Cognitio imperans: l’ontologia e il dibattito sul primo principio in età moderna (Clauberg, Du Hamel, Tschirnhaus)

Abstract

I examine in this paper the cases of three authors (Clauberg, Du Hamel and Tschirnhaus) who share the attempt to identify, in the context of the prima philosophia understood as ontology, a principle which must be first in the order of knowledge. In so doing they ideally confront themselves with Descartes’ opinion, according to which the first principle necessarily lets us know the existence of something which must be for us the best known of all. This debate concerns the relationship between the principle of non contradiction and the Cartesian cogito, but also the relationship between the principle of non contradiction and the principle of the excluded third, which maintains, under certain conditions, the primacy in ontology.