Nikephoros Choumnos

Abstract

Nikephoros Choumnos (c. 1250 – Constantinople, 1327). Choumnos, a scion of a noble family, held from a very early age up to almost his last years high official positions in the administration of the Byzantine state, playing an active role in its external and religious affairs. In his last years, he launched a bitter attack on another important scholar of that time, Theodore Metochites, who succeeded him in the imperial court, being in his turn attacked by Choumnos. His nine philosophical treatises date from that period. Six of them regard natural philosophy and cosmology; the remaining concern metaphysics, anthropology, and psychology. Most of them exhibit a strong and plainly expressed intention of taking liberties from some specific doctrines of some giants of the Ancient Greek philosophy, especially Plato and Aristotle. Choumnos argues both against the Platonic “ideas” and Aristotle’s “forms,” as well as against Plotinus’ arguments for the preexistence of the human soul. Elsewhere he subscribes to some of Plotinus’ arguments against Aristotle’s theory of the “quintessence,” which he also deems as incompatible to some other parts of Aristotle’s physics, and states that the nature of heaven is “light” or “fire.” To the traditional four-elements worldview he adds the Christian idea of the existence of some water above the firmament. He also describes the Christian God in terms of Plato’s timeless, unchangeable being and deems him as the cause of the world’s existence, nature, and structure. Further, he elaborates an Aristotle-based but Neoplatonically-colored theory of cognitive faculties, the highest of them being “intellect,” which, when functioning by itself, is infallible. Choumnos’ claims for originality should be tested against his sources, which have not as yet been adequately explored. This will be practically possible whenever his writings will be properly edited.