Thesis 9>4
Latin
Ex ista conclusione et conclusione paradoxa dogmatizante .xlvii. sequitur quod magia sit nobilissima pars scientiae naturalis.
Copy-text Farmer 1998 (farmer1998:25125-25126), after the Rome print of 7 December 1486 (colophon farmer1998:28040-28042); Farmer's OCR 'conclusione_et' is read 'conclusione et'. The numeral '.xlvii.' is the reading of the print; the principle cited is 3>46 in the final text, so the reference is one out (farmer1998:25175-25176). Mandosio prints 'paradoxica' and marks the numeral '[sic]' (mandosio2012:564-565).
English
It follows from the preceding conclusion and from paradoxical conclusion forty-seven, of those introducing new doctrine, that of natural science magic is the noblest part.
'conclusio paradoxa dogmatizans' refers to the section of 'paradoxical conclusions introducing new doctrines into philosophy', 3>1-71 (farmer1998:23418-23419). 'ex ista conclusione' is 9>3 (farmer1998:25175). The numeral is kept as printed; Copenhaver's translation silently gives 'number 46' (copenhaver2019:20288-20289).
Doctrine
The thesis is a syllogism stated in one sentence: magic is the practical part of natural science (9>3), and of any practicable object the operation that acts on it is nobler than the one that contemplates it, other things being equal (3>46); so magic is the noblest part of natural science (farmer1998:25122-25126; farmer1998:20976-20977). Farmer reads the pair 9>3-4 as claiming that it is 'our obligation to operate magic in the world' (farmer1998:25178-25179). Taken together, he writes, these theses seem not only to condone but to require us to work magic in the world (farmer1998:7262-7263). The operation required is not the mastery of nature: the magus as Pico pictured him was not a transformer of nature but its minister, ruled by the lowest order of angels and entrusted in turn with governing the material world (farmer1998:7272-7276). The Oration uses the same image of the magus as 'Nature's minister, not her Artificer', ascribed to Plotinus (copenhaver2019:19627-19628). Copenhaver reads the nobility by the height of the object: because magic and Kabbalah look to the stars and beyond, knowledge of them is nobler than the physics of change below the Moon (copenhaver2019:17648-17653).
Context
The cross-reference is faulty: the thesis cited as the forty-seventh paradoxical dogmatizing conclusion is the forty-sixth in the printed text, which Farmer takes as evidence that one thesis was dropped from that section at a late date (farmer1998:25175-25178). In his note on the editio princeps Farmer argues that at least two theological theses and one from 3>1-71 were excluded while the work was in press, and he cites 9>4 as an example of the faulty cross-referencing (farmer1998:23416-23421). Pico's own copy of the text was numbered even though the printed edition was not, as cross-references like this one show (farmer1998:2133-2135). For Pico natural philosophy, of which magic was the apex and summit, was the third of four preparatory studies leading to the mystical ascent (farmer1998:7220-7223).
Reception
In the Apology Pico repeated the claim, calling magic, in Mandosio's rendering, 'the highest point of all philosophy' (mandosio2012:567-568; farmer1998:7252). The editors of the Cambridge Oration record Farmer's correction of the numeral in their commentary (borghesi2012:4531-4537).
Historiography
Farmer uses the pair 9>3-4 against Yates's claim that Pico's magic prepared operational attitudes to nature that led to modern science (farmer1998:7262-7270). The operative side of Pico's magic, he argues, is best read in terms of cosmic fall and redemption, so that the magus functions as a cosmic priest (farmer1998:7280-7289; farmer1998:7347). Mandosio states the general principle behind the thesis as 3>46 (mandosio2012:563-566). The thesis shows Pico building a claim about magic from a thesis in natural philosophy, and it preserves, through its wrong numeral, a trace of the censorship he imposed on his own text in press (editorial inference from farmer1998:25175-25178 and farmer1998:23416-23421).
Pico's sources
- Thesis 3>46: 'Dato quocunque obiecto practicabili, nobilior est operatio quae eum practicat quam quae eum contemplatur, si caetera sint paria': the major premise, cited by number (farmer1998:20976)
Quotations cited
- “our obligation to operate magic in the world” — Stephen A. Farmer, Syncretism in the West: Pico's 900 Theses (1486) (farmer1998:25179)
- “the highest point of all philosophy” — Jean-Marc Mandosio, Beyond Pico della Mirandola: John Dee's formal numbers and real cabala (mandosio2012:567)
- “Dato quocunque obiecto practicabili, nobilior est operatio” — Stephen A. Farmer, Syncretism in the West: Pico's 900 Theses (1486) (farmer1998:20976)
Not established
- The text of the paradoxical thesis dropped before publication, which would restore Pico's numbering: not established by the sources consulted.
- Why the thesis was dropped: Farmer judges that it was removed 'almost surely for theological reasons' (farmer1998:1487; borghesi2012:4537), but the thesis itself is not recovered in the sources consulted.
Discussed in
- Ovanes Akopyan, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Astrology (1486-1493): From Scientia Naturalis to the Disputationes (2018)
- Ovanes Akopyan, Debating the Stars in the Italian Renaissance: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem and Its Reception (2021)
- Borghesi, Papio, Riva (eds.), Oration on the Dignity of Man: A New Translation and Commentary (2012)
- Jean-Marc Mandosio, Beyond Pico della Mirandola: John Dee's formal numbers and real cabala (2012)
Farmer's cross-references
- 6>1 Cum dixit Abucaten Auenan animam esse supra tempus, intelligendum est de anima absoluta secundum substantiam, praescindendo ab omni operatio
- 6>10 Cum dicit Abucaten intelligentiam, ut diuina, est regere res, intelligendum est de regimine statuitiuo, non ordinatiuo qui ei competit ut in
- 6>2 Cum dicit Abucaten: Omnis anima nobilis tres habet operationes, diuinam, intellectualem, et animalem, ita est intelligendum, quod primam hab
- 6>3 Cum dixit Abucaten Omnem causam primariam plus influere, per plus intelligas eminentiam modi causandi et intimitatem eius quod in re produci
- 6>4 Quamuis dicat Abucaten quod esse, quod est primum creatum, est super intelligentiam, non credas tamen illud secundum hypostasim esse distinc
- 6>5 Cum dixit Abucaten causam primam superiorem esse omni narratione, non tam propter id habet ueritatem quod primo affert, quia scilicet causam
- 6>6 Quod dicit Abucaten, intelligentiam esse substantiam quae non diuiditur, maxime est uerum per indiscretam in ea intelligibilium ad inuicem p
- 6>7 Ex praecedenti conclusione potest haberi quomodo intelligendum est dictum Abucaten, quod omnis intelligentia est plena formis.
- 6>8 Per ultimam propositionem Abucaten possumus intelligere quid sibi uelit illa diuisio quam fecit Plato in principio tractatus Timei, et possu
- 6>9 Ex antepenultima propositione Abucaten colligi potest quod declinare plus ad sensum quam ad intellectum non est animae ut anima est, sed ut
- 9>3 Magia est pars practica scientiae naturalis.