REISCH, GREGOR. - Carthusian, b. at Balingen in inner Württemberg before 1467, d. at Freiburg im Br. on 9 May 1525. He studied at Freiburg, where in 1489 he obtained the title of magister. A friend of Erasmus (v.) and of other humanists, he opposed the spread of Lutheranism. He entered the Carthusian Order between 1500 and 1502.
His name is linked with the Margarita philosophica (Freiburg im Br. 1503, Basel 1535, 1583), a popularizing work in 12 books, of which the first three are devoted to the trivium, books IV-VII to the quadrivium, books VIII-XI to natural philosophy, and book XII to moral philosophy. The spirit informing the work is Scholastic Aristotelianism tempered by Augustinian and humanistic Platonism. In book XI, chap. 23, concerning the excessive number of arguments by which some sought to demonstrate the immortality of the soul, one reads: « Nos huiuscemodi rationes pro affirmanda animae immortalitate consulto praeterimus; nec ex his quae ab Aristotele in libro De anima, in Metaphysica aut in Ethicis serpta cernuntur, evidens demonstratio colligi poterit. Coeterum in De animalibus solum intellectum ab extrinseco advenire astruit; in libro vero De poma et morte (si ipsius est) id clarius expressit ». In chap. 30 the Averroist doctrine of the unity of the intellect is attacked.