Name Martinus Smiglecius | Died 1618, Kalisz, Poland | |
Martinus Smiglecius (another Latin variant: Martinus Leopolitanus, also Polish: Marcin Śmiglecki, Lithuanian: Martynas Smigleckis; 11 November 1564 – 26 July 1618) was a Polish Jesuit philosopher, known for his erudite scholastic Logica, Ingolstadt 1618.
Contents
Life
He was born in Lvov c. 1564. He used the surname Lwowczyk, or Leopolitanus, and then later adopted the name Smiglecius (from Szmigel) because of his family background.
After study in Rome, he returned in 1586 to the University of Vilnius. He wrote also a book on economics, O Lichwie (On Usury) (1596). In 1599 he took part in a public disputation with the Protestants Marcin Janicki and Daniel Mikołajewski. It was recorded by Martin Gratian Gertich.
The Logica
Marcin Śmiglecki's "Logica", first published in 1618 in Cracow, was reprinted several times, in particular at Oxford in 1634, in 1638 and in 1658, being used there as a textbook. It harked back to Gregory of Rimini, discussing mental propositions. As a textbook author his reputation survived in the satirical poem The Logicians Refuted, attributed to both Jonathan Swift and Oliver Goldsmith. Samuel Johnson, writing in 1751 as a fictitious correspondent in The Rambler, claimed that as a student he "slept every night with Smiglecius on my pillow."
Views
In a live controversy of the time, Smiglecius sided with Benedictus Pereyra against Giuseppe Biancani. The issue was the status of mathematical proof in physics, where Pereyra denied mathematics an essential status.