Jean-Claude Margolin

Reflections on the Nature of the Homo Sapiens and On the Ideal of Wisdom According to Charles de Bovelles

If we keep to its meanings in the Western cultural and philosophical traditions (and even more specifically to those whose major sources are Greco-Latin), the term wisdom obviously evokes the Greek word sophia and the Latin word sapientia – the wise man being a sophos or a sapiens. Thus, it is hard not to immediately refer to the figure of Socrates considered, both by the etymology of the word philosophos and by his ethico-intellectual behaviour, as a friend or rather as a practitioner or enactor of wisdom. It is not just Plato’s dialogues that put Socrates at the centre of debates, even clashes of words and ideas; we also see it in the testimonies of Xenophon or Diogenes Laertes that inevitably invite us to see in Socratic wisdom – which we would like to expand or universalize to that of man as man – an indivisible mix of knowledge and moral affect, intelligence and will, thought and action. We also know that for Plato and equally for Aristotle, sophia is the ultimate term for knowledge identified with truth, be it the contemplation either of the Good, a supreme value, or of a Supreme being. Undoubtedly it is to knowledge that philosophers like Descartes and Leibniz have primarily accorded the prize. However, concerns of an ethical or even theological order are closely linked to it, because without the conviction of the active and permanent presence of God, their systems would crumble. The Picard philosopher Charles de Bovelles is heir to several Platonic, Neoplatonic, Pythagorean, theological and Christian mystical traditions (through the thought of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Ramon Lull, and Ramon Sebundius). While remaining true to norms set by the medieval Church, Bovelles nevertheless developed an original conception of wisdom and the wise, not only in one of his major books, the Liber de Sapiente, but throughout his philosophical and theological work. About the man and his work, I refer readers to a number of texts over the last decades that have contributed to the rediscovery (and in some cases the discovery) of this author, whom several centuries have approached from a biased and partial perspective that could only lead to a misunderstanding of his true personality, or have practically forgotten him.

Etudes Rabelaisiennes XXI: Rabelais en son demi-millenaire. Actes du colloque international de Tours (24-29 Septembre 1984).

Robert MARICHAL, Avant-propos; M.A. SCREECH, Sagesse de Rabelais, Rabelais et les bons christians. I: LE TEXTE DE RABELAIS: Mireille HUCHON, Archeologie du Ve livre; Claude GAIGNEBET, Sur un mot en / / du Cinquieme Livre; Stephen RAWLES, La Typographie de Rabelais: reflexions bibliographiques sur des editions faussement attribuees; Kurt BALDINGER, Gargantua, nouvelles recherches lexicologiques; Dorothy G. COLEMAN, LEvolution de lart de Rabelais dapres les variantes du Tiers Livre. II: PELERINAGES AUX SOURCES: Gabriel SPILLEBOUT, Le Realisme chinonais; Roland ANTONIOLI, La Matiere de Bretagne dans le Pantagruel; Emile ARON, Ce que Rabelais doit a la medecine et ce que la medecine lui doit; Andre GOUAZE, Rabelais et lanatomie; Francoise CHARPENTIER, Une Education de prince: Gargantua, chap. XI. III: RABELAIS EN RELIGION, LA RELIGION DE RABELAIS: Richard COOPER, Rabelais et lEglise; Frank-Rutger HAUSMANN, Comment doit-on lire lepisode de lIsle des Papefigues (Quart Livre 45-47) ?; Edwin M. DUVAL, La Messe, la cene et le voyage sans fin du Quart Livre. IV: POINTS DE VUE: Ludwig SCHRADER, Panurge: theories recentes, observations methodologiques, consequences possibles; Henri WEBER, Elements structurels de quelques mythes rabelaisiens; Lionello SOZZI, Quelques aspects de la notion de dignitas hominis dans lœuvre de Rabelais; Andre GENDRE, Le vin dans Gargantua; Barbara C. BOWEN, Rire est le propre de lhomme. V: INTERTEXTES ET PARADIGMES: Jerry C. NASH, Rabelais et Epictete: une nouvelle hypothese; Marcel TETEL, Rabelais et Folengo, De patria Diabolorum; Francois RIGOLOT, Laffaire du torchecul: Michel-Ange et lembleme de la charite; Guy DEMERSON, Paradigmes epiques chez Rabelais; Jean CEARD, Rabelais, lecteur et juge des romans de chevalerie; Frank LESTRINGANT, LInsulaire de Rabelais, ou la fiction en archipel (Pour une lecture topographique du Quart Livre); Michel JEANNERET, Parler en mangeant. Rabelais et la tradition symposiaque. VI: LECTURES DE RABELAIS. PROPOSITIONS DE LECTURE. LE PROBLEME DU SENS: Raymond C. LA CHARITE, Lecteurs et lectures dans le Prologue du Gargantua; Thomas M. GREENE, The Unity of the Tiers Livre; Gregory DE ROCHER, Vers un nouvel humour rabelaisien; Andre TOURNON, Le Paradoxe menippeen dans lœuvre de Rabelais; Terence CAVE, Transformation dun topos utopique: Gaster et le Rocher de Vertu; Gerard DEFAUX, Vers une definition de lhermeneutique rabelaisienne: Pantagruel, lesprit, la lettre et les paroles gelees; Fernand HALLYN, Le Paradoxe de la souverainete; Manuel DE DIEGUEZ, Un aspect de la theologie de Rabelais: le chap. 38 du Gargantua. VII: RABELAIS LU ET RELU: John LEWIS, Quelques aspects de la litterature para-rabelaisienne davant 1562; Jean LARMAT, Variations sur des motifs rabelaisiens chez Noel du Fail; Florence A. WEINBERG, Theleme selon Fischart: omissions fecondes; Shotaro ARAKI, Les Contributions aux etudes rabelaisiennes dun humaniste japonais: Kazuo Watanabe (1901-1975). CONCLUSIONS: Guy DEMERSON, Francois Rabelais, le colloque du demi-millenaire.