1
Perspectives on Science 21 (2013): 358–378.
Fortunio Liceti on Mind, Light, and
Immaterial Extension
Andreas Blank
Abstract
Almost half a century before Henry More, the Padua-based
natural philosopher Fortunio Liceti (1577-1657) formulated a
distinction between material extension and immaterial
extension. While More’s version of the distinction is seen as
one of the most characteristic features of his metaphysics—
underlying both his theory of individual spirits and of
absolute divine space—Liceti’s metaphysics of immaterial
extension has not received much attention by commentators.
Liceti ascribes immaterial extension to light and the human
mind and, like More, he uses the analogy between light and mind
to explicate the structural differences between material and
immaterial extension. In this article, I explore how Liceti—
following some aspects of Albert the Great’s eclectic
Aristotelianism—tries to combine broadly Aristotelian accounts
2
of light and mind with the Platonic concept of emanative
causation. I argue that, in Liceti, the notion of existential
independence from matter lies at the heart of his conception of
extended, but actually indivisible, immaterial beings: Such
beings cannot be divided through the division of matter because
their existence, due to the role of emanative causation, does
not depend on the potencies of matter.
1. Introduction
In the history of seventeenth-century philosophy,
the distinction between material and immaterial
extension is closely associated with the Cambridge
Platonist Henry More (1614-1687). The aspect of
More’s conception of immaterial extension that
proved most influential is his theory of absolute
divine space. Very plausibly, the Newtonian
conception of space owes a great deal to More’s
views on space. More’s views on space in turn were
closely linked to his views on the nature of
3
individual spirits—the souls of brutes and humans,
as well as the intelligences of the angels. It has
been acknowledged that More’s theory of absolute
space was not without precedents. Most importantly,
Francesco Patrizi da Cherso (1529-1597) developed
the view that space is dimensional and independent
of the objects located in it (although Patrizi
remained rather evasive as to the material or
immaterial nature of space).1 Are there similar
precedents for More’s views about immaterial but
extended individual spirits? I have not seen any
concrete suggestions concerning this issue in the
literature on More. Hence, it might be worth
pointing out that the distinction between material
extension and the extension of immaterial minds can
be found, almost 40 years before More’s first
explicit formulation of the distinction in the
Appendix to An Antidote Against Atheism (1655), in a work
by the Paduan natural philosopher Fortunio Liceti
4
(1577-1657), aptly entitled On the Coextension of Soul and
Body (1616). In The Immortality of the Soul More includes
references to another area of Liceti’s work, the
theory of monsters.2 In fact, Liceti’s contribution
to the theory of biological reproduction has been
given some attention in recent scholarship.3 By
contrast, his contribution to the metaphysics of
immaterial extension has not yet been explored. This
is what the present paper aims to make a start at.
There are substantial similarities between
Liceti’s and More’s views. Just as More compares the
relation between spirits and matter with the
relation between light and illuminated matter, so
does Liceti compare the relation between mind and
matter with the relation between light and
illuminated matter. More is explicit that what he
has in mind when he makes this comparison is the
Aristotelian conception of light as intentional
species.4 On first sight, however, it is not obvious
5
how this comparison could be of any help for More.
Certainly, influential medieval Aristotelian
theories of light, such as those of Robert
Grosseteste (ca. 1168-1253) and Roger Bacon
(1214/1220-1292), regard light as a corporeal being.
Bacon maintains that the dimensionality of light is
derived from the dimensionality of its medium.5
Grosseteste maintains that light is constitutive of
bodily extension.6 In neither case was the extension
of light conceived as being independent of the
extension of matter.7
When Liceti claims that the extension of light
differs from the extension of matter he may have
gone substantially beyond other Later Aristotelian
thinkers. The closest historical antecedent of
Liceti’s theory of light can be found in Albert the
Great’s (d. 1280) highly eclectic De anima commentary.
Most importantly for present purposes, Albert
connects the Aristotelian view that light perfects
6
the body that it illuminates by making it actually
perspicuous or “diaphanous”8 with the Platonic notion
of emanative causation.9 Liceti takes up this
eclectic approach to light but makes some
implications that such a theory of light has for the
relation between the extension of light and the
extension of body. Exploring Liceti’s usage of the
analogy between mind and light thus may help us to
understand the sense in which, in Liceti’s view,
mind can be at the same time immaterial, extended,
and indivisible. I will proceed as follows. In
section 2, I explore how Liceti argues for the
extension of the mind and how he distinguishes the
mind’s extension from the extension of vegetative
and sensitive souls. In section 3, I investigate how
Liceti, in his early and middle years, argues for
understanding light as an extended but indivisible
being. In section 4, I bring together both strands
of thought to explicate the role of the notion of
7
existential independence in Liceti’s usage of the
analogy between light and mind. Finally, in section
5, I spell out how Liceti integrates some forms of
dependence of mental activities on the body with his
account of indivisible immaterial extension.
2. The Coextension of Soul and Body
Liceti ascribes extension to all kinds of souls
(vegetative, sensitive, and rational), and the
grounds for this are closely connected with his
account of the coextension of soul and body. In
particular, he understands the coextension of the
rational soul and the body in close analogy to the
coextension of the vegetative and sensitive soul and
the body. Therefore, it will be helpful first to
consider his conception of the coextension of the
vegetative soul and the organic body of a living
being. With respect to the nutrition of plants, he
8
argues that the vegetative soul is where the
operations occur, of which the soul is the primary
efficient cause since according to Aristotle all
physical action is by contact;10 moreover, according
to Aristotle everything that is nourished is
1 See Patrizi 1943, p. 237 (on dimensionality), p. 241 (on
independence from other objects and on the question of the
material or immaterial nature of space). On Patrizi’s
conception of space, see Grant 1981, ch. 8; Kochiras 2012, pp.
54-56.
2 Immortality, III, 7, 3, p. 174.
3 See Ceard 1977, pp. 442-447, 451-456; Daston and Park 1998,
pp. 191, 200, 209, 213.
4 Immortality, I, 5, 2, p. 25.
5 Lindberg 1983, pp. 190/191. On Bacon’s theory of light, see
Lindberg 1986, pp. 19-22.
6 Baur 1912, p. 51. On Grosseteste’s metaphysics of light, see
Baur 1917, pp. 76-84; McEvoy 1982, pp. 151-158.
7 To be sure, Nicolaus Oresme’s theory of light may be a less
clear-cut case. Oresme maintains that light belongs to the
“corporeal accidents or qualities” but qualifies this claim by
ascribing a “spiritual being” to it. One clear sense associated
9
nourished with respect to the smallest part of its
body.11 He develops analogous arguments for the
coextension of sensitive souls and the organic
bodies of animals. The most telling argument for our
present concerns is an argument based on the
relation between the sensitive soul and the
with this qualification is that light does not follow from
primary qualities (see Patar 1995, p. 276). But as Annelise
Maier has remarked about cases such as Oresme: “That it is not
a ‘proper’ esse spirituale like that of rational souls and
intelligences went without much saying; but it never came to a
precise and generally accepted clarification of the special
intentional being that was ascribed to the species in a medium”
(Maier 1963), p. 7). And, in any case, Peter Marshall seems to
be right when he points out that “Oresme never made clear how
there could be dimensionality without material being” (Marshall
1981, pp. 361-362).
8 See Aristotle, De an. II, 7. On Aristotle’ notion of the
diaphanous and its influence in medieval thought, see Vasiliu
1997.
9 On the origins of the emanation theory of light, see Lindberg
1976, pp. 96-98.
10
vegetative soul of an animal. Liceti starts from the
observation that when the sensitive soul is occupied
with something and applies all its forces of passion
to it, then nutrition, augmentation and the
functions of sexual reproduction that are governed
by the vegetative soul are impaired or interrupted.
Liceti interprets these observations as indicating
that in a sensitive being the vegetative soul is
dominated by the sensitive soul.12 He comments:
“[Y]ou can derive the fact that the dominating
sensitive soul is coextensive with the dominated
vegetative soul from the fact that all physical
domination takes place by means of contact and
contiguity.”13
As far as vegetative and sensitive souls go,
Liceti believes that division of souls is not only a
genuine possibility but something actually involved
in every case of the generation of a living being:
11
[A]s long as twigs are on the tree, they live by
the same soul as the tree is said to live by; the
soul of the tree subsequently is multiplied and
divided according to the division of the subject
… Almost in this way, I believe the seed enjoys
the same soul as the father; which I believe is
divided and multiplied according to the division
10 Liceti refers the reader to Aristotle, Phys., VII, 10-12;
VIII, 33; De an., 2, 3. On scholastic views on the “no action
at a distance” principle, see Kovach 1990, pp. 161-171.
11 ACC, p. 12. See De an. II, 4.
12 ACC, p. 36.
13 ACC, p. 36: “[S]ensitricem gubernantem coextensam esse
vegetali animae gubernatae inde apertissime colligas, quia
gubernatio physica fit per contactum, & contiguitatem:
Aristoteles enim alicubi sanxit necessarium esse mundum hunc
inferiorem contiguum extare supernis lationibus, ut omnis huius
mundi virtus gubernetur inde [Meteor. I, 2].” For a more
detailed discussion of Liceti’s view on vegetative and
sensitive souls, see Blank 2010.
12
of the subject when the seed is separated from
the body of the father.14
Thus, for Liceti plant souls are extended beings
that are divided when the organic body of the plant
is divided. The two parts of a divided plant live by
the two parts of a divided plant soul. Likewise,
animal souls are extended beings that are divided
when the organic body of the animal is divided. When
the body of the seed is separated from the body of
the parent the seed lives by a part of the soul of
the parent. Liceti’s ontology of vegetative and
14 OAH, p. 329: “[F]ructus, dum arbori haerent, eiusdem animae
beneficio vivunt, qua & arbor ipsa vivere dicitur, quae arboris
anima postmodum plurificatur, dividiturque ad subiecti
divisionem … Ita prorsum arbitror semen in corpore patris eadem
anima potiri, quae & pater ipse fruitur; quam dividi, ac
plurificari censeo ad subiecti divisionem, dum semen a patris
corpore seiungitur …”
13
sensitive souls thus would evidently allow such
souls to be actually divided.
Still, while Liceti is committed to the material
and divisible nature of vegetative and sensitive
souls, he also holds that “the more potent,
intellective part of the human soul is not educed
from matter but created out of nothing, and is
immortal …”15 His argument for the extended nature of
this immaterial part of the human soul starts with
the assumption that “as the sentient soul governs
the vegetative soul in producing each of its
functions, the rational soul evidently governs the
vegetative and sensitive souls in all of their
operations.”16 In fact, in his early De vita he offers
a (partial) argument for this assumption:
[T]he vegetative soul does not operate anything
in us unless it is governed by the sensitive
soul; likewise, the sensitive soul does not
14
operate anything in a human being unless the
intellective soul assists it; from whence it
comes about that while the sensitive or rational
soul is vehemently occupied with something, as in
big passions of the soul, the usual assistance to
the vegetative soul is interrupted; and for this
reason it is often forced to desist from its
usual duties and to interrupt nutrition and its
other functions …17
Thus, what speaks for the dependence of the
operations of the vegetative soul on operations of
the sensitive or rational soul is that the former
can be impeded by the malfunctioning of the latter.
15 OAH, p. 301: “potior humanae animae pars intellectiva sit
non educta de sinu materiae, sed creata ex nihilo, & immortalis
…”
16 ACC, p. 40: “quemadmodum sentiens anima gubernat vegetalem in
quibusque suis functionibus edendis; ita plane rationalis &
vegetalem, & sentienten regit in omnibus earum operationibus.”
15
Even though Liceti does not offer an explicit
argument for the dependence of the operations of the
sensitive soul on the operations of rational soul,
constructing such an argument along similar lines
would be easy. For Liceti, the dependence of the
operations of the vegetative and sensitive soul on
the operations of the rational souls implies that
the rational soul acts upon the vegetative and
sensitive souls.
As in the case of sensitive souls that govern
vegetative souls, he applies the principle that
something has to be where it operates: “if what
governs must be contiguous to the governed …, the17 DV, pp. 137-138: “[V]egetalis anima in nobis nihil operatur
nisi a sensitrice gubernetur; perinde ac neque sentiens in
homine suo munere fungitur nisi ab intellectrice fuerit adiuta;
unde fit ut anima sentiente, aut rationali vehementius occupata
circa obiectum aliquod, ut in magnis animi passionibus,
consuetum auxilium vegetali animae intercipiatur; & iccirco
haec a solitis officiis saepe desistere cogitur, ac
nutritionem, aliaque sui munia multoties intermittere …”
16
rational soul must be coextensive with the
vegetative and the sensitive soul.”18 This is why
Liceti believes that the rational soul must also be
coextensive with the body that it animates: “If
these functions of the mind and the will are
considered in so far as they are the conditions that
constitute the existence of a principle of motion
for the human being that contains them, intellection
and appetition, in so far as they lead to motion,
are necessarily coextensive with the whole body …”19
In Liceti’s view, intellection and appetition, taken
separately, do not depend on the body: “[B]ecause
intellection is produced without the help of any18 ACC, p. 40: “si ergo gubernans gubernato contiguum esse
oportet …; profecto rationalis anima & vegetanti, & sentienti
coextensa esse debet …”
19 Ibid.: “[si] hae functiones mentis, & voluntatis
considerentur quatenus sunt conditiones constituentes in esse
principium motivum hominis continentis …; necessario
intellectio, & appetitio, ut ad motum diriguntur, toti corpori
sunt coextensae …”
17
bodily organ, intellection is properly not a bodily
action, if you understand it precisely as mere
cognition; … the same I will say about pure
appetition …”20 Nevertheless, he argues that they
must be present jointly in every region of the body:
[T]he two potencies of the rational soul, namely,
intellect and will, insofar as they come together
in a single principle of local motion of the
entire human being in which they are contained,
as well as of each of its parts, they are
coextensive with the whole body and reside in
each particle of the body.21
20 ACC, pp. 51-52: “[I]ntellectio quum nullius organi corporei
ministerio edatur, si eam ut mera cognitio est praecise
sumpseris, proprie actio corporea non est … Idipsum iudicavero
de appetione pura …”
18
That certain mental potencies are coextensive with
the body, in turn, implies that the substance that
possesses potencies is coextensive with the body:
[W]hen any function is an act of an agent which
is entirely inseparable from it because the act
cannot be without the entity whose act it is,
indeed also the essence of the intellectual souls
from which operations of this kind proceed … will
be present as a whole in the whole and as a whole
in the single parts.22
21 ACC, p. 51: “[H]ae duae facultates animae rationalis,
intellectus nimirum, atque voluntas, quatenus coincidunt in
unum principium loco motivum totius hominis continentis, &
singulorum membrorum illius, sunt universo corpori coextensae,
deguntque in singulis corporis particulis.”
22 Ibid.: “[Q]uando functio quaevis est actus operantis ab eo
penitus inseparabilis ea ratione, ut actus non sit sine illo,
cuius est actus; profecto & animae intellectricis essentia, a
qua huiusmodi operationes prodeunt … tota in toto & tota in
singulis partibus inerit.”
19
Due to the role of the rational soul as principle
of local motion, Liceti would thus subscribe to a
traditional notion of the relation between soul and
body that goes back to Plotinus and was widely
accepted in scholastic thought: the notion that the
soul is present as a whole in the whole body and as
a whole in each part of the body.23 Such a view
clearly implies that the rational soul cannot be
divided into parts that possess different essences.
Still, it leaves open the question why the rational
soul could not be divided into parts that possess
the same essence. Does Liceti’s natural philosophy
contain resources to answer this question? I think
23 On the influence of this view, often dubbed “holenmerism”, in
the Neoplatonic and scholastic traditions, see Grant 1981, 222-
225; Des Chene 2000, pp. 191-202; Rozemond, 2003; Reid 2007,
pp. 88-89. For authoritative formulations of the doctrine, see
Plotinus 1984, 4:418; 4:294; Ficino 2001-2006, 1: 237-239; 2:
229.
20
it does. The relevant material can be found in
Liceti’s discussion of the relation between the
extension of the rational soul and the extension of
the body animated by it. To explicate this relation,
he invokes the analogy between minds and light. In
order to get a grip on how this analogy is meant to
work, we thus have first to look into Liceti’s
analysis of the structure of light.
3. Light and Existential Dependence
In his later years, Liceti wrote extensively about
light. In his later writings, he understands lumen to
be “a quality perceptible by vision that is
physically produced by a luminous body.”24 According
to his later theory of light, the mode of physical
production is reduced to efficient causation by
means of local motion. And the product that is24 Liceti 1640a, p. 99: “lumen esse sensibilem visu qualitatem
physice productam a corpore lucido”
21
produced in this way stands in the relation of
inherence to the illuminated body: “Lumen is an
accidental quality, and a corporeal quality, for the
reason that it requires the underlying body in which
it inheres …”25 Hence, it is a quality that depends
for its existence on the illuminated body. Moreover,
it is a quality that is divisible, “for everything
that is received is received in the mode of the
receiver: but the disposed matter that receives in
it the form of light is a perspicuous body that is
itself a quantum and divisible”26 Evidently, such a
conception of light would not be helpful in
25 Liceti 1640b, p. 179: “lumen esse qualitatem accidentalem, &
qualitatem ea ratione corporea, quia subiecti coporis indiget,
in quo haereat …”
26 Liceti 1642, p. 328: “omne quod recipitur, per modum
recipientis recipitur: materia vero disposita recipiens in se
formam luminis est diaphanum corpus per se quantum ac
divisibile.” See also Liceti 1640a pp. 115-116. On Liceti’s
later theory of light, see Zoubov 1936.
22
explicating the immaterial and indivisible nature of
mind.
Yet, the conception of light in his later
writings diverges considerably from his much shorter
treatment of light in De vita and De animarum coextensione
corpori, and it is his earlier treatment that matters
for our present purposes. In his early De vita (1607)
he clarifies his own understanding of the similarity
between soul and light by discussing Albert the
Great’s theory of light. He notes that Albert holds
that life is, not so much an operating soul, but
rather some work of the soul, which he calls
internal act, or essential perfection immediately
proceeding from the soul and into the body …
[T]his perfection is described by Albert as the
essential act proceeding immediately from the
soul into the body entirely in the same way as
the sun that is present is used to send forth
23
lumen into the perspicuous body, such that lumen is
the perfection of the perspicuous body
proximately flowing from the lux of the sun that is
present in the perspicuous body … 27
In this passage, the traditional distinction between
light as an entity present in a luminous body and
light as an entity present in an illuminated
perspicuous body plays a crucial role. The
distinction goes back at least to the eleventh-
century Arabic Aristotelian natural philosopher
Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and in the Latin tradition was
27 DV, pp. 68-69: “vitam esse, non certe animam operantem, sed
bene opus quoddam animae, quod ipse appellat actum internum,
seu essentialem perfectionem immediate prodeuntem ab anima in
corpus … [A]tque ista perfectio ab Alberto nuncupatur actus
essentialis immediate profluens ab anima in corpus eodem
prorsus modo, quo a Sole praesente prodire consuevit immediate
lumen in corpus diaphanum, & quemadmodum lumen est perfectio
corporis perspicui proxime profluens a luce Solis praesentis in
corpus diaphanum …”
24
expressed in terms of the distinction between lux and
lumen.28 Unsurprisingly, both the nature of this
relation and the nature of lumen were objects of
controversy within medieval and early modern
philosophy. Albert the Great suggested an analysis
of the relation between lux and lumen that involves
only the essence of lux: “The soul is said to live
causally in itself because it is the cause of life
and living in itself, as lux is said to be luminous
and the cause of lumen; and because of this even the
higher beings are said to live a more noble life,
because in them there is nothing relating to a
moving or moved being …”29 Thus, for Albert the
relation between lux and lumen does not involve any
28 See Avicenna Latinus 1972, pp. 170-172.
29 Albertus Magnus 1968, p. 74: “Anima autem etiam in se dicitur
vivere causaliter, quia est causa vitae et viva in seipsa,
sicut lux dicitur luminosa et causa luminis; et proter hoc
etiam superiora dicuntur vivere nobiliri vita, quia nihil est
in eis ex parte motoris vel mobilis …”
25
motion but rather is constituted by emanative
causation. This is how he further explicates this
relation:
[L]ux is the being and the first actuality of the
luminous body, and sending forth lumen is its
essential secondary actuality, in so far as this
is its activity, which consists in some essential
diffusion of its form; for each essence has a
proper and essential operation, of which it is
never deprived, provided it is essential, as lux
is not deprived of sending forth lumen which is
its activity.30
30 Ibid., p. 65: “[L]ux lucentis est esse et actus primus, et
lucere est actus essentialis eius secundus, eo quod haec est
actio eius, quae suae formae diffusio quaedam est essentialis;
omnis enim essentia propriam et essentialem habet operationem,
qua numquam destituitur, quando est essentialis, sicut lux non
destituitur a lucere, quod est eius actio.”
26
And he is explicit that the same kind of relation
holds between forms and their operations in general:
“[I]n this way, things are with each natural and
substantial form that is by itself the principle of
its essential operations and not by something else
added to it.”31 Thus, being by itself the source of
activity is what, for Albert, constitutes an analogy
between lux and other substantial forms such as the
human soul.
Liceti accepts certain aspects of Albert’s theory
of light. Most importantly, Liceti shares the view
that the production of lumen involves emanative
causation:
Heaven and nature is said to depend on god as an
efficient cause …; the sun possesses an efficient
cause from which it proceeds eternally by simple
31 Ibid.: “[I]ta etiam est de omni forma naturali et
substantiali, quod ipsa est principium suarum operationum
essentialium per seipsam et non per aliud sibi additum.”
27
emanation without any novelty of being; in the
same way, from the lux of the sun … lumen proceeds
eternally through simple emanation as from its
proximate and immediate efficient cause …32
Due to its origin in emanative causation, he takes
lumen to be “nothing other than an image of lux from
which it proceeds …”33 Liceti also accepts that there
is a strong analogy between soul and light but has
objections against using the analogy in the way
suggested by Albert:
32 ARI, p. 154: “A Deo …, ut a causa efficiente, pendere
dicitur caelum, & natura …; solem obtinet causam effectricem, a
qua per simplicem emanationem absque novitate essendi ab
aeterno prodierit; sic a Solis luce … lumen ab aeterno prodiit
absque novitate essendi per simplicem emanationem ut a sui
causa effectrice proxima, & immediata …”
33 ARI, p. 156: “lumen revera nihil aliud est, quam imago
lucis, a qua proficiscitur …”
28
for the soul by itself is the first actuality and
the essential and internal perfection of the
natural body, which is the living potency … but
the sun cannot similarly be said to be the first
actuality and internal and essential perfection
of the perspicuous body, which is illuminated
through the potency; but lumen is rather something
like that, namely an actuality, or a perfection
of the perspicuous body; … and hence the soul is
proportional to lumen, but not to the sun, from
which lumen proceeds …34
34 DV, pp. 75-76: “anima etenim secundum se ipsamet est actus
primus, perfectio essentialis, & interna corporis illius
naturalis, quod est potentia vivens [De an., II 6] … non autem
consimiliter Sol dici potest actus primus, perfectioque
internum & essentalis corporis perspicui, quod est potentia
illuminatum; sed lumen est potius tale quid, nempe actus, sive
perfectio corporis perspicui … & ideo anima proportione
respondet lumini, non Soli, a quo lumen proficiscitur.”
29
From the central role that Liceti ascribes to
lumen for understanding the structure of the human
soul derives his strong interest in analyzing the
relation between lumen and material extension. And on
this issue, he is in fact much more explicit than
Albert. On the suggestion (which Liceti, probably
erroneously, ascribes to Aristotle’s Rhetoric) that
“intellect in the soul is kindled by God as lumen is
kindled by the sun in the perspicuous body,”35 he
comments: “Since lumen in the perspicuous body is not
there as an indivisible point but rather is
coextensive with every dimension of the perspicuous
body.”36 Still, due to the emanation relation between
lux and lumen, lumen is existentially independent of
30
the perspicuous body: “[L]umen is said to be external
to the air whose assisting form it is since it does
not depend on the air, even though it actualizes the
innermost parts of the air.”37 Accordingly, he
describes the relations of existential dependence
relevant for lumen as follows:
We deny … that whatever is in matter, instantly
is affected by the conditions of matter; because
it can be in matter in various ways, both
dependent on it, and independent from it; of
course, those things that are in matter and
35 ACC, p. 54: “Intellectum in anima esse a Deo accensum ut
lumen a sole in perspicuo”; I have not been able to trace this
quotation in the Aristoteles Latinus database.
36 ACC, p. 54: “Quum autem lumen in perspicuo sit non ut
prunctum indivisibile, sed perspicui dimensionibus omniquaque
coextensum …”
37 ARI, p. 151: “[L]umen dicitur esse aeri extrinsecum, cuius
est forma assistens, quoniam ab aere non pendet, quamvis
intimas quasque partes aeris actuet.”
31
depend on it are affected by the conditions of
matter and are inseparable from matter; but these
things that are in matter and do not depend on
it, are not affected by the conditions of matter;
in this way lumen is in a dirty and stinky body,
independent of such subjects; for it depends only
on the luminous body …38
Obviously, lumen does not become dirty and stinky by
illuminating a dirty and stinky body. But what is
more important for our present concerns is that
local motion belongs to the conditions of the
38 ARI, p. 71: “Negamus …, quicquid est in materia, id affici
statim conditionibus materiae; quia multifariam quid in materia
inesse potest, tum dependenter ab ea, tum independenter: sane
quae sunt in materia dependenter ab ea, conditionibus materiae
afficiuntur, & a materia sunt inseparabilia; quae vero sunt in
materia independenter ab illa, conditionibus materiae non
afficiuntur: sic lumen in luto, & in foetido corpore inest,
independenter a talibus subiectis; quum a solo corpore lucido
dependeat …”
32
illuminated matter that do not affect lumen. Of
course, lumen can be moved through the motion of the
luminous body from which it originates; the same,
however, is not true of the body that it
illuminates:
Nothing can be moved through the motion of
something else unless it exists either in it as
something located there as in a place; or as a
form, either an accidental form in the subject of
inherence, or a substantial form in the subject
of inexistence; or as an organ in the potency of
the primary agent; or generally not unless it
depends for its existence on it in some way. But
an assisting form is where its underlying body is
located and guides it, but is not in it as in a
place, nor as in a subject of inherence or of
inexistence, nor as an organ in the potency of
33
the primary agent, and generally does not depend
on the body that it assists.39
That lumen does not depend on the illuminated body as
on a place seems to be a straightforward consequence
of Liceti’s acceptance of an Aristotelian conception
of place. As Liceti puts it: “The reason why
something is a place is that it contains and
preserves what is located …; for place is defined to
be the boundary of what contains something …”40 Thus,
it is not the illuminated body that defines a place
39 DIA, p. 184: “[N]ihil moveri potest ad motum alterius nisi
in eo insit vel tamquam locatum in loco; vel tamquam forma,
sive accidentalis in subiecto inhaesionis, sive substantialis
in subiecto inexistentiae; vel tamquam organum in potestate
agentis praecipui, ac omnino nisi quoquopacto ab eo dependeat
in esse. Forma vero assistens adest quidem, ac praeest subiecto
corpori, sed in eo non inest ut in loco, nec ut in subiecto aut
inhaesionis, aut inexistentiae, nec ut organum in potestate
agentis praecipui, atque omnino a corpore non dependet, cui
assistit.”
34
and, hence, lumen cannot depend on the illuminated
body as on a place. Moreover, Liceti’s
categorization of lumen as an assisting form implies
that lumen cannot depend on the illuminated body as
on a subject of inherence or information. Also,
because it emanates from lux, lumen cannot be
understood as an instrument that depends on some
bodily agent. In this way, Liceti excludes the
various ways in which the motion of lumen could
depend on the motion of the illuminated body. This
conclusion has far-reaching implications for the
divisibility of lumen:
lumen that is not movable through the local motion
of the underlying air; which shadows that are
immobile in moved air indicate …; evidently, they
cannot be said to be divisible through the
40 ARI, p. 292: “ratio loci sit in eo, quod est continere,
consevareque locata …; definitur enim locus esse terminus
continentis …” See Aristotle, Physics, IV, 1, 209a5-10.
35
division of the underlying air because with real
division the local motion of the parts that are
divided is necessarily conjoined. 41
Because parts of shadows do not undergo local motion
at the separation of parts of perspicuous bodies,
also the lumen that brings about these shadows does
not undergo motion through the motion of the parts
of perspicuous bodies. Hence, the perspicuous body
that is illuminated by lumen can be divided without a
division of lumen.
4. Mind, Light, and Immaterial Extension
41 ACC, p. 69: “Lumen etenim, quod non est ad subiecti aeris
motum localem loco mobile; quod indicant umbrae stabiles in
aere moto …; plane ad eiudem substrati aeris divisionem
partibile dici non possunt, quia cum reali divisione coniunctus
necessario est eorum, quae dividuntur, motus localis.”
36
Thus far, Liceti has given an account of how the
existential independence of lumen from matter implies
a kind indivisibility of lumen: lumen does not
undergo division through the division of matter.
Does this structure carry over to the relation
between mind and matter? Liceti acknowledges
profound dissimilarities between lumen and mind.
Whereas he regards lumen as an assisting accidental
form, he accepts the Aristotelian view that the mind
is “inexisting and informing.”42 This difference
between lumen and mind implies that minds behave
differently from lumen with respect to local motion:
“An assisting form is not necessarily moved through
the motion of the body that it assists; but in
contrast, the informing form is necessarily moved
through the motion of the body that it informs.”43
37
These differences given due attention, Liceti
nevertheless believes that there is an informative
analogy between lumen and mind:
[I]t is plain that the rational soul is in the
whole human soul and entirely in the body as
light is in the perspicuous body; or that the
intellect … is infused by god into the irrational
soul of the fetus, as lumen is infused by the sun
into the perspicuous body; namely, lumen is not
educed out of the potency of the perspicuous body
by any change of the perspicuous body brought
about by the luminous body; but the luminous body
infuses lumen into the perspicuous body, as a
foreign form reaching the perspicuous body from
the outside …; for visible species are not educed
42 DV, p. 326.
43 DIA, p. 240: “[A]ssistens forma non necessario movetur ad
motum corporis, cui assistit; informans e contra forma
necessario movetur ad motum corporis, quod informat …”
38
from the potency of the medium; but as something
independent from the medium, they arrive from the
outside of some object: a visible species is so
independent from a medium, and especially lumen
from the perspicuous body in which it is, that it
is not moved through the motion of the body, and
is not corrupted through the corruption of the
body …44
44 ARI, p. 167: “[C]onstat apertissime rationalem animam esse
in humana anima tota, & omnino in corpore, ut lumen in
perspicuo; seu Intellectum a … Deo in animam irrationalem
faetus immitti, ut lumen a Sole in perspicuum immittitur: porro
lumen non educitur ex potentia diaphani per transmutationem
ullam translucidi factam a lucido; sed a corpore lucido inditur
ipsi transparenti lumen, ceu forma peregrina exterinsecus
adveniens diaphano …; modo species visibiles non educuntur ex
potentia medii, sed independenter a medio illi extrinsecus
adveniunt ab obiecto: species visibiles a medio, & speciatim
lumen a diaphano, in quo est, ita est independens, ut ad eius
motum non moveatur, & ad eius interitum non corrumpatur …”
39
Hence, the analogy has to do with the emanation
relation and the ensuing existential independence
from matter: as lumen is existentially independent
from matter because it emanates from lux, so is mind
existentially independent from matter because it
emanates from God. For Liceti, the existential
independence of mind from matter entails that minds
possess several structural features that distinguish
them from material beings. One of these features,
already noted in the passage just cited, is that a
mind is not affected in its existence through the
corruption of a portion of matter associated with
it. A second feature is that minds confer being onto
composite substances—human beings that possess mind
and body—but do not derive their being from any
other constituent of a composite:
A form is not to a lesser degree a being than the
composite; because from it the composite has it
40
that it is a being. But a form that can exist in
a composite and also separate from it, is of all
things a being in the highest degree; both
because it makes the composite a being, and
because it is an individual substance by itself,
even separated from the body … A form is … by
itself a substance and a being; and what is
through something else or dependently on
something else, is a being in a lesser degree
than what is a being by itself and
independently.45
45 ARI, p. 15: “[F]orma non minus est hoc aliquid quam
compositum; quum ab eo compositum habeat id, ut sit hoc
aliquid: at forma, quae in composito & ab eo separata esse
potest, omnium maxima est hoc aliquid: tum quia composito
tribuit esse hoc aliquid; tum quia ipsa secundum se a composito
separata est substantia individua … [F]orma … est de se
substantia, & hoc aliquid; quod autem est per aliud, seu
dependenter ab alio tale, minus est tale quam id quod est de se
tale, ac independenter.”
41
A third feature of mind is its separability from
matter—a feature that minds share with lumen:
“Absolutely all forms, be it informing or assisting,
…that have an operation proper to them, can be
separated from their underlying bodies …”46 In fact,
this property both in the case of lumen and in the
case of mind is closely connected with emanative
causation:
Those beings whose operation emanates immediately
from their mere essence are rightly said to be of
the kind whose operations exist and come about …
through their simple substance; not because the
function in them was not formally distinguished
from their essence; but because they operate
alone through their simple substance, not through
the intervention of any other thing; in this way,
46 DIA, p. 275: “[F]ormarum absolute, sive informatium, sive
assistentium, … qui habent operationem propriam, hae possunt a
subdito sibi corpore separari …”
42
lumen illuminates only through its presence and
its simple essence, without using any instrument
…; the active intellect has this attribute in
common with the passive intellect …47
The next section will return to the question what
the mental operations emanating immediately from the
mind’s essence are. For now, it is sufficient to
note that Liceti grounds the separability of both
mind and lumen from matter in the existence of
operations emanating immediately from essences.
47 DIA, p. 287: “Haec sane, quorum operatio immediate a nuda
sui essentia promanant, recte dicuntur esse talia, ut ipsoum
operationes sint, ac fiant … simplici eorundem substantia; non
quia functio formaliter in eis non distinguatur ab essentia;
sed quia sola sui substantia simplici, non alterius interventu
rei, operantur: ita sane lumen sola sui praesentia, suaque
simplici essentia illuminat, nullius instrumenti ministerio
utens … quod attributum habet commune intellectus agens cum
intellectu possibili …”
43
A fourth feature that mind, in Liceti’s view,
seems to share with lumen is immortality: “Every
substantial form that proceeds like lumen from the
luminous body, is not educed from the potency of
matter though its transmutation but reaches it from
without; and something that is so independent from
matter is immortal …”48 Of course, one might wonder
whether the notion of immortality that Liceti has in
mind here is sufficient to fill out the theological
doctrine of the immortality of the human. But
certainly, Liceti’s notion of immortality captures
that an entity that does not arise from material
potencies also cannot be destroyed through the
destruction of the potencies of matter. Finally, the
analogy between lumen and rational souls is meant to
bring out that the extension of rational souls
44
relates to material extension in a different way
than the extensions of vegetative and sensitive
souls do:
Some forms that are coextensive with their
underlying bodies are accidental quanta relative
to the quantity of the underlying body, such that
their quantity depends on the quantity of the
underlying body in every respect; and forms of
this kind are accidentally divisible through the
division of the underlying body; of this kind are
all perishable forms that are educed at their
origin from the womb of matter by a generating
being. But of a different kind are forms that are
quanta by themselves that possess some
proportional immaterial quantity and that are
48 ARI, p. 168: “omnis forma substantialis, quae ut lumen a
lucido provenit, ea non educitur de potentia materiae per huius
transmutationem, sed huic extrinsecus advenit; atque adeo
independens a materia est immortalis.”
45
coextensive with the dimensions of the underlying
body; the quantity of these forms by no means
depends on the dimensions of the underlying body.
This is how forms are that are not accidentally
divisible through the division of the underlying
body; in themselves they are only divisible
through designation and in the mind, but not in
reality; and of this kind are lumen and immortal
souls …49
It is the existential independence of the extension
of lumen and rational souls on the extension of
bodies that leads Liceti to the conclusion that in
nature there are two different kinds of extension:
“We affirm that in things there are two kinds of
extension: one material and belonging to magnitude …
, the other formal, belonging to power and
incorporeal substance, without which power cannot
exist.”50
46
Taken together, Liceti’s claim that rational
souls are coextensive with the body and his claim
that the extension of rational souls is independent
of the extension of the body have a further
consequence. Even if rational souls cannot be
divided through the division of the body, the
extension of the rational soul changes and is
diminished when the body loses parts: 49 ACC, p. 69: “[F]ormarum subiacenti sibi corpori coextensarum
aliae sunt quantae per accidens ad subiecti corporis
quantitatem, ut quarum quantitas a substrati corporis
quantitate omnino dependet; ac huiusmodi formae revera sunt per
accidens divisibiles ad subiecti corporis partitionem; tales
autem sunt formae caducae omnae e materiae sinu eductae a
generante in earum origine … [A]liae vero sunt formae quantae
per se immateriali quadam quantitate, proportionata coextensae
subiacentis corporis dimensioni; quae formarum propria
quantitas a subiecti corporis quantitate minime dependet:
huiusmodi autem formae sunt, non quidem divisibiles per
accidens ad subditi sibi corporis partitionem; sed per se
divisibiles sunt sola designatione, ac mente, non reipsa, ut
lumen, & immortales animae …”
47
The mind dilates and contracts itself in the
augmentation and diminution of the body
independently of the body, such that the
proportion of the extension with the body is
preserved … as long as it does not exceed the
limits of its extension prescribed by nature;
which it never can do; and this is why the human
intellect in no way can actualize a portion of
matter as large as a big mountain nor as small as
a grain of mustard … Otherwise, if the human
intellect did not have such a limited extension
of its substance and power but were without any
extension at all, a human being as small as an
atom could be born … 51
50 ACC, p. 71: “[A]sseveramus duplicem in rebus inveniri
extensionem; alteram materialem, ac magnitudinis; … alteram
formalem, ac virtutis, & substantiae incorporeae, sine qua
virtus esse non potest.”
48
In this way, Liceti combines his view that the
coextension of mind and body implies that the mind
always occupies the same part of space as its
underlying body with a traditional element of the
Aristotelian theory of natural minima and maxima.
According to this theory, the notion of natural
minima and maxima is essentially bound to the notion
of substantial form.52 For example, Thomas Aquinas
argues that each determinate form is accompanied by
51 ACC, p. 63: “[M]ens extenditur, & contrahitur per se in
augmento, & in decremento corporis independenter a corpore, ut
servet cum corpore proportionem extensionis … [D]ummodo non
excedat limites extensioni suae a natura praescriptos; quod
nunquam efficere potest; atque hinc est, quod intellectus
humanus haudquaquam potest actuare materiam mole magno monti
aequalem; nec vicissim parvam aequalem grano sinapis … Secus
enim si extensionem substantiae, ac virtutis ita limitatum non
haberet intellectus humanus, sed esset omnino sine ulla
extensione; iam posset homo nasci pusillus ut atomus …”
52 On this sense of minimism, see Maier 1949, pp. 181-186;
Emerton 1986, pp. 90-91; Murdoch 2001, 101 n. 28, 104-106.
49
determinate accidents, including quantity. This is
why he believes that every body, by possessing a
determinate form, also has a determinate quantity
with respect to a lower and an upper limit.53 Roger
Bacon goes one step further, asking why it is that a
substantial form is bound to determinate minimal
body size and considers both the possibility that
this could be due to the function of forms to confer
being and the possibility that this could be due to
the function of form to be principles of operation.54
With respect to homogenous mixtures such as bone or
flesh Bacon’s answer is clear. With respect to their
maximal size, the function of forms to confer being
53 Aquinas, STh, I, q. 7, a. 3: “[O]mne corpus naturale aliquam
formam substantialem habet determinatam: cum igitur ad formam
substantialem consequantur accidentia, necesse est quod ad
determinatam formam consequantur determinata accidentia; inter
quae est quantitas. Unde omne corpus naturale habet
determinatam quantitatem et in maius et in minus.”
54 Bacon 1928, pp. 153-154.
50
could well be relevant; but not so for their minimal
size: If such mixtures fall below a minimal size,
their substantial forms could not operate at all.55
William of Ockham, in turn, gives voice to a more
general conception of the relevant sense of
operation when he clarifies the sense in which he
wants the concept of a “minimum in natural things”
to be understood: It is a “minimum that can perform
the action of the species in question.”56
Understanding minima in this way opens up the
possibility to apply the notion of a natural minimum
not only to elements and homogeneous body parts but55 Ibid., p. 156: “Si autem sit corpus mixtum simile in specie,
vel ommogenium, ut caro, tunc non contingit stare a parte
materie, nec a parte forme ut dat esse nisi in suppremo, set in
infimo vel dividendo contingit stare ut est operis principium,
et hoc quia amplius operari non possit.”
56 Ockham 1984, q. 82: “[U]bique dicunt Philosophus et
Commentator quod contingit dare minimum in rebus naturalibus,
intellecto de minimo quod potest agere actionem illius speciei,
sicut dicit Commentator VII Physicorum commento 2.”
51
also to entire living beings: The minimal size of a
living being belonging to a particular species is
the size below which the substantial form of this
living being would cease to be able to operate.
Liceti’s view that the human intellect could not
animate an organic body below and above a certain
size is a straightforward application of this
traditional line of thought to the minimal and
maximal size of humans. In particular, Liceti seems
to allude both to the view that form as a principle
of being is bound to a body of a size with
determinate limits when he mentions the form’s
function to actualize the body and to the view that
the same applies to form as a principle of operation
when he mentions the form’s powers. However, he
combines these traditional ideas with his novel
conception of immaterial extension. Doing so leads
to a quite unprecedented consequence: As long as the
body is not diminished below the natural lower
52
limit, the rational soul not only continues to
animate the body even after the body has lost some
of its parts; it also diminishes its own extension
to the same extent as the extension of the body is
diminished. In this sense, extended rational souls
have the capacity of contracting and expanding
themselves within the limits set by the minimal and
maximal size of their bodies.
5. Conclusion
Liceti’s usage of the analogy between light and mind
thus is central to his understanding of the
distinction between immaterial and material
extension. The independence of lumen from the motion
of the matter that it illuminates indicates that the
extension of lumen does not derive from the extension
of matter. For Liceti, lumen depends for its
existence on a principle from which it emanates
53
(lux), in such a way that is existentially
independent from illuminated matter. Lumen is
indivisible in the sense of not being capable of
being divided through the division of illuminated
matter. This is gives the clue to the sense in which
mind can be at the same time extended and
indivisible. It is extended due to its capacity of
moving the whole body and as well as its parts
indicates. Nevertheless, it does not derive its
extension from the matter animated. For Liceti, this
is so because mind, too, has a principle from which
it emanates (God), in such a way that it is
existentially independent from animated matter. This
is why mind is not divisible through the division of
animated matter. To be sure, for Liceti there are
structural dissimilarities between lumen and mind.
Most notably, lumen is understood as assisting
accidental form, while mind is understood as a
substantial informing form. For this reason, mind
54
does not behave exactly as lumen does on the occasion
of the division of matter. Still, Liceti’s usage of
the analogy between light and mind makes clear in
which the sense a being that possesses immaterial
extension can at the same time be indivisible.
Liceti’s metaphysics of immaterial extension—one
of the earliest in seventeenth-century philosophy—
certainly is of considerable interest in itself. But
it might also be helpful, by comparison and
contrast, to understand the role that immaterial
extension plays in other positions of early modern
philosophy. In particular, it raises the question of
whether a similar pattern of thought may be found in
More’s usage of the analogy between individual
spirits and Aristotelian intentional species. A full
discussion of this question obviously would go
beyond the scope of the present paper. Nevertheless,
there are some hints that More had in mind the
existential independence of individual spirits from
55
matter when he compared spirits with light. He holds
that what he calls the “secondary substance” of an
individual spirit—e.g., its vegetative parts—
emanates from the “primary substance” of a spirit
and, for this reason, depends for its existence only
on the persistence of the primary substance but not
on any portion of matter that it animates.57 Also, he
maintains that individual spirits depend for their
existence only on God.58 Likewise, he explicates the
sense in which he takes Aristotelian intentional
species to be something substantial in terms of
their existential independence from the medium that
they illuminate.59 And he is aware that the
observation that motion of the air does not cause
motion of shadows in the Aristotelian tradition was
used to argue for the existential independence of
light from the medium.60 Having the conceptual
pattern developed by Liceti in mind could thus be
helpful in making visible the connection between
56
some of More’s rather scattered remarks concerning
existential independence from matter and the
physical indivisibility of beings that possess
immaterial extension. To substantiate this
suggestion, however, will be the task of another
paper.
57 Immortality, I, 6, 2, “Axiome XIX”, p. 28.
58 Immortality, III, 16, 8, p. 215.
59 Immortality, I, 5, 2, p. 25.
60 Jacob 1995, 2: 147 (ch. 19, sec. 2).
57
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