古初智慧：近代早期科学中的古代智慧

Prisca Sapientia: ancient wisdom in the age of early-modern science

Cornelis Johannes Schilt，荷语布鲁塞尔自由大学历史与哲学教授

2025年4月10日（星期四）10:00

北京科技大学

逸夫科技馆二楼报告厅

1543年，哥白尼出版《天球运行论》，其中有几行文字为自己的日心说辩护，强调其理论所出有源。他提及的古代智者之一是便是“三重伟大的赫尔墨斯”，这位埃及祭司据称生活在摩西时代，大约比哥白尼早3000年。哥白尼并非唯一一位尝试在古代著作的基础上构建新理论的学者。开普勒、培根和牛顿等著名自然哲学家都相信“古初智慧”（prisca sapientia）的存在。这是一种在世界初创时曾得到揭示的古老智慧，可以通过对古代文献的深入研究被重新发现。本讲座将探讨这种古初智慧的思想如何起源于意大利文艺复兴，并且如何在现代科学的奠基过程中发挥了至关重要的作用，尽管如今它已被遗忘。

When in 1543 Nicolaus Copernicus published De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, it included a few lines in which he defended his heliocentric theory by pointing at its pedigree. One of the ancient sages he named was Hermes Trismegistus, an Egyptian priest who purportedly lived at the time of Moses, some 3000 years before Copernicus. The Polish mathematician was not the only one who based his new theories on the works of ancient scholars. Johann Kepler, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton were but three famous natural philosophers who believed in this idea of a prisca sapientia, of an ancient wisdom that had been revealed at the creation of the world and could be rediscovered through a diligent study of ancient writings. In my lecture, I will focus on how this prisca sapientia idea emerged from the Italian Renaissance, and how this now forgotten idea was of pivotal importance for the foundations of modern science.