Tamar Tsopurashvili

Ilia State University
Full Professor; Director of the Savle Tsereteli Institute of Philosophy
Sociology, Psychology, Philosophy
PhD
Tbilisi, Georgia
tamar.tsopurashvili@iliauni.edu.ge

The paper presents the results of a research project conducted at Ilia State University between 2020 and 2024 with the support of the University of Oxford and the John Templeton Foundation. It demonstrates that, alongside the traditional Neoplatonic tradition, Anton I sought to introduce an Aristotelian intellectual tradition into Georgia. He pursued this objective both through his own philosophical writings and through translations of Aristotle’s works produced within his scholarly school.

The paper examines the Aristotelian paradigms of thought that Anton systematically developed in two of his philosophical works: Spekali (“The Mirror”), which became associated with accusations of Catholicism and led to his removal from the Catholicosal throne, and Kategoria-Simetne (“Categories and Metaphysics”), written nearly a decade later. On this basis, the paper seeks to position these two philosophical works not only within the context of Georgian intellectual history but also within a broader regional framework.

Accordingly, the study also considers the intellectual tendencies characteristic of the Black Sea region in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, of which Georgia formed part prior to its annexation by the Russian Empire. Particular attention is given to the significance and intellectual context of scholastic theological texts for Anton’s work, which is unequivocally concerned with Aristotle’s theoretical philosophy. The paper also explores the intellectual foundations underlying Anton’s particular selection and use of Aristotelian works.

Anton’s views are further compared with ideas expressed in Albert the Great’s commentaries on Aristotle, with particular reference to De homine and his commentary on De anima. Both texts are considered as possible sources for Anton’s treatment of these philosophical questions.

The paper also contextualizes and interprets both of Anton’s works within their broader intellectual setting. Such contextualization is, in turn, essential for a proper understanding of the well-known statement contained in Spekali:

“Nothing arising from my own lack of learning or from the error of my own self-styled wisdom [is contained here]; rather, whatever I heard from the Latin philosophers and from a certain Zakaria, a teacher of the Armenians, through whom the hidden meaning of Aristotle’s wisdom was revealed to me, as well as from certain other learned men, I arranged in a concise form and thus crowned this book entitled Spekali.” (Spekali, ch. 120)