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Nicolaus Taurellus

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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NICOLAUS TAURELLUS (1547-1606), German philosopher and theologian, was born at Mompelgard. He read theology at Tubingen and medicine at Basel, where he lectured on physical science. He subsequently became professor of medicine at Altdorf, where he died in 1606. He attacked the dominant Aristotelianism of the time, and endeavoured to construct a philosophy which should harmonize faith and knowledge, and bridge over the chasm made by the first Renaissance writers who followed Pomponazzi. Scholasticism he condemned on account of its unquestioning submission to Aristotle. Taurellus maintained the necessity of going back to Christianity itself, as at once the superstructure and the justification of philosophy.

His chief works were Philosophiae Triumphus (1573); Synopsis Metaphysicae Aristotelis (1596); De Rerum Aeternitate (1604); and a treatise written in criticism of Caesalpinus entitled Caesae Alpes (1597). See Schmid-Schwarzenburg, Nicolaus Taurellus (1860 and 1864).