Rare books 15: Probabilism

A three-way battle of ethical opinions in descending order of seniority, or perhaps doctrinal certainty (Antwerp, 1665). Notes: At first glance we would conclude that Prospero Fagnani (1588-1678) is author of this book of retorts, then the Cistercian Juan Caramuel Lobkowitz (1606-1682). In fact, it is Francisco Bonae Spei, in tiny letters, better known as Brother Francis of Good Hope (1617-1677), a Carmelite who appears to be treading a middle path through the dangerous 17^th-century territory known as Probabilism. Ethics exists at all because people hold different views about issues that matter, where conversation is better than bloodshed, or worse. Probabilism has been defined as providing “a way of answering the question about what to do when one does not know what to do.” While on the face of it this sounds amusing, it’s very often how we ourselves meet moral dilemmas. Juan Caramuel Lobkowitz was of the school that adopted more lenient positions on issues, even using mathematics to prove his arguments. For him, the answer was **more probably** not always one based on strict doctrine, which is why St Alphonsus Liguori named him ‘The Prince of the Laxists.’ Prospero and Francis cannot abide Laxism, which doesn’t mean they don’t continue to address Juan as ‘most illustrious and most reverend’. Decorum is maintained as they thrash out their differences in the very best Latin. The main challenge was a name authority for the author, who goes by his birth name of François Crespin in BNCF Florence and is, so far and rather curiously, unavailable on LCSH. In the end I adopted the name used in his wiki, which is corroborated by the Carmelite catalogue in the Netherlands, with a see reference from the English translation of the same. That is a high probability of accuracy, therefore of access.