Logos spermatikon

Inledningen till uppslagsordet "rationales seminales" - kopierat från uppslagsverket Blackwell Reference som kräver login-uppgifter. 

Inledningen räcker dock för att fundera en hel del över Platons "återerinrande" som en temporal process initierad av den Rationella Själen eller det planetära kosmos och vilken människan kan delta i om hon höjer sig ur sin förfallenhet till konsumtion via sina externa sinnen ("socialrealism", "plattmarksperspektiv").

RATIONES SEMINALES

Ancient greek philosophy, philosophy of religion, philosophy of science [Latin, from the Greek logoi spermatikoi, germinal principles or original factors].

A notion employed by the Stoics, Neoplatonists, and Augustine. It is usually translated as seminal reason or seminal virtue. By this term Augustine meant the seeds, potential powers, or causes of the subsequent developments in the physical order after God's creation.

Change is simply the realization of what already exists virtually. These seeds were themselves created by God when he created the world.

The view was intended to reconcile the tension between the belief that God created all things and the evident fact that new things are constantly developing, for according to this view, the development of every new thing is simply the unfolding of what has been in the world from the beginning.

It is a metaphor, derived from the growth of a plant, which is the realization of the seed's latencies.

The concept was possibly influenced by Plato's theory of recollection, according to which knowledge involves remembering what one already knew.

This term was later developed by the Franciscans to oppose Aristotelian naturalism. “Augustine aptly termed rationes seminales all those active and passive powers that are the originative sources of the coming into being of natural things and of their changing.” (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica)