Folia Theologica 16. (2005)
Pál Bolberitz: The Beginnings of Hungarian Philosphy (The Reception of Nicholas of Cusa in the work of "De homine" by Peter Monedulatus Csokas Laskoi)
THE BEGINNINGS OF HUNGARIAN PHILOSOPHY 23 losophy, among them the works by Decsi Csimor Janos36, another Protestant scholar ("Synopsis philosophiae" és "Syntagma" (1593), furthermore Janos Jeszenszky and Janos Apáczai Csere. The Reception of Nicholas of Cusa by Peter Csókás Laskoi in his book of "De homine" quoted fifteen times the famous renaissance philosopher-theologist, the doctor of canon law, German cardinal of the 15th century, Nicholas of Cusa, and refers to his works. Cusanus is a philosopher of the renaissance period, who escaping from the bonds of the rigidness of the late Scholasticism, 36 Janos Csimor Decsi (Joannes Decius Barovius Csimor) was born in Decs, Tolna county. He maintained his activities just in the period after Peter Monedulatus Csókás Laskoi. He can be respected as one of the most clear-headed thinker with a wide intellectual horizon among the Hungarian authors of philosophy in the 17th century. (Cp. in the foreword of his book titled as „Works by Jannus Pannonius (Opuscula) Teleki wrote about him: „clarissimus, doctissimusque vir”.) He worked in Debrecen, afterwards in Kolozsvár. As a tutor of the son of Farkas Banffy, he studied abroad. In 1587 he settled down in Wittenberg. He wrote several books in a historical, lingusitic, legal and philosophical topic. Peter Bod recommended him to the readers in the Hungarian Athenas: „It should be read by those preferring to look for curiosities of such kind”. Janos Jeszenszky (Johannes Jessenius a Jessen, 1566-1621) also enriched the special literature of philisophy in Hungary after Laskoi. He became reputated as a medical professor in Wittenberg and Prague. At Padua he was influenced by Pompanizzi and started to widen his knowledge. The genuine master of Jeszenszky was Francesco Patrizzi from Ferrara (1529-1597), who inspired his Hungarian student to write a neo-platonic work in the subject of natural philosophy. This work of cosmology, the „Zoroaster” (A New, Short and Genuine Philosophy about the Universe, Wittenberg, 1593), which was written in Latin, and which proves, that he does not belong to the swindlers of the Skalich-type in astrology, moreover he maintained friendship with Kepler and Ticho Brache, and furthermore he was familiar with the teachings of Kopernikus and Vessalius. Janos Apáczai Csere (Johannes Cherius Apáczius) (1625-1659) seems to be a prominent representative of the Flungarian philosophy, and more over the Hungarian world of science in the 17th century. His scholarship was mainly supported in „the golden era of Transylvania.” Apaczai studied in the Netherlands. He became acquainted with tha rationalism of Descartes and the logics of Ramus and returning to Hungary, he first adopted it in Transylvania. In his works (Magyar Enciklopédia/Hungarian Encyclopedia, Utrecht, 1653) he first enedeavoured in Hungary to differentiate philosophy from sciences. His work titled as „Magyar logikácska” (Hungarian Logics) he tried to establish the Hungarian philosophical terminology. His theoretical knowledge was mainly implemented in his works of pedagogy.
