Furthermore, the neoplatonic notion that the human mind is potentially a κόσμος νοητός ("intelligible world") implies that by knowing the intelligibles man becomes identical with all being.
The elaboration of the neoplatonic hypostases was, in effect, a projection of human psychology to the supersensible world. The idea that man exemplifies all being was also used to buttress the theme of man's superiority, dignity, or freedom: as nodus et vinculum mundi, he epitomizes the entire scale of being (spiritual and material) and determines his own place, unlike angels and beasts whose nature is fixed. The analogy was frequently invoked to argue for the existence of a world soul or mind which directs and orders the physical universe as the soul does the body. Though the broad diffusion of the microcosm motif in late antiquity (in Gnostic, Hermetic, neoplatonic, neopythagorean, Orphic, and stoic writings) complicates the study of original sources, its occurrence in medieval Arabic and Hebrew texts is mainly the result of neoplatonic influence. The term is said to be first attested in Aristotle ( Physics, 8:2, 252b, 26–27), though the motif is older indeed, the notion that some aspect of reality (the city, sanctuary, man) reflects the cosmos is both ancient and widespread. The Arabic (ʿ ālam ṣaghīr), Hebrew ( olam katan), and Latin ( mundis minor) terms are literal equivalents of the Greek.
mikros kosmos "small world"), term in the Western philosophical tradition referring to man as an epitome of the universe (the macrocos) in his parts and structure.
0 kommentar(er)
