soul represents material beings; we are nothing more than our being, which is brought forth by the world soul, which itself stems from the one, and it stems from the one because the intellect requires the first emanation.  

Iamblichus (245-325 CE) was a Syrian neoplatonic philosopher, and contemporary to Plotinus. Iamblichus was born into a wealthy family with tides to the Emesene dynasty; he studied under Porphyry, himself a pupil of Plotinus. He disagreed with his master, Porphyry, on the topic of theurgy (the practice of rituals), as shown in his book “De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum.” He created a curriculum for studying Plato and Aristotle and wrote many commentaries on their works, of which only two survived. Iamblichus’ authority was Pythagoras, and he wrote a ten-volume collection of Pythagorean doctrines with extracts from other ancient philosophers. What Iamblichus is best known for today is his work on Neoplatonism and his interpretations of Plotinus. Plotinus differed from the Platonic tradition by positing a separate soul, which he subdivided into two sections. However, Iamblichus was more traditional in his belief, and re-affirmed the soul’s embodiment in matter and believed that matter was divine just like the cosmos. So, instead of the soul coming forth from the first emanation, Nous, as Plotinus posited, the soul was a component of matter just like everything else and wasn’t unique in its creation from other entities. Iamblichus put his monad at the head of his system, from which the Nous and the psyche emanates. The monad refers to the simplest entity within the universe from which everything is built upon; a philosophy that traces itself back to the Pythagoreans and later culminated in Leibniz’s The Monadology. So, in that sense, the monad for Iamblichus is the one for Plotinus in the context of their metaphysics. So, to summarize, Plotinus thought everything derives from the one, the indivisible and infinite entity that makes up everything. From the one comes the first emanation, which brings forth Nous, and from Nous gives us the world soul, which itself is subdivided into two portions: the upper and lower soul. The lower soul connects to nature and the upper soul is what connects to humans (material beings).  This is why Plotinus was revolutionary, he posited that the soul is a separate entity from the one; this is because the soul comes from Nous, rather than coming directly from the one; so, the soul came from Nous, but Nous came from the one; therefore, making the soul a separate entity from the one (the transitive property doesn’t apply here since they are not equal). Iamblichus, on the other hand, thought that the soul was derived from Nous, just like Plotinus, but that Nous was a creation from the monad, which is the simplest entity that makes up the universe, therefore making the soul not a separate entity, but connected to matter through the creation from the monad. So, in that sense, the nous and soul for Iamblichus are created from the same thing; whereas the soul comes from the nous, which is a creation from the one, but the soul is not a direct creation from the one, therefore making it separate for Plotinus.  

Finally, Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), like Plotinus during early antiquity, was a towering figure of philosophy during the peak of the Italian Renaissance. He was the very definition of the Italian renaissance man; he was a humanist philosopher, catholic priest, astrologer, physician, translator, and author. He lived a life of extraordinary scholarship thanks to his patronage from Cosimo de’ Medici, the man responsible for the Medici’s firm grasp on Florence thanks to their immense wealth from banking. As a result of this patronage, Marsilio went on to tutor many men who themselves would go on to become very influential, such as Lorenzo de’ Medici, a major patron in his own right, and the extremely brilliant Giovani Pico della Mirandola. In 1462, Cosimo decided to refound Plato’s academy, called The Platonic Academy of Florence, and as a result, Ficino found himself with many Greek manuscripts of Plato’s work, and from this began to translate them into Latin. He also went on to translate a lot of hermetic works from the legendary Hermes Trismegistus called The Hermetica, as well as many early antiquity philosophers such as Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Plotinus. As one could probably tell, Ficino was incredibly influential in the restoration of classical scholarship to the Renaissance. As he himself said of it, “This century, like a golden age, has restored to light the liberal arts, which were almost extinct: grammar, poetry, rhetoric, painting, sculpture, architecture, music.”  

The 5th sentence says Cardano’s considerable knowledge of astrological and medical literature, as well as scholasticism and Platonism gave his cosmological views a vitalistic slant. This is an interesting sentence since it's densely packed with a lot of jargon and terms that must be broken down to fully understand. By astrological literature, it’s saying that Cardano understood and appreciated the field of astrology deeply. Astrology is a scholarly subject that studies how celestial objects, mainly planets and stars, influence the fortunes of people. In the current age, it has come under fire and is effectively considered a pseudoscientific practice only done by those who believe in its falsehoods. While I personally don’t believe in its claims, mainly due to its lack of empirical evidence to support any of it, I still appreciate the fact that it’s a concept that has philosophical underpinnings, and a subject whose greatest practitioner was Cardano during the 16th century. It has philosophical underpinnings because of its connection to the concept of fortune and fate. As lady philosophy reminded Boethius, one should not anguish over the sad state they may find themselves in, because most of the outside factors that affect our life are out of our control, just as the stoics preached; only focus on the factors that one may control in life. What controlled the fortune of people was believed to be the Roman Goddess Fortuna; one who, at the turn of her wheel of fortune, could bring the most fortunate and lucky man to despair and great loss. This is why lady philosophy reminds Boethius to, at times of great misfortune, retreat into your inner citadel, as the stoic philosophers called it. The inner citadel was the place that contained things that fortune could not take away, such as reasoning, which, if one be curious, opens the world to you and allows you to become indifferent to your fate. It’s a powerful message that tells us that we shouldn’t place our happiness in things that fate could take away; the two most prominent ones being romantic love and career success. Therefore, one should remain logical as the chances of happiness are less likely to be swayed by fortune, and thus, make you more secure in your life.  

Scholasticism was a philosophical tradition taught throughout medieval universities (1100-1500s). It began as a reconciliation of the philosophy of the ancient philosophers with medieval Christian theology. It was a tool used to resolve contradictions and was eventually applied to other areas of philosophy. The scholastic method was a process stipulated in Aristotle’s 10 categories from the Organon, which enumerate all possible kinds of things that can be a subject or predicate of a proposition; it is perhaps the most discussed of all Aristotelian notions. The method is as such, the scholastic would choose a book by a renowned scholar; then other documents related to the source document would be referenced. The scholar would then point out all the contradictions/disagreements between the source document and the secondary document; after which the scholar would use dialectic to reconcile these differences, in other words, until they no longer disagreed. Dialectic is a Greek philosophical tradition in which one engages with various arguments until they reach a definitive logical conclusion through logic alone. This process of dialectic, however, has two methods: philological analysis and logical analysis. Logical analysis deals with uncovering contradiction through the rules of formal logic; whereas philological analysis looks at the meaning of the words and attempts to interpret them as accurately as possible. The early scholastics, whose influence cannot be understated, were men such as Anselm of Canterbury, Peter Abelard, Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, Albertus Magnus, and William of Ockham. These men are the foundation to wester theological philosophy through their use of scholasticism.  

By cosmological views, they are referring to the way in which Cardano viewed the universe, and finally, vitalism refers to the idea that life, more specifically organic life, is fundamentally different from non-organic life since it contains fundamentally different elements or is governed by different principles. It should be noted that the idea of vitalism fell out of favor around the 19th century for more scientifically based theories of life. 

The 6th sentence says that Cardano’s philosophy is rich in original intuitions but cluttered and inconsistent, and I see where the article is coming from; someone with as broad an interest and vast knowledge as Cardano is bound to reveal some contradiction in belief as he acquires new knowledge and recalls old information. The 7th sentence says that Cardano’s philosophical style was inspired not only by Aristotelianism and Platonism, but also Epicureanism and Stoicism, and not only Graeco-Roman, but also Christian and Arabic views, which was not uncommon for someone during his time. One must remember that Cardano was born at the start of the 16th century; when ancient roman scholarship in the ciceronian style had already been re-established since the age of Petrarch and Dante, and the commentaries of the Islamic golden age were prevalent across Europe thanks to Guttenberg and his invention of the printing press in the 1440s. Also, this sentence adds two new terms that must be defined: Epicureanism and Stoicism.  

Epicureanism is an ancient philosophical tradition, founded around 307 BCE, through the teachings of the Greek philosopher Epicurus (340-270 BCE). It was among the most popular ancient schools of thought alongside the Platonic and Stoic tradition. In it, Epicurus proposed that the ultimate goal of human life was happiness (eudaimonia), and that the greatest good was to seek modest pleasures in order to attain a state of tranquility and freedom from fear through knowledge (“ataraxia”) as well as to avoid pain (“aponia”). Epicurus also proposed the idea that one should study science to avoid fear through the reduction in one’s ignorance and thus achieve mental calmness. Epicurus also developed a naturalist explanation of existence, combined with a system of ethics meant to guide society towards peace and tranquility. He put forth an atomist ontology, empiricist epistemology and humanist ethics. There’s a lot to unpack here so let’s examine and explain each term.  

In this context, naturalist refers to a philosophical stance in which nature is assumed to be governed by objective laws, which can be further understood through experimentation and observation without resource to super-natural superstition. Naturalism essentially takes the stance that all phenomena in the universe can be understood through the same method. Ethics, in this context, refers to some moral code by which human beings live by. It’s a way for us to check whether our actions were right or wrong.  

It’s an idea that goes back to the early 5th century BCE, where the Greek Sophists started to think about their own actions and the morality of them, as well as asking where their ethics came from, and how they know they are right in their ethical code. The Sophists were essentially the first group of philosophers, now today called pre-Socratic philosophers. The word “sophist” came to represent an unorganized group of thinkers who employed debate and rhetoric to teach and disseminate their ideas and offered to teach these skills to others. This was an important skill to have in Athens, especially for men hoping to enter any high office or politics. Rhetoric refers to the speaking in a way that allows you to convince/persuade others of your argument; it, along with grammar and logic make up the ancient tradition of discourse. Grammar is the study of punctuation and the rules that govern proper conventional writing; whereas logic is a philosophical topic that studies the structures of arguments and propositions, and what is correct in them.  

While were still on the topic of ethics, I should discuss the 3 types: 1) meta-ethics, 2) normative ethics, and 3) applied ethics. Meta-ethics is the study of the nature of ethics, a true philosophical rabbit hole that is as deep as the Mariana trench. This essentially just means that it studies why a particular ethical system is justified or not; it asks questions like how humans can come to know what is ethically/morally right. As an aside, by moral I’m referring to what is right and wrong by societal/cultural standards, whereas ethical is referring to what I personally believe is right and wrong by my own standards, not what society stipulates.  

Normative ethics’ goal is to create guidelines for action by constructing theories about what is right and wrong, which, in some sense, is influenced by meta-ethics. So, essentially you create a theory, and that theory guides your actions by telling you what is right and wrong.  

Finally, applied ethics is the application of normative ethics to real world scenarios, which theory from normative ethics dictates the best possible response for that situation. 

 By Atomist, the article is referring to the atomism theory. This is a philosophical theory that posits that all objects in the universe are composed of very small, invisible, indestructible building blocks-atoms; essentially the same idea as Plotinus the one in his meta-physics and Iamblichus’ monads. Typically, there are two types of atomist interpretations: the physical science one and the philosophical one. Both have the same idea in mind in that they both speculate on the structure of material things within the universe; the only difference is that the physical science perspective demonstrates atoms existence using photographs from high-powered electron microscopes. 

 The idea of atoms first arose by the ancient Greek Philosopher Leucippus, but later furtherly developed by Democritus (460-370). What we know of Democritus is scanty due to lack of surviving text or references. He was said to be a jovial personality and always laughing. In his theory of atoms, he gave their properties, arguing that atoms only had several properties, namely size, shape, and mass, while all other properties could be attributed to matter. In retrospect, it’s an extraordinary theory that managed to come close to what the physical reality of matter really is.  

Ontology is a major branch of philosophy and a key component in metaphysics. Essentially, ontology is the study of something's existence. Some questions may include “what does it mean to exist, or to be?” As well as “why something exists rather than nothing?” This cornerstone of philosophy, like many other concepts, has its origins with Aristotle; he said, “a science of that studies being in so far as it is being.” You can only study being if that thing is being, as you can see, very ontological in nature.  

Empiricist is referring to the philosophical idea of Empiricism, which is the philosophical position that emphasizes the role of experience. In essence, an empiricist uses personal experience and genuine observation to come to conclusions about a natural phenomenon. This is not to be confused with rationalist and the idea of rationalism, which is a broad family of positions in epistemology. As a short definition, however, rationalism is the idea that humans can come to correct conclusions about the world through an innate rational sense and logical reasoning. The tradition of rationalism is a hard one to follow since it’s hard to put an exact date or figure who is responsible for defining it. In general, however, it is generally agreed upon that Plato was the first major philosopher to define rationalism; although Descartes and Kant are worthy of mention too since they formalized the idea of rationalism more concretely. Plato’s most enduring doctrine of rationalism comes from his theory of “Forms,” as told in The Republic. The forms are described as laying outside the realm of human experience, yet the argument for their existence is a purely rational one. Plato thought that rationality, and human reasoning, is what gets us closer to understanding/approaching the Forms, which to Plato represented the fundamental aspects of reality.  

Descartes pondered on two questions: 1) How was it that people were coming to attain such deep knowledge of the workings of the universe, and 2) How was it that they had spent so long not doing so? For the second question, Descartes posited that they simply were lied to by their senses, they put too much faith in the sense’s reliability. In particular, he thought such a mistake was past the then-dominate physics of Aristotle. Aristotle and the later scholastics had used their reasoning abilities well enough based on what their sense told them, but that they had the wrong starting point for their inquiries. In contrast, the new science, which came about initially from Galileo with his mathematical demonstration of physical laws, had the starting point of pure rational reason, rather than what your senses told you (empirical). According to Descartes, God equipped humans with a faculty that was able to understand the fundamental essence of the two types of substance that made up the world: intellectual substance (of which minds are instances) and physical substance (matter). 

Kant, on the other hand, was the definition of the anti-rationalist philosopher. In his 1781 masterpiece, Critique of Pure Reason, Kant was purely attacking rationalist claims that have, through reason alone, ponder on the nature of the soul, the causal structure of the universe, and the existence of God. In this sense, Kant believed there are questions that could not be answered through pure reason alone as Plato or Descartes thought. Kant also proclaimed that the senses cannot provide any notion of necessity; yet this component of necessity is key because the rationalist philosopher would like it so that we formulate our thoughts by rationality alone, and therefore making rationality a presupposition of the argument; the presupposition being the cause in this case.  

On a more modern basis for rationality, there was a new school of thought in the 20th century called logical positivism; in which the goal of this new approach to rationalism was to posit that the only meaningful claims were those that could be verified through sense experience. The aim was to break away from tradition, which the positivist saw as vacuous, or endlessly arguing without much progress being made towards understanding. In the end, logical positivism failed because it was not able to explain every scientific claim through sense experience alone. This, naturally I think, is what was bound to happen, because there are some phenomena that human beings, with their sense alone, will never be able to verify. And while we’re on the topic, epistemology is a major branch of philosophy that looks at the nature, origin, and scope of knowledge and belief. Much of the field focuses on analyzing the nature of knowledge and it related to similar notions such as truth, belief, and justification, and for the sake of being complete, a belief is holding something to be true without verifying that it is true; this is because if you can’t show something to be true than it simply isn’t, and if you can’t show it, you don’t know it as Aron Ra famously says. 

We now move to the term Humanist, which relates to the philosophical concept of Humanism. Humanism is a philosophical stance in which one places great emphasis on the human being/individual. Its most well-known iteration was the Renaissance humanist from the 14th to 16th centuries; which developed after the rediscovery of classical Latin and Greek texts in the early 1300s; most influential of all in these discoveries is the father of Italian renaissance humanism Petrarch. It was, in some sense, a reaction against the strict and authoritarian structure of medieval Catholicism. It emphasized human dignity, beauty, and potential, which had lasting effects on the culture throughout Europe. To reiterate again, Renaissance humanism was a reaction to Catholic scholasticism which had dominated the universities of Italy, and whose methodology was derived from Thomas Aquinas. Renaissance humanist followed a cycle of studies, the studia humanitatis (studies of humanity), consisting of grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, and moral philosophy, based on classical Roman and Greek texts. It should be noted, however, that Humanism didn’t outright reject religion, but rather used it to focus on the individual to enhance their faith; by attempting to enhance human capabilities to a level almost divine like; thereby creating a man that would fully represent God’s creation.  

Finally, we have the philosophical school of thought known as Stoicism. Stoicism is one of the three ancient philosophical schools of thought, alongside the Platonic and Aristotelian tradition. Stoicism was founded by Zeno of Citium (334-262 BCE) and further developed by two of his successors: Cleanthes (331-232 BCE) and Chrysippus (280-206 BCE). It grew out of the teachings of the Cynics, and taught true happiness is achieved using reason to understand events taking place around us and to separate from harmful and destructive emotions. A Stoic learned to practice self-discipline to grow in in wisdom and virtue. Stoics believed that the universe was imbued with a divine will, or natural law, and that living in accordance with it was eudaimonia (Flourishing/Happiness). Lastly, the stoics taught the students to not concern themselves too much in societal affairs, but rather improve it though your example and service to it. The Stoic school flourished in Greece and Rome for almost five centuries, until its decline in the second century C.E. A second phase of the school, Middle Stoicism, developed at Rhodes under Panaetius (c. 185-110 B.C.E.) and Posidonius (c. 135-50 B.C.E.), who broadened the strict doctrines of the earlier Stoics. Many works survive from a third stage, Roman Stoicism, which focused largely on ethics. Its proponents include the younger Seneca (c. 1-65 C.E.), Epictetus (c. 55-135 C.E.), and Marcus Aurelius (121-180 C.E.). To now explain each of the notable men from this list quickly.  

Posidonius was a major Greek Stoic philosopher of the 1st century BCE. A polymath, his proficiencies were that of a philosopher, politician, astronomer, historian, and teacher. He founded a school in Rhodes which attracted many eager Greek and Roman students, one of which was the great Cicero. Most notable about his perspective on Stoicism was that he believed passions were an inherent part of human nature, rather than errors in judgment based on an incorrect understanding of desire. He studied under Panaetius, head of the stoic school, and by around 95 BCE he settled in Rhodes and started his own school. He wrote on almost every subject in philosophy, however, unfortunately, most of his works are lost to time. Posidonius considered philosophy the dominate master art which it alone could provide every answer needed in the cosmos. He accepted the stoic categorization of philosophy into natural philosophy (physics), logic, and ethics. These three subjects to the Stoics represented the inseparable and interdependent parts of an organic, natural whole; he compared the subjects to a living being where physics was the meat and blood, logic the bones and tendons that held the organism, and ethics represented the soul, the most important component of being. Posidonius posited, like many other stoics, that the universe was one largely interconnected corporeal entity. He upheld the stoic concept of logos, a divine fire which imbued the entire universe and gave it form and direction. Lastly, Posidonius affirmed the stoic doctrine that the universe passed through endless cycles, each one ending with a conflagration (extensive fire). 

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BCE – 65 CE) also known as Seneca the Younger was a popular philosopher around the turn of the millennium. Born the same year as Jesus of Nazareth, he bore witness to a lot of cultural changes that were occurring in the Roman empire at the time due to Christianity. He, like so many other famous philosophers, had a wide interest; being a philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and writer. Surprisingly, most of Seneca’s works remained in tac unlike his fellow stoics. Being a third-generation stoic, he didn’t really contribute any new ideas to Stoicism as a whole, but he wrote widely and concisely on ethics, moral education, psychology, and natural philosophy. He was also an advisor to Emperor Nero and attempted to guide the empire using Stoic principles. His seven books on natural science, “Naturales Quaestiones,” reflect on the works of Posidonius.  

Epictetus (55 – 135 CE) was a very influential 1st century Greek Stoic Philosopher. He was a strict adherer to the teachings of Stoicism as Zeno had laid them out, and he taught in the Greek city of Nicopolis, establishing the first Stoic school there. He stressed to his students to use the principles taught in Stoicism in your everyday life. Stoicism deals with three major areas: logic, natural philosophy, and ethics. Of the three, however, Epictetus focused on ethics the most, not unlike Seneca the younger. Epictetus, apparently, didn’t write any lecture notes for his students, however, his student Arrian, a historian, wrote two separate works on his master’s teachings: Enchiridion (Handbook) and Discourses. Of these two works, however, only 4 sections from Discourses seems to remain, but what does remain shows the clarity by which Epictetus taught his students. Ultimately, Epictetus thought the goal of teaching his students Stoicism was to show them how to strive for moral excellence and thus achieve eudaimonia (happiness); and in typical Stoic fashion, one achieves this by taking responsibility for one’s actions and thoughts and learning to accept fate with the right attitude. Where Epictetus differed from the early Stoic philosophers is that he emphasized that happiness could be found in maintaining one’s moral character rather than in striving towards moral excellence. Also, Epictetus held the orthodox Stoic view that everything in the universe is directed by divine will and made frequent refences to the Gods such as Zeus in his discourses. He consistently told his students to live life “according to nature.” Epictetus always emphasized self-knowledge and keeping one’s moral character in order as the way to achieve a happy life. He instructed his students to expect persecution, because their actions and their attitudes are so different from those around them. As Epictetus himself said, “If the Stoic making progress understands God, the universe, and themselves in the right way, they 'will never blame the gods, nor find fault with them.”  

Lastly, we come to the most famous and popular Stoic philosopher of all, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus; the man responsible for the Meditations, the book which Cardano based his autobiography off of, saying in the prologue, “This book of my life I am undertaking to write after the example of Antoninus the Philosopher, acclaimed the wisest and best of men, knowing well that no accomplishment of mortal man is perfect, much less safe from calumny.” I think Cardano himself gives a good idea of the kind of man Marcus Aurelius really was, no doubt the last great writer on Stoic philosophy. The Meditations, comprising 12 books of private reflections, talk on the meaning of life and death, the cosmos, duty, and public life. The book is not written in any particular order and appears to be written for his own guidance and self-improvement. Marcus was deeply influenced by the writings of Epictetus and showed interest in the psychology of moral improvement. As Aurelius himself said, “How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy.” A quote that truly embodies the stoic philosophy; we should only focus on what we can control, and not what we can’t, like the opinions of others.  

The 8th sentence says that throughout Cardano’s long philosophical career, from “the immortality of soul (1540)” to “The dialogue between Gerolamo Cardano and his father Fazio (1565),” he demonstrated a commitment of a certain number of  philosophical issues: the relationship between oneness and multiplicity with the notable corollaries dealing with order and disorder, determinism and chance, life and decay; a general theory of celestial heat, described as the main formative agent in nature; the interplay of nature and the soul in the organization of the universe; a general doctrine of the immortality of the soul, seen as the foundation of both cognitive clarity and moral certitude. As one could probably see, the philosophical issues that Cardano kept alluding to throughout his career was no doubt the result of his influences, reading the works of all ancient schools of thought, and in particular Stoicism, Neoplatonism, and Aristotelianism with Averroes interpretation. 

The final sentence from the first section, I thought, was a beautiful summary of the entire first section, but at the same time quite tricky to interpret. It essentially says that Cardano’s originality stems from his unique eclecticism. Firstly, eclecticism means arriving at a new idea based on various sources that you used to assist you. Secondly, the article says that Cardano constantly put his world views under attack due to his realistic view of human nature. In that sense the article is saying that Cardano had a hard time accepting the more spurious claims of his beliefs, but this is exactly what made him original. He needed to have a large body of references to call upon when an idea presented itself that was troubling to his world view, hence his eclectic nature, and, as Cardano put himself, “a man without ordinary human wisdom.” 

Life, Knowledge, and Nature 

 Now that we have discussed in detail the Life and philosophical inspirations of Gerolamo Cardano, we shall now commentate on his thoughts on the topics of Life, Knowledge, and Nature, and hopefully gain some insight and a new perspective on these topics. The first sentence of this section talks about Cardano’s cosmological view, that is, Cardano’s views on the universe and its origin. Firstly, it says that his view stems from a long tradition of “Astro-biological doctrines whose origins go back to Aristotelian Physics, Hippocratic Vitalism, and fundamental assumptions underlying the tradition of astrological and meteorological learning, reshaped though a series of Hebrew and Arabic mediations.” As one can see, this sentence is packed with a variety of philosophical ideas that we must discuss. Starting with Astro-biological doctrines; this is an idea that combines the fields of astrology and biology. As already discussed, astrology is the study and interpretation of a celestial object's positioning and the effect they have on people, whereas Biology is the study of living organisms and their evolution. So, the idea attempts to combine the two by having the celestial objects have a direct connection/link to living organisms. This idea, as the article says, has its origins in Aristotelian physics and Hippocratic vitalism. To discuss these now, Aristotelian Physics is the study of Aristotle’s ideas regarding the natural world; however, most of these ideas have been proven wrong by Isaac Newton and Galileo, and it now remains more of a footnote in the history of physics and viewed as a more philosophical rather than scientific treatment of the world. Its influence, however, should not be overlooked, as it remained an authority for centuries. Hippocratic vitalism refers to the ideas of Hippocrates regarding the soul. Remember that vitalism is a philosophical stance that posits that organic things are fundamentally different from non-organic things due to the differences in the matter that makes them up. It also posits that there is some force that drives life that isn’t psychochemical, a soul so to say.  

To discuss Hippocrates, he is one of the most famous physicians of all time and is credited as the father of Medicine. He revolutionized ancient Greek medicine and is responsible for the Hippocratic school. Born around 460 BC, he was the son of Heracleides, an ancient Greek Physician. It was said that his father and grandfather (Hippocrates I) taught him. He then went on to train at the Asklepion of Kos, where he took lessons from the Thracian physician Herodicus of Selymbria. He also studied other subjects such as philosophy under Democritus and Gorgias. Hippocrates was revolutionary for positing that disease had natural causes, and not from a god or strange superstition. He was also credited by the Pythagoreans for combining the fields of philosophy and medicine but separating medicine from religion. During the time of Hippocrates, we knew almost nothing about human anatomy due to the Greek taboo forbidding the dissection of humans; as a result, most of the treatments prescribed would end up causing more harm to the patient since doctors didn’t understand where an illness started, nor where it would spread to. The two dominate schools of thought in Medicine in ancient Greece were the Hippocratic school and the Knidian school. The Hippocratic school focused on patient care and prognosis; different from the Knidian school which focused on diagnosis only. The Hippocratic school saw more success in patient outcome due to its focus on how a disease will progress rather than what the disease is at the present. To explain what these are, a diagnosis is figuring out what the illness or diseases currently is based on observation and medical test, and prognosis is figuring out what the course of a diagnosis will be (will the disease get worse or better). Finally, Hippocrates is responsible for the Hippocratic oath, an oath of ethics that is taken by physicians which stipulates the right course of action a doctor must take when treating patients.  

Back to the sentence, however, the last part of it says that Cardano was also influenced by the Hebrew and Arabic interpretations of natural phenomenon using astrological and meteorological learning. The second sentence says that Cardano combined elements of Neoplatonic philosophy and Christian theology to explain his supralunary worldview. In this context, supralunary refers to a world beyond our own, a higher realm so to say, and Christian theology refers to the study of the Christian religion, which was the dominate religion in 16th century Italy. The topic of religion is quite an interesting one when regarding Cardano, as he said once of it, “I have not lost my faith; and this I must attribute more to a miracle than to my own wisdom; more to Divine Providence than to my own virtue. Steadfastly, in fact from my earliest childhood, I have made this my prayer, “Lord God... grant me long life, and wisdom, and health of mind and body.”  

The article then says that Cardano, along with many of his contemporaries, held a clear distinction between the sublunary world and the supralunary world; sublunary refers to the world we live in, on earth. Whereas the supralunary world is a philosophical world beyond ours. The next sentence gives Cardano’s metaphysical explanation for the cosmos; saying that the life of the universe is the result of varying degrees of celestial energy overflowing from the One, i.e., God. As you can see, the One from Plotinus metaphysics is also used by Cardano, but, in Cardano’s case, he uses God as the One. The next sentence says that souls, God, and matter moved between the supralunary and sublunary world. It then explains what the connection between the two worlds is, that being celestial heat; celestial heat, which emanates from the One, is what connects heaven (the supralunary world) with earth (the sublunary world). It then explains what constitutes/makes up the sublunary world: celestial heat, matter (earth, air, and water), and a wide variety of souls. 

We now move onto the next paragraph, which talks about Cardano’s agreement with “Greek ontology, specifically Parmenides, that says nothing can come out of nothing, but rather all things must come from something, and this something cannot be infinite;” to be specific, this is an idea from Melissus of Samos, a student of Parmenides and fellow founder of the Eleatic school, itself a respond to the Pythagorean school.  

To explain Parmenides, however, he was a 5th or 6th century pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. He was born into a wealthy family around 515 BC in Elea, located in modern day southern Italy. Diogenes Laertius, the famous Greek philosopher who wrote “Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers,” said of him that his father was Pires, who belongs to a noble family, and that he was a student of Xenophanes originally, but later associated with a Pythagorean, Aminias. Another tradition by Theophrastus, however, says that he was a disciple of Anaximander. Parmenides only surviving work is a poem titled On Nature, which is broken into two sections: 1) The Way of Truth and 2) The Way of Opinion. In the first section, (The Way of Truth), it distinguishes between the unity of nature and its variety, insisting the way of truth upon the reality of unity, and upon the unreality of its variety. The second section, (The Way of Opinion), speculates on the nature of the universe, saying the fundamental binary principle that governs the universe is “the aether fire or flame,” which is gentle, mild, soft, and clear, while the other operation, “ignorant night,” is thick and heavy. As one can see, this poem provides us with Parmenides ideas behind the ontology of the universe. Parmenides legacy is wide and varying. He was the founder of the Eleatics school, a pre-Socratic school of thought in philosophy founded in southern Italy. He is also credited with defining ontology as separate from and distinct from theology. His most important pupil was Zeno of Elea- of Zeno’s paradox fame- who was responsible for disseminating his ideas down the centuries. It was said that his works were a critique of earlier philosophers such as Anaximenes, Heraclitus, and the Pythagoreans, and he was frequently referenced by Empedocles and Anaxagoras. To not explain these men would be ludicrous, and a waste of potential philosophical knowledge, so let us do so.  

Anaximenes of Miletus was a 6th century pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. He is said to have been born in Miletus (modern day Turkey), but the facts of his life remain obscure and relatively unknown. He was the last of the three philosophers of the Milesian School, which is considered the first school of philosophy in the western world. Anaximenes was considered the younger friend and student of Anaximander, himself a student to Thales, the first philosopher of the western world. The principal interest of Anaximenes in philosophy was ontology; he, alongside his teacher Anaximander, sought to discover what the cosmos was composed of. He and Anaximander were material monists, which is a philosophical stance which says that the cosmos is made up a single entity or element only. Thales, first philosopher and teacher to Anaximander, thought that the cosmos was made up of only water; his student, Anaximander, thought the cosmos was composed of apeiron, or something indefinite, and finally Anaximenes, who thought all was composed of air; more condensed air for colder, denser objects, and rarefied (less dense) air for hotter, lighter objects.  

As partly already discussed, Anaximander was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, who was also born in Miletus, a city of Ionia (modern-day Turkey). He was a member of the Milesian school and student of the first philosopher Thales; he was in turn a teacher to Anaximenes and arguably Pythagoras. According to Apollodorus of Athens, Greek grammarian of the 2nd century BC, Anaximander was the son of Praxiades, and “was born in the 3rd year of the 42nd Olympiad” 610 BC; he was 64 years old during the second year of the 58th Olympiad (547-546 BC) and died shortly afterwards. Anaximander was an early proponent of science and attempted to explain different aspects of the world through observation. He taught on many different subjects, including astronomy, geometry, geography, and philosophy. His vast knowledge in geometry allowed him to introduce the gnomon to Greece, a sundial whose purpose it is to cast shadows. He also created a map of the world and was involved in the politics of Miletus as well. Anaximander’s theories were inspired from 3 main sources: Greek mythical tradition, from his teacher Thales, and from observations made by earlier civilizations, primarily Babylon. He assumed, like traditional religion, the cosmic order. During the early (archaic) Greek period, the basic elements of nature were water, air, fire, and earth; all of which represented the primordial forces imagined in earlier ways of thinking. The collision of these elements produced what mythical tradition called cosmic harmony. In the old cosmogonies (a creation myth of the cosmos)- Hesiod (8th – 7th century BC) and Pherecydes (6th century BC)- Zeus establishes his order in the world by destroying the power which were threating this harmony (the Titans). Anaximander, however, claimed that the cosmic order is not monarchic but geometric, and this causes the equilibrium of the earth. He posited that matter, or elements, are isonomic (equal rights) and all the forces are symmetrical and transferable. This is why Anaximander thought the universe was made up on apeiron, indefinite, infinite, unlimited substance, rather than the elements, because the elements are not symmetrical and transferable; i.e., water can be wet but never dry, if it were symmetric and transferable it would be able to take both forms. This idea of the Apeiron is said to have originated from the idea of the original Chaos (the abyss) from which everything else in Greek mythology appears. 

To discuss Thales now, he was a Greek polymath, and is considered the founder of wester philosophy and the Miletus school of philosophy. He was, according to Diogenes Laertius, “the son of Examyas and Cleobulina who are Phoenicians and amongst the noblest descendants of Cadmus and Agenor.” He was born around 623 BC, and died, according to Apollodorus of Athens, at the age of 78 during the 58th Olympiad due to heat stroke while watching the games. Thales was unique in human history, as he was the first person to attempt to explain the world through observation and rational thinking, rather than through the creation of a mythical story. Almost all the pre-Socratic philosophers followed his metaphysical idea that everything in the cosmos is composed of a singular element; this element, Thales thought, was water, unlike his student Anaximander. As Cicero said, “Thales assures that water is the principle of all things; and that God is that Mind which shaped and created all things from water.” Moreover, Aristotle said: “For it is necessary that there be some nature, either one or more than one, from which become the other things of the object being saved… Thales the founder of this type of philosophy says that it is water.” Thales is also the first person to have a mathematical discovery named after him: Thales’ theorem. With his knowledge of geometry, Thales was able to calculate the height of pyramids and the distances of ships from the shore thanks to his tremendous skill with geometry.  

Now on to Heraclitus, he was, like before, a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who was from the city of Ephesus, then part of the Persian Empire. Like Thales, not much of his life is known. He only wrote a single work, most of which only remains in fragments as quotations from other authors. Most of the stories about him were fabrications based on interpretations from his only surviving work. He was said to be a misanthrope who was subject to depression. As a result, he became known as “The Weeping Philosopher,” in contrast to Democritus, who was “The Laughing Philosopher.” Heraclitus is widely known for this philosophy of Flux and the Unity of Opposites. Diogenes Laertius summarizes this philosophy by saying, “All things come into being by conflict of opposites, and the sum of things hola (“the whole”) flows like a stream, and as Heraclitus himself says of the matter, “Cold things warm up, the hot cools off, wet becomes dry, dry becomes wet.” Heraclitus’ doctrine suggests that unity of the world may be conserved so long as there is tension from the opposites. Furthermore, each polar substance contains its opposite, in a continuous circular exchange and motion that results in the stability of the cosmos. By motion Heraclitus is referring to the change in the states of the elements, hot to cold, wet to dry, etc. Like the Milesians before him, Heraclitus was considered by Aristotle to have fire as the Arche, or fundamental element that gave rise to the other elements. Heraclitus believed that fire was responsible for the eternal process or cycle of things coming into and out of creation. Also, Heraclitus thought that the soul was a combination of fire and water, with the fire being the noble part and water being the ignoble part. Heraclitus also thought that human desires were part of the noble (fire) portion of the soul. He is probably most famous for the quote “you cannot enter the same river twice,” which summarizes his idea of a constantly in flux universe which only acquires stability through the unity of the opposites, that is to say, the opposites balance and harmonize with each other proportionally. 

Next, we have the Pythagoreans. In general, the Pythagoreans referred to the followers of the philosopher Pythagoras. Pythagoras was a 6th century Greek pre-Socratic philosopher. People such as Herodotus and Isocrates agree that he was born the son of Mnesarchus, on the Greek island of Samos in eastern Aegean. It was said that during his formative years, Pythagoras traveled to Egypt, the center of learning for that time, and learned to speak Egyptian to undertake studies there; this idea comes from Antiphon, writer of “On Men of Outstanding Merit,” a source that was used by Porphyry to claim that Pythagoras learned Egyptian by Pharaoh Amasis II himself, and that he studied at Thebes. Plutarch writes in his treatise “On Isis and Osiris” that Pythagoras received instruction from the Egyptian priest Oenuphis of Heliopolis. However, a variety of other sources have different claims on where Pythagoras studies, such as that he learned from the Magi in Persia or even from Zoroaster himself. Diogenes Laertius says that he even went to the Cave of Ida with Epimenides; the Cave of Ida being the place where baby Zeus was hidden by his mother. It has been told that he learned arithmetic from the Phoenicians and astronomy from the Chaldeans. The 3rd century Sophist Philostratus claims that Pythagoras also studies under the sages in India, and Iamblichus adds to the list saying studied under the Celts and Iberians too. One of the main philosophical ideas of Pythagoras was metempsychosis, the belief that souls are immortal and that, after death, the soul is transferred into a new body, this is mentioned by both Xenophanes and Herodotus. According to Diogenes Laertius, Pythagoras claimed to have lived four separate lives and he could remember them in detail. Another important aspect of Pythagoras’ philosophy was his mystical idea of the harmony of the spheres, which posited that the planets and starts move according to mathematical equations, which correspond to musical notes and thus produce an inaudible symphony. Moreover, Porphyry said the Pythagoras taught that the seven muses were the seven planets singing together. More famously, we have his use of mathematics to claim all things are made of numbers. They claimed the number one (the monad) represented the origin of all things and the number two (the dyad) represented matter. The number three was an “ideal number” because it has a beginning, middle, and end. The number four represented the four seasons and the four elements. The number seven was also sacred because it was the number of planets and number of strings on a lyre. It was believed by the Pythagoreans that, in their numerology, odd numbers were masculine, that even numbers were feminine, and that the number five represented marriage, because it’s the sum of two and three. The number ten was regarded as the “perfect number,” and they honored it by never gathering in groups greater than ten. Pythagoras is also credited with the tetractys, a triangular figure of four rows which add up to the perfect number ten. Pythagorean teachings were known as symbols (symbola) and members took a vow of silence never to reveal these symbols to non-members. Those who did not obey were expelled from the group and tombstones were erected as if the person had died. Pythagoreans also issued several dietary prohibitions; for example, you could not eat fava beans and the meat of non-sacrificial animals such as fish and poultry. This was believed to stem from their belief in metempsychosis. Bertrand Russell in his “A History of Western Philosophy” said of him, “I do not know of any other man who has been as influential as he was in the school of thought.” Referencing his influence on every man to have come after him, particularly Plato.  

Empedocles is a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher native to Akragas, a Greek city in Sicily. As with most pre-Socratics, not much is known about their personal life. It was believed that Empedocles was born somewhere in the early 5th century BC into a noble family, and his grandfather of the same name won a horse-race in the 71st Olympiad, but beyond this not much is known with certainty. He was credited by Aristotle as “the father of rhetoric,” and supposedly a student of Pythagoras, but that is not confirmed. The philosophy of Empedocles stems solely from the surviving fragments of his works. It is generally accepted that his philosophy was a direct attack against Parmenides doctrine of Monism, in Parmenides case, the universe being composed of the ethereal fire as laid out in his second section “the way of opinion” from his poem “on nature.” Empedocles is most remembered today for his theory on Cosmogony, which is a theory/model on the origins of the cosmos. He established the four basic elements that make up the universe-fire, air, water, and earth; Empedocles called these four elements the “roots,” which he also identified with the mythical names of Zeus, Hera, Nestis, and Aidoneus. Interestingly, however, Empedocles never referred to these as elements, that term was first used by Plato. The four elements (roots) are combined in different proportions which in turn create different structures. However, it was only when elements are aggregated and segregated that we see the real process of growth and decay; essentially meaning that nothing new can come into existence unless the elements combine, without combination creation will not be achieved. This theory of the four elements became the standard for almost 2000 years. As Empedocles defined them, the four elements are simple, eternal, and unalterable, and are in constant change, and because of their mixture and separation, it was necessary to suppose the existence of moving powers that bring about mixture and separating. These forces, Empedocles called the two divine powers, Love and Strife (Philotes and Neikos). Love is responsible for the attraction of different elements, and strife is the cause of separation. Both love and strife remain in perfect harmony, one never overtakes the other, and both parade throughout the cosmos. Similarly, to Pythagoras, Empedocles believed in the transmigration of the soul (metempsychosis). According to him, all humans were originally long-lived daimons who lived in bliss until committing an unspecified crime. Consequently, they fell to Earth, and were forced to repeat 30,000 cycles of metempsychosis to return to the Daimon realm. He said that one’s behavior during his lifetime would also determine his next incarnation; wise people, who learned the secret of life, were close to divine, while their souls similarly closer are to the freedom from the cycle. Empedocles was also a vegetarian and advocated for it; no doubt a result that stems from his reading of Pythagoras belief that souls could be transported into animals and foods. Empedocles attempted to explain knowledge through the principle that elements in the things outside us are perceived by the corresponding elements in ourselves. This essentially says that we can perceive things that don’t make us up because there is something that makes us up that corresponds to the thing that doesn’t. “Like is known by like” or “real knows real.” According to Diogenes Laertius, Empedocles wrote two poems, “on nature” and “on purifications,” of which only 550 lines of its poetry survive (450 to on nature and 100 to on purifications).  

Finally, we have Anaxagoras, who was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. He was born in the town of Clazomenae in the early 5th century BC, into an aristocratic family. He later went to Athens after the Persian war and became close friends with the statesman Pericles. According to Diogenes Laertius and Plutarch he was charged with impiety and went into exile in Lampsacus; the charges were political due to his connection with Pericles. As a quick note, Pericles (495- 429 BC) was a Greek politician and general during the Golden Age of Athens. As a military commander, he turned the Delian League into an Athenian empire and led his countrymen during the first two years of the Peloponnesian War. He promoted the arts and literature and it’s to him we must thank for the ancient Greek culture of scholarship and philosophy. Anaxagoras built his philosophy upon a critique of Parmenides, he disagreed with Parmenides on the idea that change is impossible; for Parmenides posited that change doesn’t occur, and the only thing that change can do is stay in unity with itself, and moreover, he thought that in order for something to be in reality, it must have unity. Therefore, change must have unity and not do anything else to avoid it becoming non-reality (variety). Anaxagoras described the world as a mixture of primary imperishable ingredients, where material variation was never caused by an absolute presence of a particular ingredient, but rather by its relative preponderance over the other ingredients; or as he put it himself, ‘each one is… more manifestly those things of which there are the most in it.” What Anaxagoras is essentially saying is that ingredient becomes what it becomes due to which one appears in stronger abundance (greater proportion). Anaxagoras introduced the famous concept of Nous (Cosmic mind) as an ordering force, which moved and separated out the original mixture, which was homogenous, or close to it. According to Anaxagoras all things have existed in some way from the beginning, but originally, they existed in infinitesimally small fragments of themselves. The work of arrangement, the segregation of like from unlike and the summation of the whole into totals of the same name, was the work of Mind or Reason (Nous). So, as one can hopefully see from this rather lengthy dive into the pre-Socratics, Cardano was deeply influenced by all these men, but the closest philosopher to Cardano’s own cosmological view would be Parmenides; as he is the one who posits that the universe functions on two binary operations: 1) The ethereal fire and 2) the ignorant night. The ethereal fire, as expounded upon by Parmenides, is what Cardano would call Celestial heat, and is what governs the universe and the matter that makes it up.  

The next sentence gives what Aristotle thought the essence was that brought material things into the universe; this is the “something” that Cardano refers to when he posits that everything must come from something, and why Cardano disagreed with it. As the article says, Aristotle called this something “hyle or prime matter- “which is similar to the position that most pre-Socratic philosophers took as their metaphysics- that all material in the universe is made up of a singular entity. Cardano, however, disregards Aristotle’s view of their being a prime matter, as he thought it would be redundant for matter to have an intermediary prime matter; Cardano viewed being and non-being- the things that come from elements (being) and the things that don’t (non-being)- dichotomously. As he said himself, “for otherwise the elements would be completely redundant if there were prime matter.” Cardano thought that the three elements- water, earth, and air- were the components that made up our entire world, and that fire- the fourth element, and specifically the ethereal heat that fire stems from- was the thing that activated (caused to be) the other three elements.  

The next sentence then goes on to explain Cardano’s hierarchy of the elements and the order of the matter. Cardano thought that there were only three elements- earth, water, and air- not four. The fourth element, fire, is a by-product of the celestial heat, and celestial heat, Cardano thought, was one of many different energy sources that stem from the supralunary sources of life and knowledge which pervade the universe as one living organism. The next sentence then explains a property of celestial heat; it says that celestial heat mediates, or goes between, utter immobility and incessant mobility. Utter immobility is what characterizes intelligible substances, and incessant (constant) mobility is what defines material beings such as humans. So here, Cardano makes a distinction between the things that have mobility and the things that don’t; the things that do are considered material beings, and the things that don’t are only considered intelligible substances.  

The next sentence explains Cardano’s three principles that regulate both our inner life, and life of all created things. By inner life Cardano is referring to the soul that is present within all material beings- the things that are in incessant mobility- and by life of all created things he is referring to both material beings and intelligible substances. Cardano’s principles are an attempt to find a connection between the two modes of existence- what are the similarities between them. The first principle states: “is moved and does not move, resulting from the heavy elements;” the second principle states: “Moves, and it is not moved, that is, the soul;” and the third principle states: “is moved by the soul” and moves the body, i.e., the celestial heat. The first principle relates to the utter immobility of the intelligible substances; the elements may move, but they are overall immobile because of the heavy elements- so there is movement between the elements but no overall movement for the substance itself because the elements are too heavy (almost certainly a result of the elements not being proportional in their composition). The second principle refers to something being moved but the thing that causes the movement not being moved, and Cardano calls this the soul. The soul is the vital force in this context and is what causes movement, but itself does not move. This is the principle that refers to the material beings. The third principle is closely related to the second but slightly different; the statement “is moved by the soul” refers to the things that are moved by the soul, which in turn move all material things and is caused by the celestial heat.  

The next sentence goes on to explain properties of the soul itself. Cardano explained these properties to try and identify the soul with celestial heat. Cardano thought that the soul was incorporeal- meaning it’s not made up of matter (elements) and does not occupy any space- and is therefore never in motion. Cardano also thought that things in motion lack the self-stability necessary to perceive (sentire) or to think (intelligere).  

We now move onto the third paragraph in the 2nd section of the entry. The first sentence says that Cardano’s metaphysical view was that all things must come from matter and have form- in that sense, matter and form are complementary. You cannot have matter without form, and forms always are with a body (a material thing). The next sentence expounds on the meaning of forms in this context. It says: “Forms represent the primordial stage in the process through which the created universe becomes one living being.” Primordial, in this case, means existing since the beginning of time. This, of course, doesn’t make much sense since not all material things (things with incessant mobility) have existed primordially, unless one wishes to argue that the celestial heat- which has existed primordially and makes up everything- is what causes something to be primordial, since the material thing is made of something that is primordial. The next sentence explains Cardano’s thought on the differences between forms and the soul. Cardano thought that souls- despite being the cause of movement within bodies- are unaffected by corporeal reality; corporeal reality referring to things in the universe that are made of matter and take up space.  

The next sentence then explains Cardano’s views on the mind and its relation to the soul. It says: “minds are souls that are completely independent of matter, bodies, and motion. However, even within the ontological sphere of the minds, there are varying degrees of embodiment.” Here we see that Cardano thought that there was a hierarchy within the realm of souls, referring to things with greater embodiment of celestial heat. The next sentence explains Cardano’s views on these higher celestial beings. Cardano thought that the highest celestial intelligences are wholly separated from the material cosmos (like the soul is). However, Cardano also brings up other celestial intelligences like the demonic substances. These are things that, despite being incorporeal, can influence the corporeal world through forces (vires) and influences (influxus) of various kinds. One of these forces, Cardano maintains, is the force that is connected to demons, regardless of whether the power itself is corporeal- and depends on humors- or is incorporeal. Cardano believed also that the universe itself is influenced by either the demonic substances, stars, or some other hidden cause.  

The next sentence explains where Cardano thought these celestial energies go to and how they are distributed throughout the universe. He says that the currents of celestial energy (heat) go to and are dispersed from the soul of the world (anima mundi). The next sentence explains Cardano’s Astro-biological determinism- that the entire universal soul is what keeps the cosmos together and performs its operations in accordance with the original plan devised by God and implemented by the planetary intelligences, for “all things are influenced by the higher heaven and are moved at the command of the soul of the world.” Firstly, Astro-biological determinism refers to the idea that a material beings’ existence is already pre-determined; everything that being is doing was already set in motion, and, according to Cardano, that thing that sets all things in motion is the universal soul- that acts according to the precepts laid out by God. Cardano also thought that the world soul would be impossible to understand without God, and it is from the world soul that supercelestial lives and multiplicity come into being. The next sentence is a direct quote from Cardano’s De subtilitate, in which it says: “In the sublunary world, the major operations of life and generation are performed by nature, understood as a source of teleological activity supervised by the intellect and the soul of the world.” In a sense, Cardano is saying that nature is what performs and creates according to the precepts by God, while it is supervised by the intellect and the world soul. The complex relationship between the soul, nature, and celestial heat are a major component of Cardano’s philosophy. We now move onto the next paragraph in the second section.  

The first sentence lays out the rest of the paragraph. It discusses Cardano’s hierarchical arrangement of ontological beings; that is to say, which beings are of the highest form, and which are of the lowest form of creation. Cardano thought that God- also understood as the One- is the ultimate source of order and activity in the universe, and all the rest emanates from it in the form of increasingly more plural and less integrated entities. In De arcanis aeternitatis, Cardano listed 14 genera of beings, a number he thought “matches the structure of the universe:” the three elements (earth, water, air), celestial heat, stones, plants, living creatures generated from putrescent matter, quadrupeds, birds, fish, reptiles, human beings, demons, and God (higher animals are divided into four main categories: quadrupeds, birds, fish, and reptiles). Within this list of 14 genera of beings- in keeping with the Neoplatonic belief of Mirandola- humans are at the center of the list. Cardano said: “since the human circle corresponds to each single part of the whole domain of living beings, all the properties and natures that can be found in living beings will also be present in human beings.” He also defines human beings as a collection of different forms, all of which are taken from the different genera of beings, and that we are in constant evolution. Cardano further said: “Human nature includes all the forms of nonhuman nature, but they lie dormant, as it were, in a state of virtual energy.” Cardano was very interested in the connection between human beings and their connection to the lower life-forms; in particular, he wanted to know whether human reason was an exclusive prerogative or whether it developed in us through an evolutionary process. We can now confirm in the 21st century that Cardano’s latter assumption was true; we human beings do in fact evolve through an analysis of our surroundings and develop behaviors that maximize our potential survival, and this is what eventually led to us developing a reasoning capacity over millions of years. 

The next paragraph talks about Cardano’s views of things that lie above the non-human and human genera. He posits that above the human and non-human animals is an infinite number of incorporeal minds with different forms. Cardano himself acknowledges that to count the number of celestial substances populating the supralunary world would go far beyond the power of human reason, but, amazingly enough, Denis the Pseudo-Areopagite, “relying on Platonic arguments and the visions of St Paul” divided them into nine orders. This idea is pertinent to the explanation as a whole; essentially, Cardano was able to categorize and number the total number of forms of the sublunary (earthly) world- those were the 14 genera- but now he is attempting the same thing with the supralunary world. Now, before we discuss how Cardano used Denis the Pseudo-Areopagite’s ideas to classify and number the forms in the supralunary world, we must first discuss who Denis the Pseudo-Areopagite is.  

Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite- more commonly referred to as simply Dennis the Pseudo-Areopagite- is a 5th or 6th century Greek author, Christian theologian, and Neoplatonic philosopher. He wrote his works as if they were composed by St. Dionysius the Areopagite; a man who was a member of the Athenian judicial council (known as ‘the Areopagus’) in the 1st century CE. As a result, many of his works could be considered successful forgeries- providing him with great Christian credentials- and making the works extremely influential throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance. His identity was always speculated on, even during the supposed time he lived, by men such as Hypatius of Ephesus and Nicholas of Cusa, but the first to really question his existence was Lorenzo Valla (an early 15th century Renaissance scholar and humanist); a viewpoint that was later accepted by Erasmus in 1504. It is believed that Denis was a follower- and potential pupil- of Proclus (A Greek Neoplatonist philosopher who was one of the last major philosophers of late antiquity, and responsible for the transmission of Platonic ideas from late antiquity to the Middle Ages). It is believed that he was of Syrian origin, and he was very learned in the philosophy of Plotinus and the Christian religion and found a way to blend the two; for example, he placed great emphasis on the single theandric activity of Christ as opposed to the later orthodox view of two activities. Theandric, in this context, refers to the use of human nature as proof of Christ’s divinity- essentially, human nature is what proves God’s divinity. Denis, like Plotinus and the Cappadocians before him, did not claim to be an innovator of philosophy, but rather a man who passes down a tradition on a particular school of thought. He adopted a persona that made it seem as if he were an ancient scholar to improve his Ethos; this is a long-established rhetorical tradition that is called declamatio. He is remembered today as the author of the Corpus Areopagiticum or Corpus Dionysiacum- a pseud-epigraphically work that attempts to explain Christian theological ideas, ideas ascribed to the Areopagites, - using Neoplatonic philosophy.  

To get back to Cardano now, from Denis’ nine genera of the supralunary world, Cardano was able to identify “seven natures” that are all contained in the supralunary world. The first nature is “the infinite, or God,” eternal in itself. The second nature is “the soul of all things or lives,” which represents the first breaking up of the original unity. The third nature is that of the world soul whose ontological unity and independence is made up of many different eternal forces (these forces being from supralunary sources, like knowledge and life, which bring about the celestial heat itself). The fourth nature is the soul which moves the universe, the primim movens, not eternal itself, but through eternal temporal succession. I quite like this idea as it relates to Cardano’s belief that the soul is what animates and causes mobility within material beings. The fifth nature, the souls of the various planets, derives from the combined action of this primary mover and the soul of the world. The sixth soul- the “common and vital soul” (anima communis atque vitalis)- belongs to plants, lower animals and the elements. The last order is “the soul conceived in matter,” which “Plato called idea,” but Cardano referred to it as simply “life.” To reiterate, these are the genera that Cardano believed made up the supralunary world, as derived from Denis the Pseudo-Areppagite’s nine natures of the supralunary. The last sentence of the second section perfectly summarizes Cardano’s seven natures of the supralunary world, saying: “Relying on later Platonic authors, from Iamblichus to Denis the Pseudo-Areopagite, Cardano describes the universe as one single entity, seamlessly interrelated throughout its vital expanse, placed between the two extremes of God, absolute eternity and unity, and matter, the domain of absolute transience and multiplicity.” 

The Soul and the Order of Nature 

The first sentence in the 3rd section tells us that one of the most difficult questions in Cardano’s philosophy is the relationship between nature and the soul. This is the question that uses all of Cardano’s philosophical knowledge on scholastic Aristotelianism, Plotinian Platonism, medicine, and astrology. This is also a question where a lot of these traditions cause friction as well. It’s believed that Cardano dedicated a treatise regarding this problem titled De natura liber unicus, but he never finished it unfortunately; it remains largely a sketch. As the article says of it: “De natura demonstrates Cardano’s lifelong engagement with notions of naturalism, universal animation, and teleology.” Naturalism here refers to the idea that natural phenomena are governed by principles that we can observe and test for; universal animation relates back to Cardano’s idea that souls are what cause movements within the sublunary and supralunary world, and teleology refers to the explanation of a phenomena based on its purpose (why this thing happened) rather than on its cause. In De natura, Cardano sets out to explain the origins of things, including human beings.  

The next paragraph starts off by saying that Cardano’s notion of order has strong Platonic overtones- which no doubt is true when you recall Cardano’s characterization of the sublunary world- his 14 genera has human beings at the center of creation; with stones, plants, and beast below them: while the gods and demons are above us, and the reason they are is because they are created in a pure incorporeal form, whereas humans have an incorporeal soul, but do not have an incorporeal body. The next sentence then explains in more detail this Platonic notion. It says that unity is what makes something perfect, for reaching unity actualizes their potential nature. Unity gives structure and purpose to all elements that make up the system of nature. As Cardano himself said: “order and fate, since they are one, and exist with respect to the One, are good; disorder and luck are bad, for they do not strive towards unity.” Cardano thought that multiplicity and diversity can always be brought back to potentially ordered series of individual elements. As Cardano said on the topic: “What we perceive as beauty (decus) and elegance (ornamentum) in nature is not due to scattered variety (multitudo), but to a principle of ordered unity, “the one in the many,” which produces feelings of harmony and symmetry in us.” So, the things we humans perceive in nature as beautiful are those things which have unity in all aspects, and we shun things that have variety. The same principle of order and unity applies to knowledge as well: we can say we truly know something when we're able to perceive and relate all aspects of it to one cause. According to Cardano, Plotinus followed the same approach in moral philosophy, for he described his notion of happiness as a return to the One.  

The first sentence of the next paragraph tells us that the soul is one of many sources that put things in unity. As one could probably see by now, Cardano places great emphasis on the soul as a key aspect of the cosmos and at its center. For he says of it, “Being immaterial, they are “a unitary principle that is not continuous, nor contiguous, but exists of its own, not in a place, nor in a time.” Unlike life (vita), which is diffused everywhere and therefore cannot be said to be a real principium, souls have no spatial and temporal limitation and are nowhere (nullibi) to be found because of their incorporeal nature.” For Cardano, the soul is the prime mover of all things; from the world soul to all the souls that make up both the sublunary and supralunary world. They are derived from the One, whose principles are followed by the world soul, and is created through the supralunary forces of life and knowledge that cause being into action and mobility due to the celestial heat which is what does the action. Recall Cardano’s 2nd ontological principle of the soul: “that which moves and is not moved, otherwise known as the soul.”  

The next sentence explains Cardano’s view of why bodies are different. He says they are different and manifold because of the material circumstances and vital urges: he said on this issue, “division of bodies is determined by the needs of life (vitae commodum).” The last two sentences summarize Cardano’s view of souls and their place in nature. It says that Cardano is given to speculate on nature through the philosophical concepts of animism and anthropomorphism. Animism refers to the idea that everything, including non-living things, contains a soul. Anthropomorphism is giving non-human things human characteristics: for example, the Old Man of the Mountain in Franconia, New Hampshire, United States, is a mountain that looked as if it had a human face (or profile) on it; in this case we would be anthropomorphizing the mountain as if it were a human. Human beings throughout time have used anthropomorphisms to create a tradition, culture, or religion around certain things that appear to be human. It’s a way for us humans to understand the world by giving aspects of it human characteristics, so we may attempt to better understand it. For Cardano, we human beings are models of rationality and teleological activity. We now move onto the last paragraph of the third section. 

The first sentence gives us what Cardano thought was the principal function of the human soul. He thought that human souls are individual principles of self-awareness. This is quite interesting considering that Cardano put the soul as the thing which causes movement, and thus, creates all things in the universe. One must recall that Cardano separated all beings into two categories, material beings and intelligible substances, and what causes something to be either or is their mobility (incessant mobility and utter immobility); which is caused by the celestial heat, the source of which is from the supralunary forces of knowledge and life. I realize the reader may find my continual reference to this part of Cardano’s philosophy to be pedantic, but I deem it important enough to make continual reference to it- also, as Robert Solow once said, “repetition is the essence of teaching.”  

Cardano further says that selfhood is the principal argument in favor of their immortality. I somewhat like this notion that souls are immortal since they represent individual principles of self-awareness and are incorporeal. To be self-aware, you must be conscious of your surroundings and everything you interact with in the material world. To move, however, Cardano stipulates that the soul must activate that movement- which itself is activated by the celestial heat. This is where the soul takes on the principle of self-awareness; since it’s the thing that caused your movement, you must innately be self-aware of it to have moved at all, for if you didn’t feel a movement then you would not have been conscious of the soul itself. This- unfortunately for Cardano- has a great hole in it; you can easily apply the begging the question fallacy, since Cardano already presupposes that the soul is incorporeal and immortal by virtue of the fact that it stems from the supralunary forces of life and knowledge. This means that Cardano does not justify why the soul is immortal or how it is so for this argument. Luckily for us, Cardano does in fact have a theological proof for the soul’s immortality as well.  

The second sentence says: “hope in the immortality of the soul was implanted into humans by God, therefore it cannot be considered as a deluded expectation. In common people God instilled this hope “through religions (leges),” in wise people, “through the hidden truths (arcana) of philosophy.” So, Cardano is essentially saying that God put the idea of the immortality of the soul into us, and he does this through different methods depending on the intelligence of the person; for the common man he does so with religion to instill this idea into us, and for the learned man of philosophy- who may be skeptical- he does so through deep philosophical connections within ideas- almost as if God is sending us subliminal messages to believe in the immortality of the soul. 

This theological argument, however, is even worse than self-awareness argument; this is because Cardano doesn’t employ the use of good logos here. He says that God put the idea of the immortal soul into us and does so either through religion or through the study of esoteric philosophy. This, again, fails to prove the soul since we don’t know for certain whether God put those ideas into us or if we humans thought of the soul ourselves. This is more of a pathos argument if anything, and for certain not any real proof for the immortality of the soul in any sense.  

The next sentence moves from the human thought of the immortality of the soul to the human thought of immortal life. Cardano thought that God gave us the idea of immortal life with feeble certainty- meaning it constantly had to be proven and confirmed to us. Cardano says that God gave us this uncertainty in the immortality of the soul because it would have caused to large of a gap between Human and animals- a recall to Cardano’s 14 genera of the sublunary world. Had God given us certainty that after we die, we shall achieve immortality, it would cause man to become arrogant and have delusions of grandeur; in a sense- had we been given certainty of immortality after death- man would become like animals while living out his material existence; he would do things that God himself would not be proud to see. As Cardano himself says: “There has always been and – “as long as there is a world” – there always will be an alternation (vicissitudo) of confirmations and doubts concerning the immortality of the soul. It is a “vicissitude” of hopes and despair that is part of the providential regime of the world established by God (De utilitate ex adversis capienda, OO, II, 26a).” What Cardano is essentially saying here in this quote from De utilitate ex adversis capienda, is that man will always go through a process of doubt and confirmation regarding the immortality of the soul, and it’s the hardships and comforts of life that bring about this change in mindset- while at the same time remembering that each of these experiences are part of the providential regime of God- God made it so, so we should continue on, as such was his will. In a sense, life, no matter how good or bad, will always be in a state of flux regarding good and bad experiences; this is why I don’t necessarily believe that the natural state of life is that of privation, but rather- supposing one does all they can to support their existence and perform useful activities that bring them pleasure- a state of stability that we all must combat and resolve to stay atop of. However, I should say that assuming someone does not perform the necessary actions to sustain a happy, fulfilled life will fall into the abyss of despair and turn to nihilism. This is why I personally believe that the primary goal in life is to achieve stability and sustained happiness, and it’s the life-long duty of the human being to ensure that this way of life is achieved and sustained until death! As Aristotle once said, “We are what we repeatedly do; Greatness than, is not an act, but a habit.” We human beings must make it our habit to achieve the stability and happiness we so long for, for those are the things that make life happy and fulfilling, but never forgetting that the bad may arise too, and its our duty to fight it and win when it does, for if we get lazy and overconfident- we shall surely fall to the beast that is life itself! To move onto the final sentence of the third section, it says that belief in the immortality of the soul is also a very important component to Cardano’s moral philosophy. Cardano maintains that true inner tranquility depends on virtue, wisdom, and “hope in the Gods.” Otherwise, what is passed off as tranquility will in fact be harshness and stiffness (duritia). 

Moral Philosophy: The Two Levels of Wisdom 

We now arrive at the last section of this tremendous entry on the courageous genius, Cardano. The first sentence gives us a reminder of Cardano’s cosmological views. It says that he was heavily influenced by the One- which he described as God- the soul, and unity, or as the article says: “the ordered variety of nature (multitude ordinate).” The universe is organized by a variety of rules- which nature must follow- and which are all attuned with each other, and thus harmonized. The structure of this universe is also hierarchical; as one should recall from Cardano’s 14 genera of the sublunary world and 7 genera of the supralunary world, of which, the closer the material being, or intelligible substance is to in-corporealness the closer it is to the One. Cardano thought that everything must be done for the One other thing, rather than everything must be done for everything else. Cardano mentions that the combination of Nature, Art, and Chance stem form a chain of causal events that tend to be perfect depending on- as the article says: - “the extent to which the end to be actualized prevails over refractory matter.” This essentially means that perfection is achieved- or rather, actualized- when unity occurs, and prevails over that which prevents its unity, the refractory matter in this context. Cardano makes a distinction between natural causes and universal causes. Natural causes, in Cardano’s view, are those things which could happen but aren’t important in the grand scheme of things. Universal causes, on the other hand, are those which could affect material existence and are important overall. One of the universal causes Cardano mentions are the stars, which “which act over the sublunary world through influences conveyed by light, heat, and motion (De uno, OO, I, 279).  The influences of light, heat, and motion stem from the celestial heat which moves things in the sublunary and supralunary world. 

To move onto the second paragraph now, Cardano affirms that unity and order coincides with God; this is because God is infinite, undivided, and therefore individual. Recall that the One (God) is the one who laid the precepts down for the world soul- and by extension supralunary and sublunary forces- to follow. The next sentence tells us how Cardano kept in tradition with his interpretation of theological Trinitarianism. Cardano described God as made up of three essential components: Power (potestas), mind (mens), and love (amor)- a distinct change from Plotinus, who thought that these attributes represented three distinct Gods rather than all embodied in one as Cardano did. Cardano says of this: “The natural world is a constant reminder that God’s “threefold and undivided life” flows into each single thing, down to the smallest beings (ad minima usque) (De arcanis aeternitatis, OO, X, 6a).” Cardano also posits that there will forever be a gap between humans and God, we will never reach God status. He says: “no finite thing can be transformed into an infinite nature,” but only says “this life of ours can get close to that which truly is,” so, essentially, we can get close to that ultimate- which is that of becoming a God- but will never actually become because of our natural state of material existence. Human beings are born as material beings, whose only infinite attribute is that of the soul we contain, but because we are not naturally incorporeal, and thus infinite, we can never attain that Godhood. Cardano, again, argues that: “everything that is understood by a finite being is finite, for the act of understanding (comprehensio) occurs through some proportion; but there is no proportion between the infinite and the finite.” This has connections to Cardano’s metaphysical beliefs, where he posits that nothing can come from nothing, but rather everything must come from something. Here, however, finite beings can only know finite things, and there is no proportion by which we could attain an infinite plane of being. This makes sense if one be acquainted with elementary properties of arithmetic and numerical proportions, which posit: if one be divided by infinity, its result shall be zero; and if infinity be divided by one, we shall get infinity- both of which are things material beings cannot attain.  

The next sentence tells us that Cardano- throughout his life- devoted much time to philosophical questions of ethics, such as: theoretical ethics, applied ethics, prudential behavior, consolation, education, and the role of rhetoric. The articles says that Cardano’s most important contribution to moral philosophy is his “… attempt to redefine the relationship between the universal scope of practical reason and the need for human beings to apply moral laws to the concrete circumstances of their life.” This is essentially saying that Cardano thought we should employ the use of our God given reason to improve our lives through its application to ourselves and our own situations, just as Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius’, and Zeno (the Stoics) taught. This tension between human reason and its practical application to human life is apparent in two of his works in particular: “Theonoston” and “De utilitate ex adversis capienda.” 

The next sentence explains the goal of theonostone and De utilitate: saying, “Cardano presents De utilitate and Theonoston as complementary treatises aimed at implementing two different approaches in moral philosophy, the former based on the ordinary circumstances of human life (humanitus), the latter assuming the existence of supernatural conditions such as immortal individual souls and the effects of divine providence (divinitus).” Both concepts go back to that of Cicero- who truly expounded on these matters in his unrivaled elegance- in works such as “On Old Age,” and “On the Nature of the Gods.” Cardano, however, adds a touch of Medieval Scholasticism and Aristotelianism with Averroesist interpretation to the question of how one should go about living life properly. Both humanitus and divinitus have the same end goal (lasting happiness) but engage it from two different perspectives. The article then expounds on the notions of humanitus and divinitus, and how they show up within the works of de utilitate and Theonoston. It says, “While the ethical program devised in De utilitate is designed to face situations of obvious emergency (quae oculis ipsis subjacent) concerning human affairs (humanae res), Theonoston provides an account of the immortality of the soul (enarratio immortalitatis animi) that has momentous ethical consequences.” This makes sense if one recalls the brief history of Cardano’s life from the beginning of the commentary; De utilitate was written during Cardano’s most beleaguered episode of depression, after the execution of his son, Giovanni Battista, and would naturally be a work that focuses on immediate emergency in someone’s life. Whereas Theonoston looks at life in a more philosophical (less practical) way, through its use of the soul and divine providence.  

The last three sentences of this section look at Cardano’s thoughts on tranquility. Cardano thought that tranquility represented the peak of someone’s virtuous behavior. He broke the concept of tranquility into two parts: 1) The attainment and prolonging of moderate pleasure, and 2) The ability to keep it (tranquility) in the face of greatest calamities. Cardano also thought that tranquility was the most useful emotion that a human could experience because: “it provides inner joy, long life, and a more robust kind of wisdom.” I must agree with Cardano from personal experience on this one. Tranquility is what allows all other positive emotions to be strengthened and is what weakens all negative emotions. I find myself much more able to combat life when I am in a good mental state and feel confident towards how I approach my affairs. I found that when I experience tranquility, I become more focused, driven, and productive. It also coincides with my life philosophy, as mentioned earlier, to an extent; the only difference is that Cardano places greater emphasis on tranquility rather than stability, but I would say that they are proportional in their benefits and are very similar- since you can’t have one without the other. 

Divine Providence, Immortality of the Soul, and the Highest Good 

 Now to move onto the second to last section of the article, the first sentence tells us that Cardano believed that true lasting happiness can only be possible if we demonstrate in a persuasive way that the soul is immortal and that God intervenes actively in the human world- sanctioning his providential regime on the world. This is quite contrastive to Cardano’s other belief that one attains a good life using human reason and prudence. These are the two principles that govern Cardano’s moral philosophy: 1) The existence of an immortal soul and 2) God’s divine providence and active influence on the sublunary world. This divine provide can be taken to mean the universal order which everything follows, and which emanates from the One. This means that, by extension, everything must have come from God, and, as a result, all things must be good since God is all good and all knowing. The next sentence tells us that Cardano thought that Aristotle and the Stoics took the value of virtue for granted. He thought that human beings will not seek virtue for virtue's sake unless they are assured that the soul is immortal. This is, yet again, another attempt by Cardano to defend the existence of the soul on a pragmatic (practical) basis. Cardano thought it absurd to meditate on death- while at the same time holding the position that the soul is mortal. This is why he disagreed with Seneca on this exact point, and thought, as a result, that Seneca was a bad rhetorician and an Epicurean in disguise- who tells us to die serenely while claiming that there is nothing after death. It should be noted that Seneca wrote a guide on how to handle the thought of death.  

On to the next paragraph, the first sentence reaffirms Cardano’s belief that the soul is key; not only to his natural philosophy, but also to his moral philosophy as well. As Cardano said himself: “The soul is the most important thing we own; everything refers to it, for riches, honors, and health are nothing without a sound soul.” The next sentence reiterates Cardano’s logical proof for the immortality of the soul; positing that mental self-awareness is an individual principle of the soul, for a human being is the same thing as his mind (homo animus est). The next sentence tells us that Cardano put the same emphasis on the soul in his moral investigations; taking that position that humans who lack a clear understanding of themselves cannot effectively understand the course of their own actions. This reminds me of what Socrates said: “The unexamined life is not worth living;” Socrates thought- as Cardano seems to- that philosophy was a tool that everyone should use to investigate themselves and find a path that allows them to make the most decisions that bring about their own happiness. We should all strive to analyze ourselves and understand what it is that makes us the way we are- otherwise we should all surly parish without knowledge of what brings us peace. For Cardano, he thought that people who do not understand themselves can only attain good from activities and attributes that are part of their mind ( quae animo coniuncta sunt). As the next sentence beautifully summarizes: “In this sense, the relationship between tranquility and awareness is complementary: human beings can be peaceful only when they know what the highest good is and know that they have attained it.” The next sentence gives us Cardano’s own definition of the word tranquility, saying: “tranquillitas coincides with securitas, that is, a condition of unbreakable inner peace, free from cares and anxiety, and it is a level of wisdom that would even suit God. In this respect, true tranquillity for human beings coincides with their being “assimilated” to God, so that, when this condition of serenity is reached, nothing is any longer felt as lacking in meaning and substance. This level of happiness is a “kind of pleasure” that derives from the awareness of “being in the possession of goods” (Theonoston, OO, II, 302a; De optimo vitae genere, OO, I, 488b).” Cardano further says: “Intellectual pleasure should never be a monstrum, that is to say, a hybrid creature resulting from combining the goods of reason with those of the body and external luck” (Theonoston, OO, II, 313b–314a). 

On to the next paragraph, we are given Cardano’s definition of happiness: “Happiness consists in a “perception of pleasure” that is great (magna), full (plena), pure (pura), untroubled (secura), and safe (tuta).” Here we see once again Cardano employs the use of perception as a key component to attaining things that are supposed to be good for the human. Cardano further expounds on this: “… happiness is said to coincide with a kind of inner composure understood not in terms of lack of sensibility (indolentia), but as a condition of mental vigor stemming from the contemplation of the true nature of things. If tranquility consisted in mere refractoriness to unsettling experiences, the impassive state of a stone should then be viewed as the best condition.” This is interesting, as Cardano views happiness as something that can be understood by way of contemplation on the world around you, rather than on a lack of sensibility. This calls back to that idea of Cardano’s that to understand the end of your actions, you must first understand yourself well. In the next sentence, Cardano posits that ethical peace rest on cognitive tension and focus- the exact opposite of happiness- for happiness is attained through contemplation of the natural world; whereas ethical peace is through the monstrum as Cardano laid out (the hybrid creature that combines the good with the bad, which you should never do). It’s a monstrum because it involves tension with focus, focus being the good and tension being the bad. It somewhat reminds me of Heraclitus’s metaphysical theory of the unity of opposites- which posits that the universe is kept in order and balanced through innumerable forces that are constantly in flux (change), with some elements trying to unify while others are not. In the case of Cardano’s ethical perspective, the fight between tension and focus are what, in fact, bring unity. As Cardano says of this: “In ways that remind us of the sea and the air, undisturbed calm (tranquilla quies) is always accompanied by a current of “light motion,” i.e., a state of balance between opposite conditions “which does not unsettle, but delights us.” Cardano’s tranquilities are therefore not the same as absolute rest: “in its state of highest tranquility, our soul is as it were tremulous and breathing” (Theonoston, OO, II, 300a, 305b). The incessant vitality of our being demonstrates that “the matter we are made of, being of a celestial origin, produced and entwined with motion, does not enjoy rest, but thrives on motion,” a motion that, in the final analysis, is no bodily activity, but an expression of knowledge and intellect (Theonoston, OO, II, 304a). True tranquility results from a condition of inviolable self-fulfillment (securitas) based on resources that are in our power (in nostra potestate esse).  

It’s interesting to see how Cardano goes back to his metaphysical idea that motion is what starts all things. We all get to see how Cardano defines motion- not as bodily motion (which material beings partake in), but as intelligence and knowledge itself. This makes sense, as knowledge and intellect are a part of the One (recall Averroes’ theory of the One intellect) and are the attributes that the material beings use to make sense and contemplate about the world. The next sentence gives us the positions that Cardano disagreed with. Firstly, he disagreed with Seneca’s view that tranquility is nothing more than a balanced active life (vita actuosa), or by Socrates’s ‘engaged’ tranquility. To Cardano, these positions represent lack of actual attainment and folly if one wishes to truly live a tranquil existence- in essence, living a balanced active life or living through engaged tranquility are not helpful if one wishes to attain actual tranquility. The last sentence gives us more people Cardano disagreed with on the concept of tranquility. He rejected outright the ideas championed by Plutarch, Antoninus, and Cicero on tranquility. He viewed each of their ideas as nothing more than ethical escapism devised by men who did not live what they preached, and ultimately failed to achieve tranquility because of it. Antonius is the last name of Marcus Aurelius (a man I have already touched on), but Plutarch and Cicero must be discussed now in some detail.  

Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus, more commonly known as Plutarch, was a mid-1st century Greek writer and philosopher- most famous for his writing Parallel Lives. Plutarch was born into prominent ancient family in a small town called Chaeronea, Greece (about 19 miles east of Delphi). We are told that his father was Autobulus, and his grandfather was Lamprias (a friend of Philotas, physician to Mark Antony, and an eyewitness to some interactions between Mark Antony and Cleopatra). He studied mathematics and philosophy in Athens under Ammonius of Athens from 66 to 67 CE. During this time, he also attended the games of Delphi and meet prominent Romans such as Nero and Vespasian. He lived the first part of his life in Chaeronea and held several magistracy positions, no doubt a result from his prominent birth. He married a woman named Timoxena, with who he had at least four sons and one daughter, though two died in childhood. It was said that he was either the uncle or grandfather to Sextus of Chaeronea, who was a teacher to Marcus Aurelius. His family remained in Greece down to at least the fourth century, producing several philosophers and authors. As a result of the influential friends, he had acquired in Rome, he was able to obtain Roman citizenship- primarily from the sponsorship of his friend Lucius Mestrius Florus. As Plutarch got older, he began to write much more and produced a variety of works on several topics- primarily history and biographies. He also wrote many tracts on practical advice from his own experience as well as philosophical works. In his most famous work- ‘Parallel Lives’- he would take two historical figures- one Greek and one Roman- and present theirs lives in parallel comparison. Of the 48 total biographies, only 23 pairs survived the passage of time. The biographies start off with the formative years and education of the subject, then a series of entertaining anecdotes which are meant to bring out the subject’s character, and finally the subjects’ virtues and vices.  The style of his writings can be described as metaphorical, and his works are often personal and affectionate.  

To talk on his philosophy now, he was a traditional Platonist, but was open to the influences of the Peripatetics- a philosophical school founded in 335 BC by Aristotle in the Lyceum in Ancient Athens- and the Stoics as well. The only school of thought he rejected outrightly was Epicureanism. Plutarch was more interested in moral and religious questions rather than theoretical philosophical questions. He was opposed to stoic materialism and Epicurean atheism, and, as a result, liked pure ideas of God that were more in accordance with Plato. He used the concept of the Dyad (2 elements) to explain natural phenomenon. He was primarily interested in and sought to find the evil world-soul, which is a primordial being that is composed of pure matter; however, it is, in fact, arranged by reason. As a result of this reason, it became the divine soul, but still had within it the concept of evil, and was the source of such. As mentioned earlier, Plutarch upheld the ideals of the Peripatetics and the Platonist, specifically in ethics. The primary characteristic of his ethics was its close connection to God; he thought that the infallibility of human reason and man's natural inclination for corruption is what necessitates there being a God. As a result, Plutarch thought God revealed himself to us through divine revelation, and we are more likely to receive this divine help if we refrain in “enthusiasm” for all actions (actions that may lessen the ease by which revelation occurs). Plutarch ultimately sought to combine the philosophical and religious conception of things and remain as close as possible to tradition. His legacy lives on through his works- primarily Parallel Lives- and from the affect his ideas had on other people. The first English translation of his Parallel Lives was by Sir Thomas North in 1579, a work that Shakespeare used for most of his Roman plays. Plutarch was also the teacher to Favorinus, a Roman sophist and skeptic philosopher who became popular during the reign of Hadrian. 

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman orator, writer, statesman, philosopher, lawyer, and academic skeptic. He came forth to this world on the 6th of January, 106 BCE, in Arpinum, a hill town 62 miles southeast of Rome. His father was an affluent eques, and the family was distantly related to Gaius Marius. His name comes from the Latin for chickpea, cicer. Plutarch says the name was given because an ancestor had a cleft on the tip of his nose resembling a chickpea; however, its more likely that the family became wealthy through the cultivation and sale of chickpeas. During the period Cicero was born in, being learned, and cultured meant to know and speak both Latin and Greek fluently. Cicero went to Rome where he was educated on the teachings of ancient Greek philosophers, poets, and historians. It was from his deep study of Greek philosophers that he became acquainted with the theory and practice of rhetoric, specifically the Greek poet Archias and the Greek rhetorician Apollonius. Cicero used his knowledge to translate many Greek works into Latin, opening Greek thought to a much wider audience. Plutarch said of Cicero’s early education that he was an extremely talented student, whose learning gained him much attention. As a result of this great industry in study, Cicero earned the opportunity to study Roman law under Quintus Mucius. During his study under Mucius, he would make lifelong friends with Servius Rufus (a famous lawyer who Cicero consider superior in matters of law) and Titus Pomponius (a man who Cicero considered “like a second brother”). In 79 BC, Cicero left for Greece, Asia Minor, and Rhodes to, as he said, “hone his skills and improve his physical fitness.” While in Asia Minor, he studied under the leading orators that were there. At Rhodes he meet his former teacher, Apollonius Molon, who helped him hone the excesses in his style, as well as train the body and the lungs for the demands of public speaking. Through this intense regime of study and physical exercise, Cicero would go to become one of the greatest orators in history, only second to Demosthenes. Around this time (79 BC) he married a women named Terentia. Terentia came from a very wealthy plebeian noble house, thought to be the house of Terenti Varrones. They produced two children: Marcus Tullius Cicero Minor, and Tullia.  

To go into the entire history of Cicero from this point on would be incredibly long, and could very easily be its own commentary, so I shall skip straight to his legacy instead. Even in Cicero’s own time, he was considered the greatest orator there was. Quintilian said of him that the name Cicero was “not the name of a man, but of eloquence itself.” His influence on the Latin language was immense. He wrote three-quarters of extant Latin literature that was known during his lifetime, and subsequent prose was either a reaction against or a return to his style, not just for Latin, but for all European languages. It was he who introduced into Latin the great works of the Greeks (Hellenistic philosophy) through his translations when he was still but a student. He is also responsible for most Latin philosophical vocabulary terms (neologisms) such as: evidentia, humanitas, qualitas, quantitas, and essentia. Due to his keen interest in rhetoric and Greek philosophy, Cicero naturally became a voluminous writer whose ideas and works are still influential to this very day. It was Cicero who gave life to elegance and prose- an art that had no real structure before his time really. Almost all of his works employ the use of ancient references to support his claims and are extremely Logos and Ethos heavy. Cicero was a man with infinite reference to all the great scholars before him, no doubt a result of his assiduous study of the classics; he was also very capable in his vocabulary and wrote with such power that those who wish to write great works must do so in the shadow of Cicero and must naturally follow his every jot and tiddle. Erasmus personally disagreed with the strict adherence to the Ciceronian style- as evident in his work Ciceronianus- but Erasmus was arguing on ground that were theological rather than logical; his argument was essentially since Cicero was a pagan (living before the birth of Christ) his writing style is unsuitable in any Christian text translations, and by extension all writing. I could not agree more with Julius Caesar Scaliger on this matter, when he said that Erasmus was nothing more than a literary parasite, and a mere corrector of texts. It was Petrarch’s rediscovery of Cicero’s letters that provided the impetus to search for ancient Greek and Latin writings scattered throughout European monasteries. This intern led to the Italian Renaissance, a period of great scholarship and much learning; a period when men would read and interpret ancient text and attempt to understand the importance of the text itself. His letters to his friend Pomponius were very influential in how letters were written from that time forward. It was Cicero’s starch defense of the Roman Republic that inspired the Founding Fathers of the United States to declare independence. John Adams said of him: “As all the ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher united than Cicero, his authority should have great weight,” and furthermore Thomas Jefferson said of Cicero that he was one of many major figures who contributed to the tradition “of public right” that informed the draft of the Declaration of Independence and shaped American understandings of “the common sense” basis for the right of revolution. Furthermore, “Cicero” is the name attributed to size 12 font in typesetting table drawers and is in Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar. He is a man whose influence is undeniable and shall always live on in history for his name is immortal and the embodiment of perfect prose. 

The next paragraph starts out with saying that Cardano’s approach to outlining his view on the nature of happiness is deliberately eclectic- recall that eclectic means creating or coming to a new conclusion based on a variety of sources you may have read. As the next sentence in the article beautifully illustrates: “He combines the Stoic conception of virtue with Epicurus’ emphasis on indifference (indolentia), Aristotle’s notion of virtuous life with Averroes’ characterization of happiness as the highest level of knowledge accessible to human beings.” The next sentence tells us that Cardano justified this eclectic approach because he thought philosophers good in their field will say things that converge into one idea; as Cardano says of this himself: “two or more of their opinions can converge into one.” The next two sentences give us examples of sources Cardano used to formulate his own ideas: from Socrates, Cardano got the idea that only wise people (people who examine themselves and the world around them) can live truly happy lives because virtue lies in knowledge. Recall that Cardano defined happiness as the perception of pleasure, and that happiness contains 5 components: Great (magna), Full (plena), Pure (pura), Untroubled (secura), and Safe (tuta).” Also recall that Cardano viewed tranquility as the highest virtuous act that someone can obtain, and the greatest component of tranquility is in fact happiness, so the two ideas ‘converge into one’ as Cardano said before. From medical authors (Hippocrates, Galen, Avicenna) he took that idea that happiness arises from a release of tension or pain from a sickness. Cardano also makes distinctions on the characteristics of good- there are goods of the mind (virtues), goods of the body (health, longevity), and goods of fortune. In the De utilitate, Cardano list finding the right wife, a lasting fame, and a painless death as the goods of fortune. Goods of the body include enjoying good health and following a healthy regimen, and goods of the mind include reading, arithmetic, and deep contemplation.  

The next sentence tells us the characteristics of goods and ills, saying: “goods and ills are values. As such, they transcend the level of nature and therefore cannot be treated as if they were natural or against nature.” As Cardano said of this: “Goods and ills reside in the soul; faculties and defects in the body; helps and impediments in fortune and its occurrences.” The next sentence gives us Cardano’s definition of what good is: “Cardano defines the good as “what is longed for by the majority of human beings,” such as health, wealth, friends, glory, offspring, and wisdom. In a more specific sense (simpliciter), good is what is everlasting (perpetuum), safe (securum), and unchangeable (immutabile).” So, in a sense, the good, for Cardano at least, is what the human being generally wishes to obtain. The next sentence tells us that to obtain this good, we must commit to actions of good that cannot be taken away from us. This reminds me of what lady philosophy told Boethius in his consolation of philosophy: to value things that fortune cannot take away, such as wisdom, knowledge, and honorable actions. Cardano himself says of this: “since only God has all the requisites to be this kind of imperishable good, the more genuine meaning of good is that which brings us closer to God or make us similar to Him.” This reminds me of something my father told me, that I must perform actions that make God proud, for he is watching us all; I took that very seriously as a kid and still do today- the only difference is I know God to be false today. Cardano further expounds, saying: “The difference between human beings and God is that in God the good (bonum) coincides entirely with self-preservation (vita incolumis), whereas in human beings these two conditions are generally separate. Human beings need to take care of their life and aim at a life that is marked by reason. There cannot be any discourse on happiness where the primary requisites for life are lacking (due to mental illness or death) (Theonoston, OO, II, 309b).” As one can probably gather from Cardano’s telling, man is different from God because God has all the attributes that allow him to be naturally good; whereas man must commit himself to good acts he naturally does not possess, and man also must put effort into his life to maintain such good. In short, God is naturally imbued with all good, whereas man must work to obtain and maintain it. I find the last sentence of this quote particularly telling; Cardano is saying if man lacks the things which allow him to perform good, he can never obtain good in the first place. This reminds me of what Benjamin Franklin once said on virtue: “Poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue; it is hard for an empty bag to stand upright.”  

Now that goods and ills have been defined- values that transcend nature and which are comprised in the soul and body as benefits and defects- we shall now talk about goods of the mind in depth. Cardano defined goods of the mind as virtues; by virtues Cardano is referring to the principles that teach man to act in accordance with God and his fellow man. This makes sense if you recall that Cardano took from Socrates the idea that only wise men can obtain a truly happy life; this is because wise men are learned and knowledge is a principal virtue The key virtues to Cardano were duty (pietas), compassion (humanitas), and kindness (benignitas).  Cardano thought virtue was the foundation of human action, and it’s the principle we should adhere to when making decisions, for as he said himself: “by its nature, virtue is eternal and a divine good in us; all the rest rots in time and depends on circumstances.” Cardano believed that all virtue stems from the innermost part of man’s rational soul, which has the power to retroact on our mind and safeguard our faculties. The most enduring virtues, Cardano thought, were fortitude, prudence, and moderation. Fortitude referring to courage, prudence referring to wisdom, and Moderation referring to self-control- all of which are cardinal virtues. 

The next paragraph talks of Cardano’s metaphysics, and how it combines with his moral philosophy. Reiterating the ideas of the soul being immortal, that incorporeal things are everlasting, and that mental awareness is the principal characteristic that proves the existence of the soul (recall Cardano’s fixation on selfhood in his ‘proof for the soul’). Cardano believed that knowledge and intellect is the only component of man- aside from his soul- that is eternal and incorporeal. This is why he considered intellectual knowledge of self as the highest good that man can obtain. This inevitably leads to the Averroist problem of whether the mind belongs to humankind as a whole or it informs the life and knowledge of each individual human being. Recall that Averroes believed in the One intellect; an incorporeal entity that unifies all knowledge and is contained with all humans. Averroes personally thought that to understand something you must have enough empirical experience with that thing until the intellect opens and reveals itself to you. In that sense, understanding is the acquisition of a concept which intern becomes knowledge, and is revealed through the One intellect. To answer the question, however, I think that the intellect is not an entity that humankind all share (as Averroes thought), but rather that everyone is endowed at birth with the One intellect, and humans contributes to their intellect by understanding many different things produced by others intellect. Cardano was of the thought that the intellect was above human beings ([mens] superior est homini) in terms of its place in the sublunary supralunary hierarchy, for as he says in De utilitate, “he who does not live long cannot be happy for long.”  

The last paragraph of section 4.1 is essentially a recap of Cardano’s belief on happiness, its relation to virtue, and how tranquility can be achieved- it also talks about how each of these things relate to God and the soul. It reminds us that Cardano’s moral and metaphysical philosophy is filled with Aristotelian and Averroistic callings. The article reminds us again, saying: “The summum bonum, he argues in De utilitate ex adversis capienda, is “to be assimilated to the highest good,” i.e., God. Unlike other kinds of love, love of God is “honest” and “safe,” for its object never deserts the seeking soul.” This love of God, as Cardano says, is similar to his characterization of happiness; in which he gives it 5 separate characteristics: great, full, pure, untroubled, and safe. Cardano himself summarizes with a quote from De utilitate saying: “wisdom is distinctively human; expressions of fortitude and prudence can also be seen in several animals; to have children, finally, is a prerogative that belongs to almost all living beings. It is a sort of pyramidal model of virtue, with fertility at the basis and wisdom at the top (only very few people can reach wisdom).” This model of virtue, as Cardano has laid out, really shows you the importance Cardano puts on wisdom (sapiential). If one recalls, it was Aristotle that said, “Reason is what separates man from beast,” and furthermore said, “if a man be in solitude, he is either a beast or a God.” Cardano himself placed wisdom, knowledge, and intellect at the paramount of virtue, and it is from these three values that man attains his tranquility and acts similar to a God, for it was Cardano who said “he that acts virtuously should strive to act in accordance with God.”  

Prudence and Practical Wisdom 

We are finally on the very last section of this rather lengthy commentary on Cardano’s Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry. This section of the work moves from Cardano’s more theological and conjectural view of life and looks at the more pragmatic and realistic side of things. One should recall in section four that Theonoston was concerned with the immortality of the soul and God and how the two intertwine. Whereas De utilitate looks at practical advice and wisdom from Cardano’s own experience. As the article beautifully describes: “This work (De utilitate ex adversis capienda) is meant to provide directions on how to overcome difficult situations and lead a reasonably serene life relying only on the material conditions of one’s existence and on the information that one can get from sensible experience.”  

This idea of being able to survive difficult situations in life, should they arise, is an extremely important one. Life- as Jordan Peterson would say- is and always has been in a natural state of privation (a state in which things that are essential for human well-being are scarce or lacking). I would say that the material conditions, as the article says, or social class one finds themselves born in are- to a large degree- the determinant factors that have the most influence on the trajectory of one’s life. The unfortunate truth of reality, however, is that not everyone is born into well-off families- in fact the majority are in a state of constant toil and struggle; as Adam Smith pertinently said: “The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy to invade his possessions.” Should we follow the free-market capitalist model, we shall construct a class system by which most of the wealth rest within the hands of few, while the remaining are left to fight amongst themselves for survival. It’s an existence that, in fact, is true at the present in America. It should also be noted that a completely egalitarian society produces results that are even worse off than the capitalist model, so, we must then decide; are we to suffer reality and not advance our own position to smite those who have, or are we to accept reality as it is and attempt to better ourselves through industry, frugality, thrift, hard work, perseverance, and education? Any sensible person would no doubt agree with the latter of the two options. I was born into a family that’s about as far from well-off as one can get; born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, to a blue collar (working class) family- a Unionized Construction worker father and a phlebotomist mother. Both my parents were of ordinary endowments, educated, but far from learned. My father is an extremely industrious man with a phenomenal physical constitution; even after being in a near death car accident, he still gets up (even at the very present) every day at 4:00 AM to go to work. My mother is, likewise, very strong for a woman and just as hardworking to support her family. Their financial habits are far from frugal (they enjoy conspicuous consumption), which no doubt caused them great trouble after trouble- myself being in the unfortunate circumstance of bearing those hardships with them firsthand. But enough of this autobiographical talk! If you were not fortunate enough to have the means provided to you by virtue of birth, then you should look for ways of attaining a better situation for oneself- either through hard work or by brilliant resilience. I personally intend to do this through a combination of both methods taught in De utilitate ex adversis capienda (relying on the material circumstance you were born into and the practical experience of others or through your own)- in particular, through my own hard work and by reading the experiences of those who themselves had gone through similar circumstances in their own lives to my own: to which there are no shortages. Men such as Benjamin Franklin, Cicero, Leon Battista Alberti, Oliver Heaviside, Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, and, of course, Cardano himself all fit under this category. Cardano was not lying when he said: “For I understood, without any doubt, that life is twofold: the material existence common to the beasts and the plants, and that existence which is peculiar to a man eager for glory and high endeavor.” Let us all try to be of that existence peculiar to man, he who attempts to attain glory and fame through hard work! 

To get back to the article, however, the next sentence tells us that in De utilitate, Cardano focuses on the kind of happiness that one can reach in this life, advancing the hypothesis- to be understood in an experimental sense- that there is no survival of the soul (etiam sublate immortalitate). The rest of the paragraph ends with a beautiful quote from De utilitate in which Cardano makes a distinction between internal and external ills. He says: “In this case, the moral actor is confronted not so much with the goods attainable by the mind as with the ills that the mind needs to transform into opportunities for inner exercise or practical gain. Cardano divides ills (mala) into external and internal. They both can be measured according to the impact they have on our lives (magnitudo) and the level of constraint they impose on our actions (necessitas). External ills depend on the variable arrangement of external events (fortunae arbitrium) and on the shifting states of the body. Although, properly speaking, the body is “no part of ourselves,” nevertheless, it communicates with our mind. Internal ills are all those passions that can be hardly eradicated from our soul, such as madness, anger, fear, and envy. Since they are located within the soul (animus), it is exceedingly difficult to turn them into something useful and productive unless we undergo a radical transformation of our self.” So first, taking the assumption that there is no soul- which De utilitate set out to do- Cardano then suggests that we focus on using our mind to transform our ills into practical gain. Cardano then divides ills into two distinct types: internal and external ills. Internal ills are those things which are ingrained in the soul and are things we can never change: things such as madness, anger, fear, and envy. The only way to turn them into practical gains is to undergo a complete change of self. External ills are ills that are dependent on external factors (fortunae arbitrium) and the shifting state of the body (particularly the soul). It's also important to remember that ills- along with good- are values which reside in the soul and transcend nature. Like knowledge, intellect, and the soul, goods and ills are those things which Cardano thought are the incorporeal aspects of human beings. In particular, good and ills are those things which either help us or impede us respectively.  

The next paragraph talks about Cardano’s five responses to calamities in one’s life. As the article says: “The first two are “paradoxical” and have nothing relevant to say about possible applications to the practical aspects of one’s life. These are the Christian and the Stoic responses: adversities are either good in themselves, or they have absolutely no incidence in someone’s happiness. The remaining three kinds of response are of a “pragmatic” nature, for they appeal to the human senses and have possible social outcomes. First, they teach us how to avoid misfortunes or mitigate the impact they have on our life; second, in case they happen, they direct our attention to ways of coping with misfortunes or escape dangerous consequences; third, they tell us how to gain “some good” out of “any kind of ill” (De utilitate, OO, II, 10b, 27b, 39a).” Let’s discuss the first two paradoxical responses to calamities. The reason they are called paradoxical is because they are not ways you would expect to respond to a calamity. As the article mentions, these two responses are either the Christian response or the Stoic response. The Christian response to a calamity is to say that the calamity itself is a good thing: its good this bad thing happened to you essentially. I have heard this many times before from my grandmother (a pious Roman Catholic). She, like my father, would blame all bad events in her life as the doings of the devil himself, much like a Mormon- and would say to me that bad things are the result of some arbitrary sin I have committed and must repent for. I never understood why God would punish me for committing a sin if he is supposed to be all loving and knowing, for surly he would know that if I commit a sin, it would be from my own ignorance or human folly rather than any actual malice. This idea of God watching everything someone does and punishes you for it requires an amount of faith and belief that I am no longer willing to take part in. The Stoics response to a calamity is to say that the calamity ultimately has no effect on my happiness, for the Stoics would say that if the calamity is out of your control, you should not worry about it, and should only focus on those things which are in your control. If the calamity is to occur and it was in your control, then that would have been a result of your own failure to take the necessary actions to prevent it. I love the Stoic philosophy, for it’s the same philosophy my father and grandfather lived by- even though they had no idea that’s what it was called: intellect over emotion, worry about yourself, watch everything you do, be aware of your surroundings; These are the tenets they taught me, and, as a result, I have always had in my mind since childhood. 

Now to discuss the more pragmatic responses to calamities. These responses are important because they appeal to the human senses and have possible social repercussions. The first of these is to learn how to avoid or mitigate future calamities; the second is to find ways of coping with the misfortune of a calamity, should it occur, and the third way is to see what good can be extracted, if any, from the calamity. Cardano personally thought that this three-step pragmatic approach for dealing with calamities is extremely useful for those in civic life. Cardano said of this: “The distinctive trait of prudent (wise) people is their ability to turn difficulties into opportunities of knowledge and moral betterment.” Turning difficulties into opportunities of learning, this is no doubt the way everyone should approach difficulties in their life, for any other, to me, seems like a great waste of effort and time. To recap the three pragmatic approaches to dealing with calamities: 1) how to avoid or mitigate it, 2) how to cope with it, and 3) how to extract good from it! 

As for Cardano’s view on the paradoxical approaches to calamities, the article said: “ Regarding the “paradoxical” attitudes to calamities displayed by Stoic and Christian sages, Cardano thinks that there is a great difference between the situation in which the wise man is deemed capable of “bearing calamities with fortitude (courage)” (the Stoic approach) and that in which he is supposed to look at them as part of “one’s goods” (the Christian attitude).” So, the situation is what determines which attitude- Stoic or Christian- you are supposed to hold. The next sentence informs us that Cardano thought praising the ills of life is a waste of time and a pointless rhetorical exercise. It is for this exact reason that Cardano looks upon Erasmus’ “Praise of Folly” as edifying but useless rhetoric. With the exception of irreparable losses (which require a slew of different consolatory techniques), Cardano thought that any ill could be used as an experience to learn and better yourself from. To sum up Cardano’s viewpoint on dealing with calamity in a practical way: “To praise adversities is the eloquent rhetorician’s task; to bear them with fortitude belongs to a generous soul or a person who knows divine truths; to draw useful instruction from them is the mark of a prudent man” (De utilitate, OO, II, 11a).”  

Moving onto the next paragraph, Cardano gives us another way to deal with calamities, this time in the context of intellectual happiness. It says in the case of intellectual happiness, relief from emergencies is predicated upon knowledge. As the article says of this: “Cardano characterizes his method (ratio) for avoiding misfortunes and preparing against calamities as based on a particular kind of knowledge (scientia) – both useful and necessary – which ‘teaches us to recognize and obtain known goods, and once they are obtained, it tells us how to use them and how to protect us with them against ills’.” From this intellectual happiness perspective, Cardano says our calamities can be avoided given the knowledge we have, for we could use the knowledge and protect ourselves from any ill given we know what ill could potentially harm us. This reminds one of what Cardano said regarding calamities and happiness, both require a sense of awareness: “the fact that we know our condition,” as he said in De utilitate.  

Cardano strongly held the view that our way of thinking- ‘thinking activity’ as he called it- is what allows us to analyze a calamity in a proper way and derive some good from it. The next sentence from the article is a rather interesting claim regarding propositional logic: it says, “Any philosophical discussion of ethical matters presupposes that the ethical subject is aware of his or her happiness or unhappiness.” This, I think, is an appropriate claim, and it gives me something interesting to talk about. Whenever discussing any subject, there will always be some presupposition or bias that the speaker has regarding the subject. To say that someone’s point is invalid simply because it starts off with a general supposition makes no sense at all. I should mention that a supposition is used to find common ground between interlocuters when debating; it provides a foundation for the discussion to continue by giving them something to initially agree upon together. When presuppositions become a problem are when you make an active claim- a claim that has a truth value associated with it- and the premises you use to support it have the presuppositions inherently in them: this results in the Begging the Question Fallacy and make your original claim invalid. You must be careful when making general suppositions and making claims, there is a distinct difference between them and you cannot be caught in faulty logic. To finish off this paragraph, however, Cardano thought that external goods such as riches, physical beauty, health, friends, offspring, etc. are no part of happiness unless they are related to the mind (quatenus ad animum referuntur). 

The next paragraph starts off with a quote from De utilitate that I like very much. It says: “The principal resources through which human beings may learn to draw advantages from adversities are fortitude, prudence, worldly knowledge (rerum experientia), and all sorts of helps (auxilia), such as material means, friends, authority, bodily strength and practical experience (exercitatio) (De utilitate, OO, II, 12a).” As one could tell already, Cardano places great value on the cardinal virtues of fortitude and prudence as well as knowledge as a means for withstanding adversity. The next sentence tells us that Cardano and Seneca were in agreement on the idea that contemplating on one’s death (meditation mortis) is a sure way to forget- for a time anyway- the earthly calamity/adversity one may be dealing with. As Cardano himself said: “although death is a necessary event, nevertheless, it contains in an eminent way, so to say, all the reasons that sadden our life.” Thinking about death, regardless of whether people may be sure that they are going to survive after death, “can dissolve almost any form of sorrow.” The next sentence gives us the fundamental guiding principle that Cardano holds dear regarding the concept of gaining from adversity; it says, “Cardano’s method of drawing profit from adversities is based on the general principle that everything in nature is subject to incessant change: “I usually compare human affairs, this whole sublunary frame (machina sublunaris) and all that happens in it to a mass of wax in which, while it is compressed, protrusions become cavities and cavities protrude, all forms change, and now they change into similar ones, now into dissimilar ones, into charming or foul, horrible and pleasant ones.” This idea of incessant change harkens back to Cardano’s own metaphysical idea incessant mobility and utter immobility, as well as back to the ideas of Heraclitus and his philosophy of flux and the unity of opposites: the universe is no doubt always in constant change. The next sentence gives us the philosophical justification for why gaining from adversity makes rational sense. It says: “The principle of the unremitting transformation of reality (vicissitudo rerum) is therefore the ontological rationale behind our belief that ills can be turned into goods (De utilitate, OO, II, 14b). Closely related to this principle is Cardano’s striking assumption that, when considered from the point of view of happiness, all things are on a par (omnia aequalia sunt): “God levelled the conditions not only for all human beings, but also for all things which are under the sky” (De utilitate, OO, II, 18a, 24b).” We can gather from this that because the universe is not static, nor should our views of adversity. We should all strive to gain from those things which trouble us. 

The next paragraph starts off with a point that I could not agree with more. It says: “It is while examining the essence of humane misfortune that Cardano reaches the important conclusion that loss and want are the ultimate causes of one’s hardships. The ability to anticipate and feel in advance the effect of losing something or someone (sensus amissionis) can therefore prepare us to face calamities in our life (De utilitate, OO, II, 7).” I truly do believe and agree with Cardano that the biggest causes for human misery- and by extension, adversity- are loss and want. William Wordsworth, in his poem The World is too Much with Us, said it best: “The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending we lay waste our powers; little we see in nature that is ours.” This constant need to acquire (want) something without really paying attention to things that really matter in life has been a constant theme since the industrial revolution, and this affect is only worse the more advanced and mechanized society becomes. Want is no doubt a byproduct of a striving, capitalist society; where people have ample municipal spending and can’t help but spend money on things they don’t really need. These people should know from the great Ben Franklin, however, that industry and frugality go a long way in becoming wealthy- why should one spend money on something when they can save it for a time when the money may be of actual use. Invest it in something productive: like education, or stocks perhaps. Anything is better than money spent on material things that serve no true value or purpose. As Ben Franklin says in his The Way to Wealth: “Get what you can, and what you get hold,” and furthermore said “Gain may be temporary and uncertain, but ever while you live, expense is constant and certain,” and to top it off, said: “the second vice is lying, the first is running in debt.” To take a lesson from the Bible itself may also prove most useful in this exposition: take the 10th commandment from the Decalogue: “Thou shalt not covet.” More specifically, in Exodus chapter 20:17; “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s.” To want is to yearn for acquiring something one does not need. Take from elementary Economics the distinction between a want and a need; the core difference between the two is that a need is something you cannot live without, while a want is something you may get but is not necessary. One must recall the five basic needs: food, water, shelter, clothing, and sleep. One cannot go far without these, and one should strive to avoid any unnecessary wants should the urge arrive. To discuss loss now, loss is something all human beings will eventually experience at some point or another in their life- either from the death of a loved one or the loss of your own life- it is something that is bound to happen and is unchanging by anything. This is exactly why Cardano was right when he said that anticipating adversity is the best way to face our calamity; we should always be ready for the greatest reverses of fortune, for life is ever changing just like the universe. 

The next sentence, however, tells us that there are limits to what we can gain from a particular adversity. It’s says, “While Cardano insists that experience of adversities in life (sensus calamitatum) provides people with a richer sense of their happiness, however, he is also aware that there are limits in the human ability to process misfortunes into material for inner transformation (De utilitate, OO, II, 38b). Material destitution is certainly one of these limits. Among the circumstances that affect our perception of want, penury prevents us from focusing on the improvement of our knowledge and level of awareness.” Penury is defined as an extreme state of poverty, a true pauper so to say- someone of extreme destitution. This is no doubt true, for as Ben Franklin said, “Poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue; it is hard for an empty bag to stand upright.” Someone bereft of material means lacks any ability at all to provide for his own stock and well-being, and, as a result, forgoes the activities that allow him to become virtuous. As Ben Franklin also said: “One becomes virtuous by first securing wealth.” It is, by extension, impossible for one in such a circumstance to gain any benefit from this adversity. This is no doubt the worst thing a human can experience, for it quite literally strips man of all things that make him good. This is precisely why I advocate stability as my life philosophy over all else- particularly financial stability- because without it deprives man of all else, including those divine attributes of intellect and awareness. The next sentence, because of what was said earlier, has Cardano describing material means as a pre-condition for the exercise of virtue and happiness. Cardano- making one of the greatest utterances in the history of our species- said: “if someone does not have the means to raise his children, to look for wisdom or to practice justice, he will certainly be unhappy, not because he is poor, but because he cannot practice the works of happiness” (De utilitate, OO, II, 26a).” Another calamity that is very hard to gain from is mental pain, for as Cardano said himself: “No disease, if there is not fear of death, can equal mental pain (dolor animi)” (De utilitate, OO, II, 18a). 

The next paragraph gives us another important aspect of Cardano’s moral philosophy. It tells us that Cardano was not one to indulge in any form of self-delusion, for he said himself: “there is no greater merit than to free mankind from false opinions” (De utilitate, OO, II, 26a). In fact, Cardano considered his main contribution to moral philosophy that of dispelling false beliefs and curbing proclivities to self-deception. This is why he viewed Erasmus’ In Praise of Folly as nothing more than useless rhetoric, for Cardano saw no purpose in satirizing troubles of the common man, but rather saw adversities as potential experiences that we can all learn from and improve ourselves from. Cardano thought the primary objective of moral philosophers are to free the mind from misapprehensions and prejudices: “There are many people who prefer to be happy in a mistaken way rather than acknowledge the reality of their affairs and their condition” (De utilitate, OO, II, 24b).” In this sense, never delude yourself, for reality will catch up to you, and you will regret it as a result. Cardano himself says: “A good physician would never try to assuage the pain of the patient by recommending him to buy ‘paintings and precious stones’ (Theonoston, OO, II, 307a).” Overall, Cardano’s methods for dealing with calamities are supposed to promote and increase one's resilience when trouble comes a-knocking, as well as to promote a stoic approach to life and to take responsibility always.  

On to the very final paragraph, it starts out by giving a comparison between Cardano’s ontology and theory of knowledge with his moral philosophy. Ultimately, Cardano associated human misery with unrealistic ambitions trigged by human desires- recall that Cardano thought the two most prominent causes for calamity were want and loss- of the two want is irrational desire for something you don’t need, and loss is an unfortunate but certain part of nature. Cardano points this out in more philosophical terms, saying: “Since human nature is driven to the infinite by appetites, it can never be satisfied, for it cannot contain the infinite, indeed, not even a great part of what it desires.” Therefore, he who is not capable of restraining his own appetites, be he the greatest of the kings, will certainly be the unhappiest person (De utilitate, OO, II, 5; De sapientia, OO, I, 532a, 544b–545a; ed. Bracali, 135, 174–175). This idea of the appetites harkens back to Plato’s tripartite theory of the soul; where he posits that human emotions are contained within the soul and reside in certain parts of the body- the logical side in the brain, the emotional side in the heart, and the appetitive side in the stomach.  

To avoid such natural defects, Cardano recommends that humans combine actions of self-knowledge (nosce te ipsum) and self-control (impera te ipsum), which help to narrow down the number of unmanageable desires. This idea of self-knowledge and self-control reminds me of what Ben Franklin once said, “He that can have patience can have what he will,” and furthermore said: “employ thy time well if thou meanest to gain leisure.” One must use his time well and have patience to see the fruits of his labor and experience come to fruition. Self-improvement and the avoidance of ignorance is key as well. Remember that Cardano said: “Life is short, Art long, Experience not easily obtained, Judgement difficult, and therefore it is necessary, that a Student not only exercise himself in considering several Figures, but also that he diligently read the writings of others who have treated rationally of this Science, and make it his business to find out the true natural causes of things by experiments, to know the certain places and processions of the Planets and Fixed Stars, Constellations, etc., but above all to be a passionate lover of truth.” Francis Bacon said, “And if any man be laborious in reading and study and yet idle in business and action, it grows from some weakness of body or softness of spirit; such as Seneca speaks of: SOMETHING IS SO SHADY THAT THEY THINK THERE IS SOMETHING IN THE TURBIDITY OF THE LIGHT, and not of Learning: well may it be that such a point of a man's nature may make him give himself to Learning, but it is not learning that breeds any such point in by nature.”  

The next sentence is a quote by Cardano from his De utilitate, saying: “Once we manage to strike a balance between the scope of our desires and the reality in which we live, two things become most necessary (maxime necessaria): to obtain what we wish to have (habere quod velis) and to know how to use what we have (his quae habes uti commode scire);” and furthermore, the article tells us: “To facilitate this task, Cardano distinguishes between disciplines in which the theoretical aspect is more prevalent (such as geometry and theology), disciplines which are characterized by a balanced interplay of theory (scientia) and practice (usus), such as medicine and law, and finally disciplines in which practice (exercitatio) is essential, like moral philosophy. Cardano enumerates five requisites that define the nature of an accomplished action (in terms of attaining the right means for the right end (adeptio), readiness of execution (promptitudo), and completion (perfectio). These requisites are nature, art, diligence, practice, and familiarity with the experts in the field (De utilitate, OO, II, 1–2; De sapientia, OO, I, 494b).” This is quite the wealth of information, so let us do as Descartes once said, and “Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it.”  

First, Cardano says that we must strike a balance between our desires and what reality we wish to live. Once this is done, we must then meet two criteria that we deem most necessary: 1) To obtain what we wish to have, and 2) To know how to use what we have acquired. To bring about these two criteria, Cardano ‘distinguishes between disciplines in which the theoretical aspect is more prevalent (such as geometry and theology), disciplines which are characterized by a balanced interplay of theory (scientia) and practice (usus), such as medicine and law, and finally disciplines in which practice (exercitatio) is essential, like moral philosophy.’ I like this idea because depending on the discipline the approach to which you meet the first criteria- obtaining what you wish to have- changes greatly, and Cardano himself gives examples. Obtaining what you wish to have is something that results from the unity of your desires and the reality you wish to see yourself in. To know how to use what you have acquired is something that one can only do through experience and rational self-awareness, but recall that Cardano said experience is something not easily gained. This is where those all great and virtuous attributes of knowledge and intellect come into play, for to gain experience one must employ the use of knowledge and intellect to understand the experience you actively engage in. Recall what Francis Bacon said: “Knowledge is the rich storehouse for the glory of the creator, and the relief of man's estate.” The relief of man’s estate harkens to the quote by Ben Franklin, when he said with great wisdom “He that hath a trade hath an estate and he that hath a calling hath an office of profit and honor.” Man acquires his relief and calling using his intellect and the application of his knowledge, for Francis Bacon knew better than perhaps all his contemporaries that “knowledge is power.”  

With all this said, however, one should never forget to cultivate their body as well as mind, and furthermore, never forget the wisdom of that greatest of examples of Renaissance men, Da Vinci, who said: “Glory is in the hands of labor.” No doubt all things require the continual exertion of man's efforts and man must labor to gain experience, and, in the course of time, wisdom, for wisdom is only attained when your knowledge and intellect have been trained and used. It reminds me of what Descartes said once: “It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well,” so yes, O reader, go, and use thy mind to obtain glory and bring honor upon your family; become resilient and study the men of old, for their combined wisdom will no doubt lead to a life as fulfilled and as illustrious as that of Cardano’s, but always remember to keep the mind and body proportionally strong, and always be rational in your decisions, and face adversity to gain necessary experience in that aspect of life.  

Avoid senseless idols and waste not your time: for as Cardano himself said “the wasting of time is an abomination,” and furthermore, live by the motto of the illustrious and most learned of all, Hugo Grotius, whose motto was Ruit hora ("Time is running away"). Never be ashamed of your ignorance, for as Grotius himself said, “Ignorance of certain subjects is a great part of wisdom,” but never get too ambitious, for Grotius reminds us in his immortal last words: “By undertaking many things, I have accomplished nothing.” Take things lightly, work assiduously however, and should you find yourself in grief, remember the wisdom from Grotius, “Tis long ere time can mitigate your grief; to wisdom fly, she quickly brings relief.” Work hard, exercise harder, and most of all study hardest, for recall what that sage Francis Bacon said, “The images of men’s wits and knowledge remain in books, exempted from the worry of time and capable of perpetual renovation.” So, I leave you here reader, take the lessons that have been expounded upon into your heart; take the knowledge and lessons from these great men into your brain and never forget them. And live virtuously, for existence is short, and attempt to have your name perpetuated throughout time through your exertions in this world today!  

End.