Martinus Smiglecius was a Polish Jesuit philosopher, known for his erudite scholastic

Scholasticism

Scholasticism is a method of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100–1500, and a program of employing that method in articulating and defending orthodoxy in an increasingly pluralistic context...

 Logica of 1618.

Life

He was born in Lvov c. 1564. He used the surname Lwowczyk, or Leopolitanus, and then later adopted the name Smiglecius (from Szmigel) because of his family background.

After study in Rome, he returned in 1586 to the University of Vilnius. He wrote also a book on economics, O Lichwie (On Usury) (1596). In 1599 he took part in a public disputation with the Protestants Marcin Janicki and Daniel Mikołajewski. It was recorded by Martin Gratian Gertich.

The Logica

The Logica was several times reprinted, in particular at Oxford where it was in use as a textbook. It harked back to Gregory of Rimini

Gregory of Rimini

Gregory of Rimini , also called Gregorius de Arimino or Ariminensis, was one of the great scholastic philosophers and theologians of the Middle Ages...

, discussing mental propositions. As a textbook author his reputation survived in the satirical poem The Logicians Refuted, attributed to both Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...

 and Oliver Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith was an Irish writer, poet and physician known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield , his pastoral poem The Deserted Village , and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man and She Stoops to Conquer...

. Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...

, writing in 1751 in The Rambler

The Rambler

The Rambler was a periodical by Samuel Johnson.-Description:The Rambler was published on Tuesdays and Saturdays from 1750 to 1752 and totals 208 articles. It was Johnson's most consistent and sustained work in the English language...

, claimed that as student he "slept every night with Smiglecius on my pillow."

Views

In a live controversy of the time, Smiglecius sided with Benedictus Pereyra against Giuseppe Biancani

Giuseppe Biancani

Giuseppe Biancani was an Italian Jesuit astronomer, mathematician, and selenographer, after whom the crater Blancanus on the Moon is named...

. The issue was the status of mathematical proof

Mathematical proof

In mathematics, a proof is a convincing demonstration that some mathematical statement is necessarily true. Proofs are obtained from deductive reasoning, rather than from inductive or empirical arguments. That is, a proof must demonstrate that a statement is true in all cases, without a single...

in physics, where Pereyra denied mathematics an essential status.