Rudolph Goclenius

Rudolph Goclenius the Elder (Latin: Rudolphus Goclenius; born Rudolf Gockel or Göckel; 1 March 1547 – 8 June 1628) was a German scholastic philosopher. He is often credited with coining the term psychology in 1590, though the term had been used by Marko Marulić at least 66 years earlier.^[1]

He was born in Korbach, Waldeck (now in Waldeck-Frankenberg, Hesse).

Goclenius studied at the University of Erfurt, the University of Marburg and the University of Wittenberg,^[2] earning his M.A. in 1571. Subsequently, he directed gymnasiums in his hometown Korbach (1573) and in Kassel (Michaelmas 1575).^[3][4] In 1581, Landgrave Wilhelm IV of Hesse-Kassel, a renowned astronomer, denied Goclenius's request to return to Korbach but allowed him to become a professor at the Philipps University of Marburg. There, he held chairs in physics, logic, mathematics, and ethics.^[5] Goclenius also served as a counselor to Wilhelm and his son Moritz, whom he accompanied to the Synod of Dort in 1618.^[6][7]

While Goclenius is known for popularizing the term psychology, his most significant contribution lies in the field of ontology. Following Aristotle's work, he gave this philosophical discipline its name and continued in Aristotle's tradition. Ontology is thought to have been further developed in the 17th century by Goclenius^[8]

Johann Balthasar Schupp satirically recounted that Goclenius claimed his work Analecta (published 1598 in Lich) was the best book he had ever written.^[9]

Jeremias Nicolai, a student at Korbach Stadtschule from Autumn 1574 onwards, brother of Philipp Nicolai, reported that Goclenius "promptly" composed a poem about "fiery air phenomena" (feurige Lufterscheinungen) observed in the city on November 14, 1574.^[10] It was published in Marburg the same year.^[11] City historian Wolfgang Medding has suggested that this poem was inspired by an aurora,^[12] a hypothesis supported by historical records of auroral observations.^[13] Later, he treated auroras ("chasmata") in a 1604 physics textbook.^[14]

Goclenius passed away from a stroke in Marburg on June 8, 1628.^[15] In his funeral speech on June 10, Wolfgang Loriseca referred to him as a "leader of today's philosophers, Marburgian Plato, European light, Hessian immortal glory".^[16]

Goclenius married his first wife, Margarethe, in 1570.^[17] Abraham Saur, a jurist in Marburg, recorded the following in his chronicle for April 10:

M. Rudolphus Goclerius [sic] holds wedding. On this day / in the year of Christ 1570 as the Sun entered the Sign of Taurus / of which Astrologers say / it is auspicious for marriage / M. Rudolphus Goclerius [sic] / a young learned Man and Poet / celebrated his wedding in Korbach.

— Abraham Saur, Diarium Historicum (1582, p. 155; translated from German)

From this marriage his oldest son, Rudolph Goclenius the Younger, or Rudolf Goclenius, Jr. was born. He went on to become a professor in Marburg and a celebrated mathematician. It is thanks to Rudolph Goclenius, Jr., that a lunar crater bears his name. Additionally, he also worked on cures for the plague and gained fame for his miraculous use with the "weapon salve" or Powder of Sympathy. Among other notable descendants were Theodor Christoph Goclenius (1602–1673, medicine), Eduard Franz Goclenius (1643–1721, law) and Reinhard Goclenius (1678–1726, law).^[18]

From his dispute with Wilhelm Adolph Scribonius of Marburg regarding the legality of the ordeal by water in witch trials, it can be inferred that Goclenius believed in the existence of witchcraft and adhered to the principles outlined in the "Hexenhammer".

Goclenius's philosophical views aligned closely with those of Aristotle. He belonged to a group called “Semiramists,” which consisted of Aristotelians advocating both dialectic interpretation of Aristotle's teachings and the exposition of Ramism.^[19][20] While serving as a rector at Korbach Stadtschule Goclenius even composed a scholarly poem on the death of Petrus Ramus.^[21] Friedrich Beurhusius, in a letter to Johann Thomas Freigius in September 1575, mentioned Goclenius as a devoted follower of Ramus, alongside other schoolmen such as Johann Lambach and Bernhard Copius.^[22]

Furthermore, Goclenius reportedly stated that Aristotle, Scaliger (whose *Exercitationes* he considered his Bible), Zabarella, and Schegk were sufficient to fill the bookstand of philosophers.^[23]

In his work Philosophical Inquiries, published in 1599, Goclenius presents a synoptic table that categorizes philosophical doctrines, or liberal arts, into distinct domains of knowledge.^[24] This classification system proves useful for understanding his works up to a certain extent. Notably, he used the term ontology in his Lexicon philosophicum (1613), a term originally coined by Jacob Lorhard in his Ogdoas Scholastica (1606).

Goclenius made significant contributions that led to the term 'psychology.' In 1586, he presided over two academic disputations at Marburg University, during which the word 'psychology' appeared as an adjective ('psychologicae').^[25] His anthology Psychologia: hoc est, de hominis perfectione, animo, et in primis ortu hujus, published in 1590, became the first book to feature the term 'psychology' in its title.^[26] The 1590 edition (with a second printing in 1594) primarily contains excerpts from treatises written between 1579 and 1589.^[27] In his dedicatory letter to Hartmann von Berlepsch, Goclenius introduced the theme of the book, whether souls are created by God and infused into bodies or propagated through parental seed. The full title of the book translates to English as 'Psychology: that is, on the perfection of man, his mind, and especially its origin—the comments and discussions of certain theologians and philosophers of our time who are shown on the turned page.' Here, 'psychology' refers both to the subject of inquiry ('the perfection of man, his mind, and especially its origin') and the inquiry itself ('the comments and discussions of certain theologians and philosophers of our time'). In the 17th century, Goclenius' Psychologia was widely read and quoted by scholars such as Robert Burton,^[28] Daniel Sennert,^[29] and Jakob Thomasius.^[30] Goclenius himself revisited his Psychologia in a 1604 textbook on natural science^[31] and in various philosophical disputations.^[32]

Goclenius' crowning achievement is his original contribution made to term logic, called the Goclenian Sorites.^[33] In the words of the British logician Carveth Read:

"It is the shining merit of Goclenius to have restored the Premises of the Sorites to the usual order of Fig. I.: whereby he has raised to himself a monument more durable than brass, and secured indeed the very cheapest immortality. How expensive, compared with this, was the method of the Ephesian incendiary!"^[34]

An example for the use of sorites in an argumentative context is presented by Goclenius in his "Dissertatio De Ortu Animi" which concludes the first edition of the Psychologia.^[35]

Contrary to Carveth Read's assessment, however, Dr. Rudolph Goclenius did not invent the Goclenian Sorites: St. Thomas Aquinas did:

"[A] second demonstration takes as its starting point the conclusion of a first demonstration, whose terms are understood to contain the middle term which was the starting point of the first demonstration. Thus the second demonstration will proceed from four terms the first from three only, the third from five, and the fourth from six; so that each demonstration adds one term. Thus it is clear that first demonstrations are included in subsequent ones, as when this first demonstration—every B is A, every C is B, therefore every C is A—is included in this demonstration—every C is A, every D is C, therefore every D is A; and this again is included in the demonstration whose conclusion is that every E is A, so that for this final conclusion there seems to be one syllogism composed of several syllogisms having several middle terms. This may be expressed thus: every B is A, every C is B, every D is C, every E is D, therefore every E is A."^[36]

Bibliographies of Goclenius' works were compiled by F. W. Strieder and F. J. Schmidt (see below). His extensive list of publications includes numerous academic disputations.^[37] This can be attributed to the statutes set by Landgrave Philip I on January 14, 1564, which mandated that professors at the University of Marburg conduct weekly examinations.^[38] Goclenius himself delivered three hours of lectures daily: one for the general public (pro lectione publica), one for master's students (pro magistrandis), and one for bachelor's students (pro baccalaureandis).^[39]

• Problemata logica, pars I 1589, pars II 1590; Pars I-V 1594 (reprint: Frankfurt: Minerva, 1967, in 5 voll.).
• Psychologia: hoc est, de hominis perfectione, animo, et in primis ortu hujus, commentationes ac disputationes quorundam theologorum & philosophorum nostrae aetatis, Marburg 1590; Marburg 1594; Marburg 1597 (revised edition).
• Oratio de natura sagarum in purgatione & examinatione per Frigidam aquis innatantium, Marburg 1584 (an oration held at a graduation ceremony on November 19, 1583; republished in Panegyrici Academiae Marpurgensis, Marburg 1590, pp. 190–203).
• Partitio dialectica, Frankfurt 1595.
• Isagoge in peripateticorum et scholasticorum primam philosopiam, quae dici consuevit metaphysica, 1598 (reprint: Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1976).
• Institutionum logicarum de inventione liber unus, Marburg 1598.
• Disquisitiones philosophicae, Marburg, 1599, online.
• "P. Rami Dialectica cum praeceptorum explicationibus". Oberursel 1600.
• Appendix IIII. Dialogistica, Marburg 1602.
• Physicae completae speculum, Frankfurt 1604.
• Dilucidationes canonum philosophicorum, Lich 1604.
• Controversia logicae et philosophiae, ad praxin logicam directae, quibus praemissa sunt theoremata seu praecepta logica, Marburg 1604.
• Miscellaneorum Theologicorum Et Philosophicorum, "Part 1". Marburg 1607; "Part 2". Marburg 1608.
• Conciliator philosophicus, 1609 (reprint: Hildesheim, Georg Olms, 1980).
• Lexicon philosophicum quo tanquam clave philosophiae fores aperiuntur, 1613 (reprint: Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1980).
• Lexicon philosophicum Graecum, Marburg 1615 (reprint: Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1980).

• Simone De Angelis, Zwischen generatio and creatio. Zum Problem der Genese der Seele um 1600 - Rudolph Goclenius, Julius Caesar Scaliger, Fortunio Liceti. In Lutz Dannenberg (Hrsg.), Zwischen christlicher Apologetik und methodologischem Atheismus : Wissenschaftsprozesse im Zeitraum von 1500 bis 1800, Berlin 2002, pp. 94–144
• Diana Kremer, "Von erkundigung und Prob der Zauberinnen durchs kalte Wasser". Wilhelm Adolph Scribonius aus Marburg und Rudolf Goclenius aus Korbach zur Rechtmäßigkeit der "Wasserprobe" im Rahmen der Hexenverfolgung, in: Geschichtsblätter für Waldeck, Bd. 84, 1996, pp. 141–168.
• Marco Lamanna, La nascita dell'ontologia nella metafisica di Rudolph Göckel (1547-1628), Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 2013.
• Paul Mengal, La naissance de la psychologie, Paris 2005
• Leonid I. Ragozin, Ψυχολογία and Psychology: Goclenius, Ramus, and Vultejus. In Voprosy filosofii, 2018, No. 2, pp. 102–111
• Martin Roebel, Humanistische Medizin und Kryptocalvinismus : Leben und medizinisches Werk des Wittenberger Medizinprofessors Caspar Peucer (1525 – 1602), Freiburg 2012
• Franz Joseph Schmidt, Materialien zur Bibliographie von Rudolph Goclenius sen. (1547-1628) und Rudolph Goclenius jun. (1572-1621), Hamm 1979
• Rudolf Schmitz, Die Naturwissenschaften an der Philipps-Universität Marburg 1517-1927, Marburg 1978, p. 15ff.
• Hermann Schüling, Bibliographie der psychologischen Literatur des 16. Jahrhunderts, Hildesheim 1967
• Gideon Stiening, Psychologie. In Barbara Bauer (Hrsg.), Melanchthon und die Marburger Professoren (1527-1627), Marburg 1999, pp. 315–344
• Friedrich Wilhelm Strieder, Grundlage zu einer hessischen Gelehrten und Schriftsteller Geschichte. Seit der Reformation bis auf gegenwärtige Zeiten, Bd. 4, Göttingen 1784, pp. 428–487; Bd. 9, Cassel 1794, p. 381; Bd. 13, Cassel 1802, pp. 341–343.
• Fernando Vidal, The Sciences of the Soul : The Early Modern Origins of Psychology, Chicago 2011

• Notes on the development of Ontology from Suarez to Kant
• The Birth of Ontology. A selection of Ontologists from 1560 to 1770

Russian translations by Leonid I. Ragozin (with English abstracts):

• Goclenius R. (Ed.) (2018). Ψυχολογια: that is, on human perfection, on the spirit, and first and foremost on its origin ... Metodologiâ i istoriâ psihologii. Iss. 2. P. 143–149.
• Vultejus H. (2018). The diatribe on the man’s philosophical perfection. Metodologiâ i istoriâ psihologii. Iss. 4. P. 111–140.