Jacob Lorhard (1561, Münsingen

Münsingen

Münsingen is a municipality in the Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.The village lies on the River Aar between the cities of Bern and Thun.-Geography:...

 – 19 May 1609) was a German philosopher and pedagogue based in St. Gallen

St. Gallen

St. Gallen is the capital of the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland. It evolved from the hermitage of Saint Gall, founded in the 7th century. Today, it is a large urban agglomeration and represents the center of eastern Switzerland. The town mainly relies on the service sector for its economic...

, Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

.

In 1603 Lorhard became Rector of the Gymnasium

Gymnasium (school)

A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...

 in St. Gallen

St. Gallen

St. Gallen is the capital of the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland. It evolved from the hermitage of Saint Gall, founded in the 7th century. Today, it is a large urban agglomeration and represents the center of eastern Switzerland. The town mainly relies on the service sector for its economic...

. In 1606 he published Ogdoas scholastica, which contains the word "ontologia

Ontology

Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...

" – probably appearing for the first time ever in a book. He uses "Ontologia" synonymously with "Metaphysica". The following year he received the offer of becoming Professor of Theology

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

 at Marburg

Marburg

Marburg is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany, on the River Lahn. It is the main town of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district and its population, as of March 2010, was 79,911.- Founding and early history :...

 from Landgrave Maurice

Maurice, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel

-External links:...

 of Hesse-Kassel

Hesse-Kassel

The Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel or Hesse-Cassel was a state in the Holy Roman Empire under Imperial immediacy that came into existence when the Landgraviate of Hesse was divided in 1567 upon the death of Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse. His eldest son William IV inherited the northern half and the...

 (or Hesse-Cassel). Rudolph Göckel

Rudolph Goclenius

Rudolph Göckel or Rudolf Goclenius [the Older] was a German scholastic philosopher, credited with inventing the term psychology .-Life:He was born in Korbach, Waldeck...

 (1547-1628) was also professor in Marburg in logic, ethics, and mathematics at this time. Lorhard and Göckel probably met one or several times during 1607 sharing their views with one another. For whatever reason, his stay in Marburg was brief and he soon returned to his former position in St. Gallen. Lorhard died on 19 May, 1609.

In 1613, a second edition of Lorhard's book appeared under the title Theatrum philosophicum. In this edition, however, the word "ontologia" does not appear on the front cover although has been retained inside the book. In the same year the term did appear in Göckel's Lexicon philosophicum, where it is mentioned briefly as follows: "ontologia, philosophia de ente" (i.e., "ontology, the philosophy of being").

Lorhard was influenced by Peter Ramus (1515 - 1572), who set about transforming dialectical reasoning into a single method of pedagogical

Pedagogy

Pedagogy is the study of being a teacher or the process of teaching. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction....

 logic supplemented by diagram

Diagram

A diagram is a two-dimensional geometric symbolic representation of information according to some visualization technique. Sometimes, the technique uses a three-dimensional visualization which is then projected onto the two-dimensional surface...

matical tools. Lorhard follows Ramus in believing that the students will gain a deeper understanding of the ontological truths through considering such diagrams. This became a very influential view on education across Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, influencing the Danish professor Jens Kraft

Jens Kraft

Jens Kraft was a Danish mathematician and philosopher of Norwegian birth. He was born in Frederikshald in Norway, but at age 5 he became an orphan and was subsequently raised by his uncle in Thy in Jutland...

 (1720 - 1756) who used these techniques in a school for young people expected to become national leaders. Kraft thought that a deeper understanding of ontological truths would help the students becoming better people ethically as well as having a better understanding of the world.

He was more directly influenced by Clemens Timpler

Clemens Timpler

Clemens Timpler was a German philosopher, physicist and theologian.Along with Jakob Degen , he is considered the most important Protestant metaphysician, establishing the Protestant Reformed Neuscholastik....

 of Heidelberg

Heidelberg

-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...

, whose Metaphysicae systema methodium was published in
Steinfurt

Steinfurt

Steinfurt is a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Steinfurt.-Geography:Steinfurt is situated north-west of Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia. Its name came into being in 1975 when the two – up to then independent – parts of the city – Borghorst and...

 in 1604. Lorhard followed Timpler by defining ontology

Ontology

Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...

 as “the knowledge of the intelligible by which it is intelligible”. This emphasis on the intelligibility

Intelligibility

In phonetics, Intelligibility is a measure of how comprehendible speech is, or the degree to which speech can be understood. Intelligibility is affected by spoken clarity, explicitness, lucidity, comprehensibility, perspicuity, and precision.-Noise levels:...

 of the world as essential for metaphysics

Metaphysics

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...

 is central to Lorhard’s ontology. By formulating ontology as concentrated on the knowledge by means of which we can understand the world it offers a description of the very foundation of scientific activity.

Lorhard characterised human rationality as 'the natural light of reason'. This approach presupposes there is a unique true ontology that reflects to the world as it really is. This confidence in an order or code of nature that can be read and understood by human beings was one of the major Cornerstone

Cornerstone

The cornerstone concept is derived from the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation, important since all other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entire structure.Over time a cornerstone became a ceremonial masonry stone, or...

s for the rise of science

Science

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

 in Europe. Lorhard divides the intelligibles into universals and particulars with the set of universals further separated in two sets: the set of basic objects, and the set of attributes. Lorhard uses the homonym

Homonym

In linguistics, a homonym is, in the strict sense, one of a group of words that often but not necessarily share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings...

 real

The Real

The Real refers to that which is authentic, the unchangeable truth in reference both to being/the Self and the external dimension of experience, also referred to as the infinite and absolute - as opposed to a reality based on sense perception and the material order.-In psychoanalysis:The Real is a...

 16 times in Ogdoas Scholastica contrasting it variously with rational (rationalis), imaginary (imaginaria), and verbal (verbalis). Lorhard characterises being (ens) as “by which a being is what it is”. He then further describes how beings that relate to the external world exist independently of human cognition, while those that belong to the internal (or mental) world of human cognition are beings of reason or rationality. Lorhard saw an important
duality between the beings themselves and how we rationally discuss such being. He insisted that whenever we discuss the beings in the world with a view to their classification, we also need to reflect on the concepts we are using in doing so. This reflections at the meta-level formed an essential part of Lorhard’s work.

Lorhard describes the ‘most common’ attributes of intelligibles as existence

Existence

In common usage, existence is the world we are aware of through our senses, and that persists independently without them. In academic philosophy the word has a more specialized meaning, being contrasted with essence, which specifies different forms of existence as well as different identity...

 and duration

Duration

In music duration is an amount of time or a particular time interval. A duration is a property of a note that becomes one of the bases of rhythm.A tone may be sustained for varying lengths of time...

. However, whatever its existence and time, we use the real/imaginary distinction (realis/imaginaria) between what exists independently of all human minds (although conceivable by human rationality) and what is imaginary.

Works

• Disputatio de vera et Aristotelica methodo demonstrandi, Dissertation. Tubingae: Gruppenbach, 1595.
• Liber de adeptione veri necessarii seu apodictici ..., Tubingæ, 1597.
• Ogdoas Scholastica, continens Diagraphen Typicam artium: Grammatices (Latinae, Graecae), Logices, Rhetorices, Astronomices, Ethices, Physices, Metaphysices, seu Ontologiae, Sangalli : Apud Georgium Straub, 1606.
• Theatrum philosophicum, continens Grammaticen Latinam, Graecam, et Hebraeam, Logicen, Rhetoricen, Arithmeticen, Geometriam, Musicen, Astronomicen, Ethicen, Physicen, Metaphysicen seu Ontologiam, Basileæ, 1613. (second edition of Ogdoas Scholastica)