Article
«Мир чувственных вещей в картинках» Яна Амоса Коменского в контексте учений о методе XVI–XVII вв.
This article aims at reestablishing the context of the educative model, carried out by Jan Amos Comenius in his famous work Orbis sensualium pictus (1658). We have demonstrated that pedagogical thought of Comenius brings together two rival models of the production of knowledge and studying sciences: mathematical and topical. The heuristic potential of the topical method and the “science of the verisimilar” have been examined on the basis of the G. Vico’s juridical topics, considered against the background of his predecessors (Caccialupi, Vultejus). It has been shown that the didactic model, appealing to the common sense – in Comenius as well as in other followers of the rhetoric epistemology – is neither the deduction of the manifold experience of the world from one minimal foundation by the means of the single-type logical operations, nor an all-embracing classification. This model aimed at mapping the manifold reality and persuading the audience by means of a sophisticated repertoire of rhetorical skills; its main goal was the formation of the “civil nature” of a person. This ability of the probable reasoning turns out to be a condition of possibility of the complete definition of a thing (notio completa), which simultaneously endows the speech with “fullness” (oratio plena). Thus, the logical ideal of the complete definition and the rhetorical perfection of the speech come together.