Saviour Bernard
Encyclopedia
Saviour Bernard was a Maltese medical practitioner, a scientist, and a major philosopher. His areas of specialisation in philosophy were mostly philosophical psychology
and physiology
. Unfortunately, no portrait of Bernard has been located as yet.
, Malta
, on November 29, 1724, from French parents. His family seems to have been well-off, enough, at least, to give Bernard a good initial formation, one which was probably better than that of his peers.
At the young age of nineteen, in 1743, Bernard was sent to the south of France
, at Aix-en-Provence
, to study medicine and surgery at the University of Aix-en-Provence
there. He graduated in June 1749, at the age of twenty-four.
, published in Sicily
what turned out to be his life’s major work, entitled Trattato Filosofico-Medico dell’Uomo (See below: Opus Magnus).
In 1752, Bernard was appointed the principal officer of public health by the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitallers, Manuel Pinto da Fonseca. He was also appointed medical superintendent of two major hospitals of the Knights Hospitallers, Santo Spirito, at Rabat, Malta
, and Lazzaretto, on Manoel Island.
At the end of the 18th century, Bernard worked hard to cure the diseased stricken by the epidemic influenza. On this occasion he is said to have showed outstanding proficiency and resourcefulness.
graciously granted the aged doctor and philosopher a pension equal to his salary, something which was not normal practice in those days. In return, Bernard continued to provide his services whenever asked for as long as his health held out. He finally retired in 1801, at the age of seventy-seven, when by then the Knights Hospitallers had long been expelled from Malta
.
Bernard died at Rabat, Malta
at the age of eighty-two on March 7, 1806.
The book, which is composed of 111 pages, opens with a dedicatory letter and a table of contents. Then it is divided in eight chapters. In his opening letter, Bernard goes at some length to justify the significance of his work despite is relatively young age (of just twenty-four). The chapters respectively deal with (1) the nature of human beings, (2) their bodily functions, (3) their sensitive faculties, (4) their intellectual faculties, (5) the relation between their sensitive and intellectual faculties, (6) the dependence of bodily movements upon the intellect, (7) the affect of the intellect upon bodily movements, and finally (8) the nature of the ‘internal life’ of the intellect.
, and later driven out in 1800 by the British, the Knights Hospitallers were not reinstated. Bernard lived his last years during the ‘temporary’ rule of the British.
These developments must not have been to Bernard’s liking. He was very proud of his Christian faith and also very fond of the Knights Hospitallers. To see them reduced to a nonentity must have been difficult for him to acknowledge.
and empiricism
, opposed each other despite their common inheritance of the characteristic Cartesian prejudice of the whole of modern philosophy – viz. that what man knows directly and immediately are not things themselves but his own ‘ideas’.
Bernard was not a rationalist in the sense that he adopts the ‘geometrical method’ which characterised the writings of Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz. Nor is Bernard a rationalist in the sense of excluding supernatural faith. While Descartes in the Discourse on Method attempts to construct knowledge entirely on reason and not on dogma or faith, Bernard takes the existence of God for granted and accepts the immortality of the soul on the basis of faith. Bernard can be labelled a rationalist only in a very wide sense; only in so far as he highly values the rational qualities of man (bequeathed upon him by God). His emphasis on man as a rational animal, and his discourse in the preface to his Trattato concerning the spirit of his attempt to illumine the minds of men, are grounds for considering his work to be part and parcel of the enlightenment culture of the 18th century.
In any stricter (epistemological) sense of the word ‘rationalist’, Bernard should rather be considered as adhering to the opposite camp. He takes sensorial experience as the point of departure for the acquisition of knowledge. He criticises the theory of innate ideas – characteristic of the rationalist stream of thought in modern philosophy
– and points out that the mind is at birth a tabula rasa
or rather a blank slate awaiting ideas from experience. He thinks that ideas are derived from experience, and this is highly reminiscent of the empiricism of Locke
. However, he does seem to have the greatest sympathy for Malebranche (who belongs, in the epistemological sense of the word, to the rationalist school) out of all philosophers, except on this basic issue of the origin of ‘ideas’.
There is hardly any indication whatsoever of indebtedness to Thomistic philosophy in Bernard’s work despite his repeated professions of deference to the Catholic Church. His tacit rejection, rather than explicit opposition, to the central features of the anthropology of Aquinas, notably its anti-dualism, is, however, not surprising and possibly unintended.
.
In any case, since 1995, when Bernard’s Trattato was presented to the public as a work worthy of philosophical consideration, more and more attention was given to the work by philosophers. Unfortunately, Claude Mangion’s excellent translation of it, made in 1998, is still to be published. Mangion’s work also includes a philosophical study of Bernard’s book as an introduction. Nevertheless, further investigations would certainly be more than fitting, especially to amplify the biographical data concerning Bernard’s life, times and also his professional and academic activities.
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
and physiology
Physiology
Physiology is the science of the function of living systems. This includes how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and bio-molecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. The highest honor awarded in physiology is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or...
. Unfortunately, no portrait of Bernard has been located as yet.
Beginnings
Bernard was born at VallettaValletta
Valletta is the capital of Malta, colloquially known as Il-Belt in Maltese. It is located in the central-eastern portion of the island of Malta, and the historical city has a population of 6,098. The name "Valletta" is traditionally reserved for the historic walled citadel that serves as Malta's...
, Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
, on November 29, 1724, from French parents. His family seems to have been well-off, enough, at least, to give Bernard a good initial formation, one which was probably better than that of his peers.
At the young age of nineteen, in 1743, Bernard was sent to the south of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, at Aix-en-Provence
Aix-en-Provence
Aix , or Aix-en-Provence to distinguish it from other cities built over hot springs, is a city-commune in southern France, some north of Marseille. It is in the region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, in the département of Bouches-du-Rhône, of which it is a subprefecture. The population of Aix is...
, to study medicine and surgery at the University of Aix-en-Provence
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
there. He graduated in June 1749, at the age of twenty-four.
Professional career
It was during that same year that Bernard, then already back in MaltaMalta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
, published in Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
what turned out to be his life’s major work, entitled Trattato Filosofico-Medico dell’Uomo (See below: Opus Magnus).
In 1752, Bernard was appointed the principal officer of public health by the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitallers, Manuel Pinto da Fonseca. He was also appointed medical superintendent of two major hospitals of the Knights Hospitallers, Santo Spirito, at Rabat, Malta
Rabat, Malta
Rabat is a village just outside Mdina, Malta. The name of the village is derived from the Arabic word for 'suburb': الرباط, as it was the suburb of the old capital Mdina. Half of the present-day village core also formed part of the Roman city of Melita, before the latter was resized during the...
, and Lazzaretto, on Manoel Island.
At the end of the 18th century, Bernard worked hard to cure the diseased stricken by the epidemic influenza. On this occasion he is said to have showed outstanding proficiency and resourcefulness.
Retirement and death
During the very last years of the Knights Hospitallers’ rule, when Bernard was in his late seventies, the Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch zu BolheimFerdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim
Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim was the 71st Prince and Grand Master of the Order of Malta, the first German to be elected to the office....
graciously granted the aged doctor and philosopher a pension equal to his salary, something which was not normal practice in those days. In return, Bernard continued to provide his services whenever asked for as long as his health held out. He finally retired in 1801, at the age of seventy-seven, when by then the Knights Hospitallers had long been expelled from Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
.
Bernard died at Rabat, Malta
Rabat, Malta
Rabat is a village just outside Mdina, Malta. The name of the village is derived from the Arabic word for 'suburb': الرباط, as it was the suburb of the old capital Mdina. Half of the present-day village core also formed part of the Roman city of Melita, before the latter was resized during the...
at the age of eighty-two on March 7, 1806.
Opus Magnus
- Trattato Filosofico-Medico dell’Uomo e Sue Principali Operazioni (A Philosophical-Medical Study on Man and his Principal Operations; 1749) – Despite having almost certainly been composed in France, the book was written in Italian and published in CataniaCataniaCatania is an Italian city on the east coast of Sicily facing the Ionian Sea, between Messina and Syracuse. It is the capital of the homonymous province, and with 298,957 inhabitants it is the second-largest city in Sicily and the tenth in Italy.Catania is known to have a seismic history and...
, SicilySicilySicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
, at the printing press of the senate there, which was run by Mr. Bisagni. It was dedicated to the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitallers, Manuel Pinto da Fonseca. Essentially, the work is a philosophical study thoroughly based on medical observations of human beings and animals.
The book, which is composed of 111 pages, opens with a dedicatory letter and a table of contents. Then it is divided in eight chapters. In his opening letter, Bernard goes at some length to justify the significance of his work despite is relatively young age (of just twenty-four). The chapters respectively deal with (1) the nature of human beings, (2) their bodily functions, (3) their sensitive faculties, (4) their intellectual faculties, (5) the relation between their sensitive and intellectual faculties, (6) the dependence of bodily movements upon the intellect, (7) the affect of the intellect upon bodily movements, and finally (8) the nature of the ‘internal life’ of the intellect.
Quotes
These are a few quotations from Bernard’s Trattato:- “Amongst the many calamities brought upon the human race by the first sin of Adam, Ignorance, to which we are all indifferently subject, is certainly not the least important.” – Prologue
- “Man emerges into light enriched with the beautiful gift of reason, which arms him, clothes him and strengthens him, in such a way that it makes him Lord and absolute Master of all other creatures, whether their earthly bodies be animate or inanimate.” – Chapter 1
- “The human body is a machine so artful and complicated in its many parts, so well planned together and meshed from so many sides that all the intellects united together would hardly suffice to understand its construction and symmetry. Therefore, not without reason is it called the small world.” – Chapter 2
- “This is the principal role of the senses, namely watching over the preservation of one’s own individuality.” – Chapter 3
- “I hold that since in this there is no contradiction, one can cautiously conjecture that body or matter can think, and that God can, if He wants, grant to it this so noble faculty and establish that its various movements and diverse figures are its various perceptions and diverse thoughts; nor do I find reasons that prohibit me to believe it.” – Chapter 4
- “If thought and cognition are not properties belonging only to spirits, but can also be compatible with bodies, it can be inferred that animals can know, feel and have many other ideas and perceptions without having a spiritual soul, but by means solely of some movements which their organs perform.” – Chapter 4
- “It is not necessary for a King to be present in all the cities of his kingdom in order to govern and know that which occurs in its various provinces: it suffices that he be at his seat of command and overall rule. Likewise the soul, which is the Queen of the body, does not need to be present and united to all of its parts. It suffices for the soul to be at its seat of command and rule over all the movements of its body which are subordinated to its jurisdiction. There, finally, all the parts of the body send, so to speak, accounts of all that occurs in them.” – Chapter 5
- “The body lives independently of the soul, and all the others vital functions are fulfilled in it without its concurrence.” – Chapter 5
- “The body dies not because the soul separates itself from it. The soul divorces itself from its body because the latter dies and ceases to live.” – Chapter 5
- “For us good is all that which is apt to bring us happiness and augment it in us, by means of the pleasure, merriment and contentment brought to us by its possession and enjoyment, or else that which can hive away or remove from us some pain, sadness, or other nuisance.” – Chapter 6
- “Imagining does not differ from sensing, except in terms of greater or lesser vivacity.” – Chapter 7
Other works of philosophical interest
Both of the following works contain interesting reflections which might interest philosophy. The second one especially. It is written in a curious style, its theme is rather intriguing, and the philosophical arguments brought forth are quite interesting.- Notamenta (Annotations; 1749) – A manuscript in Latin composed by Bernard during the same year that his Trattato was published. The document is made up of 91 back-to-back folios, and contains a whole series of notes organised in alphabetical order. The work deals with a lot of subjects. Most of them are of a historical nature related to MaltaMaltaMalta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
’s history. Others are interesting from a sort of sociological point of view. It is in this sense that these latter ones might be of interest to philosophy.
- De Fluidorum (Concerning the Nature of a Fluid; 1751) – The whole title of this work is De Fluidorum et Materiæ Electricæ Natura concertatio sive Dissertatio Apologetica (Concerning the Nature of a Fluid and the Nature of the Electrical Matter which it contains, or a Defensive Study). The manuscript uses the genre of a report of a (probably imagined) discussion between a Sicilian, Benedict Genuisi, on one side, and John Bruno and Bernard, both Maltese, on the other. The whole document is made of just 35 folios, and is divided in three main parts. The first part is written in Italian supposedly by Genuisi. It deals with two main themes: the nature of a fluid, and whether electrical energy is transmitted through a fluid or, rather, through sulphate acid. Herein, Genuisi answers to four objections which Bruno and Bernard have raised. AristotleAristotleAristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
is quoted various times. The second and third parts, both written in Latin, respectively report the answers of Bruno and Bernard, in which each goes into some detail to explain points already mentioned in the first part of the work. While Bruno produces two experiments to prove his case, Bernard insists that experiments must be proved philosophically. In support of his arguments, Bernard calls forth the authority of LockeLocke-People:*Locke , information about the surname and list of people*Locke *John Locke , English philosopher*Matthew Locke , baroque composer*Edwin A...
, Descartes and Robert BoyleRobert BoyleRobert Boyle FRS was a 17th century natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor, also noted for his writings in theology. He has been variously described as English, Irish, or Anglo-Irish, his father having come to Ireland from England during the time of the English plantations of...
.
Other manuscripts
The following three tracts, all unpublished, are not of any philosophical interest. They might, however, be interesting and valuable from a medical point of view.- Tractatus de Morbis (A Study of Illnesses) – In Latin.
- Sull’Origine della Pazzia (On the Origin of Madness) – In Italian.
- Delle Epidemie Febbrili Maligne (Concerning Malign Feverish Epidemics) – In Italian.
Political views
Bernard lived during the turbulent times when the Knights Hospitallers were ousted from the Maltese islands by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798. Despite the fact that the French, in turn, were overthrown by the MalteseMaltese people
The Maltese are an ethnic group indigenous to the Southern European nation of Malta, and identified with the Maltese language. Malta is an island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea...
, and later driven out in 1800 by the British, the Knights Hospitallers were not reinstated. Bernard lived his last years during the ‘temporary’ rule of the British.
These developments must not have been to Bernard’s liking. He was very proud of his Christian faith and also very fond of the Knights Hospitallers. To see them reduced to a nonentity must have been difficult for him to acknowledge.
Philosophy
In terms of his philosophical positions, Bernard must be considered to be a modern philosopher. He wrote in the pre-Kantian period of modern philosophy when two main schools of thought, namely rationalismRationalism
In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...
and empiricism
Empiricism
Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence,...
, opposed each other despite their common inheritance of the characteristic Cartesian prejudice of the whole of modern philosophy – viz. that what man knows directly and immediately are not things themselves but his own ‘ideas’.
Bernard was not a rationalist in the sense that he adopts the ‘geometrical method’ which characterised the writings of Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz. Nor is Bernard a rationalist in the sense of excluding supernatural faith. While Descartes in the Discourse on Method attempts to construct knowledge entirely on reason and not on dogma or faith, Bernard takes the existence of God for granted and accepts the immortality of the soul on the basis of faith. Bernard can be labelled a rationalist only in a very wide sense; only in so far as he highly values the rational qualities of man (bequeathed upon him by God). His emphasis on man as a rational animal, and his discourse in the preface to his Trattato concerning the spirit of his attempt to illumine the minds of men, are grounds for considering his work to be part and parcel of the enlightenment culture of the 18th century.
In any stricter (epistemological) sense of the word ‘rationalist’, Bernard should rather be considered as adhering to the opposite camp. He takes sensorial experience as the point of departure for the acquisition of knowledge. He criticises the theory of innate ideas – characteristic of the rationalist stream of thought in modern philosophy
Modern philosophy
Modern philosophy is a type of philosophy that originated in Western Europe in the 17th century, and is now common worldwide. It is not a specific doctrine or school , although there are certain assumptions common to much of it, which helps to distinguish it from earlier philosophy.The 17th and...
– and points out that the mind is at birth a tabula rasa
Tabula rasa
Tabula rasa is the epistemological theory that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception. Generally proponents of the tabula rasa thesis favour the "nurture" side of the nature versus nurture debate, when it comes to aspects...
or rather a blank slate awaiting ideas from experience. He thinks that ideas are derived from experience, and this is highly reminiscent of the empiricism of Locke
Locke
-People:*Locke , information about the surname and list of people*Locke *John Locke , English philosopher*Matthew Locke , baroque composer*Edwin A...
. However, he does seem to have the greatest sympathy for Malebranche (who belongs, in the epistemological sense of the word, to the rationalist school) out of all philosophers, except on this basic issue of the origin of ‘ideas’.
There is hardly any indication whatsoever of indebtedness to Thomistic philosophy in Bernard’s work despite his repeated professions of deference to the Catholic Church. His tacit rejection, rather than explicit opposition, to the central features of the anthropology of Aquinas, notably its anti-dualism, is, however, not surprising and possibly unintended.
Appreciation
In academic circles, Bernard is revered more as a philosopher than as a medical doctor. This might be because he major writing, even if written in his youth, is more of a philosophical nature than anything else. It might be also due to the fact that Bernard is generally eclipsed by his more well-known contemporary, Joseph DemarcoJoseph Demarco
Joseph Demarco was a Maltese medical practitioner, a scientist, and a major philosopher. His areas of specialisation in philosophy were mostly philosophical psychology and physiology....
.
In any case, since 1995, when Bernard’s Trattato was presented to the public as a work worthy of philosophical consideration, more and more attention was given to the work by philosophers. Unfortunately, Claude Mangion’s excellent translation of it, made in 1998, is still to be published. Mangion’s work also includes a philosophical study of Bernard’s book as an introduction. Nevertheless, further investigations would certainly be more than fitting, especially to amplify the biographical data concerning Bernard’s life, times and also his professional and academic activities.
Sources
- P. Cassar, ‘The neuro-psychiatric concepts of Dr. S. Bernard’, Scientia, Malta, XV, 1948, 1, 20-33.
- R. Mifsud Bonnici, Dizzjunarju Bijo-Bibliografiku Nazzjonali, Malta, 1960.
- P. Cassar, Medical History of Malta, London, Wellcome Historical Medical Library, 1964.
- C. Falzon, Introduction and Translation of ‘Trattato Filosofico-Medico dell’Uomo’ of Salvatore Bernard, unpublished dissertation, University of Malta, Malta, 1998.
- Mark Montebello, Il-Ktieb tal-Filosofija f’Malta (A Source Book of Philosophy in Malta), PIN Publications, Malta, 2001.