Sevinc Yusifova #28

Renaissance philosophy
Renaissance philosophy was the period of the history of philosophy in Europe that falls roughly between the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment. It includes the 15th century; some scholars extend it to as early as the 1350s or as late as the 16th century or early 17th century, overlapping the Reformation and the early modern era. Among the distinctive elements of Renaissance philosophy are the revival (renaissance means "rebirth") of classical civilization and learning; a partial return to the authority of Plato over Aristotle, who had come to dominate later medieval philosophy; and, among some philosophers, enthusiasm for the occult and Hermeticism. As with all periods, there is a wide drift of dates, reasons for categorization and boundaries. In particular, the Renaissance, more than later periods, is thought to begin in Italy with the Italian Renaissance and roll through Europe. The English Renaissance is often thought to include Shakespeare, at a time when Italy had passed through Mannerism and to the Baroque. As importantly the 16th century is split differently (see lumpers and splitters). Some historians see the Reformation and Counter-Reformation as being separated from the Renaissance and more important for philosophy, while others see the entire era as one sweeping period. Francesco Petrarca (July 20, 1304 July 19, 1374), known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism". In the 16th century, Pietro Bembo created the model for the modern Italian language based on Petrarch's works, as well as those of Giovanni Boccaccio and, especially, Dante Alighieri. This would be later endorsed by the Accademia della Crusca. Petrarch's sonnets were admired and imitated throughout Europe during the Renaissance and became a model for lyrical poetry. He is also known for being the first to develop the concept of the Dark Ages. Petrarch is traditionally called the father of Humanism and considered by many to be the "father of the Renaissance." He was the first to offer a combination of abstract entities of classical culture and Christian philosophy. In his work Secretum meum he points out that secular achievements did not necessarily preclude an authentic relationship with God. Petrarch argued instead that God had given humans their vast intellectual and creative potential to be used to their fullest. He inspired humanist philosophy which led to the intellectual flowering of the Renaissance. He believed in the immense moral and practical value of the study of ancient history and literature that is, the study of human thought and action. Petrarch was a devout Catholic and did not see a conflict between realizing humanity's potential and having religious faith. A highly introspective man, he shaped the nascent humanist movement a great deal because many of the internal conflicts and musings expressed in his writings were seized upon by Renaissance humanist philosophers and argued continually for the next 200 years. For example, Petrarch struggled with the proper relation between the active and contemplative life, and tended to emphasize the importance of solitude and study. In a clear disagreement with Dante, in 1346 Petrach argued in his De vita solitaria that Pope Celestine V's refusal of the papacy in 1294 was as a virtuous example of solitary life. Later the politician and thinker Leonardo Bruni argued for the active life, or "civic humanism". As a result, a number of political, military, and religious leaders during the Renaissance were inculcated with the notion that their pursuit of personal fulfillment should be grounded in classical example and philosophical contemplation. Nicholas of Kues (1401 August 11, 1464), also referred to as Nicolaus Cusanus and Nicholas of Cusa, was a cardinal of the Catholic Church from Germany (Holy Roman Empire), a philosopher, theologian, jurist, mathematician, and an astronomer. He is widely considered one of the great geniuses and polymaths of the 15th century. He is today recognized for significant spiritual, scientific and political contributions in European history, notable examples of which include his mystical or spiritual writings on 'learned ignorance' (and mathematical ideas expressed in related essays), as well as his participation in power struggles between Rome and the German states of the Holy Roman Empire. Nicholas of Cusa was noted for his deeply mystical writings about Christianity, particularly on the possibility of knowing God with the divine human mind not possible through mere human means via "learned ignorance". Cusanus wrote of the enfolding of creation in God and their unfolding in creation. He was suspected by some of holding pantheistic beliefs, but his writings were never accused of being heretical. Nicholas also wrote in De coniecturis about using conjectures or surmises to rise to better understanding of the truth. The individual

Sevinc Yusifova #28 might rise above mere reason to the vision of the intellect, but the same person might fall back from such vision. Most of his mathematical ideas can be found in his essays, De Docta Ignorantia (Of Learned Ignorance), De Visione Dei (On the Vision of God) and On Conjectures. He also wrote on squaring the circle in his mathematical treatises. Theologically, Nicholas anticipated the profound implications of Reformed teaching on the harrowing of Hell (Sermon on Psalm 30:11), followed by Pico della Mirandola, who similarly explained the descensus in terms of Christs agony. Nicholas was widely read, and his works were published in the sixteenth century in both Paris and Basel. Sixteenth century French scholars, including Jacques Lefvre d'taples and Charles de Bovelles cited him. Lefvre even edited the Paris 1514 Opera.[7] Nonetheless, there was no Cusan school. In later centuries, Giordano Bruno quoted him; and some thinkers, like Gottfried Leibniz, were thought to have been influenced by him. Neo-Kantian scholars began studying Nicholas in the nineteenth century, and new editions were begun by the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften in the 1930s and published by Felix Meiner Verlag. Societies and centers dedicated to Cusanus can be found in Argentina, Japan, Germany, Italy and the United States. Leonardo Da Vinci is usually thought of first and foremost as an artist but he was also an important humanist, scientist, and naturalist in the Renaissance. There is no evidence that Leonardo Da Vinci was also an atheist, but he should be a role model for us all in how to approach scientific and artistic problems from a naturalistic, skeptical perspective. He is also a reason why atheists should pay more attention to the connections between art and philosophy or ideology. Leonardo believed that a good artist must also be a good scientist in order to best understand and describe nature. The humanistic, naturalistic, and scientific aspects of Leonardo's life and work are not always clear because he was an original Renaissance Man: Leonardo's art, scientific investigations, technological inventiveness, and humanistic philosophy were all bound together. The origins of science can be traced back millennia, but it can be argued that the origins of modern science are in the Renaissance. Two features of the Renaissance factor heavily in modern science: the revolt against religious and political restrictions on knowledge and the return to ancient Greek philosophy which included empirical, scientific investigation of nature. Renaissance figures like Leonardo Da Vinci were explicit in their reliance on empiricism rather than faith, their willingness to study nature to gain knowledge rather than rely upon tradition or dogma. Leonardo Da Vinci exemplified this attitude through his careful studies of the natural world. He didn't just wonder how birds flew, for example, he undertook systematic studies birds in flight then took this knowledge and tried to apply it in the hopes that humans might fly as well. Leonardo also studied how the eye sees in order to apply this knowledge to improve his own artistic creations. Guided by the conviction that nature always takes the shortest path, he developed early theorems of inertia, action/reaction, and force. None was as developed as those made famous by Descartes and Newton, but they demonstrate his involvement with science as well as the degree to which he placed empirical data and science above faith and revelation. This was why Leonardo was such a strong skeptic, casting doubt on popular pseudosciences of his day - especially astrology, for example. As one of the central figures of Renaissance Humanism, a central focus of all Leonardo Da Vinci's art and science was the human being. A focus on human concerns rather than otherworldly concerns lead Renaissance figures like Leonardo to spend more time on work that would benefit people in their daily lives rather than the otherworldly interests of the Church. The Renaissance focus on humanity was an outgrowth of the interest in Greek and Roman philosophy, literature, and historiography, all of which offered a stark contrast to what had been produced under the direction of the Medieval Christian Church. Renaissance Italians felt themselves to be the inheritors of Roman culture an inheritance which they were determined to study and understand. Of course, study led to admiration and imitation. We have no direct evidence of Leonardo Da Vinci himself being obsessed with or trying to imitate ancient Roman culture, but key in Renaissance Humanism for us today is more its spirit than its content. We have to contrast Humanism with the medieval piety and scholasticism against which Humanism was regarded as a breath of fresh air. Renaissance Humanism was a revolt sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit against the otherworldliness of medieval Christianity. Humanists turned away from a religious preoccupation with personal immorality, focusing instead on how to enjoy, make the most of, and improve this life for the humans living

Sevinc Yusifova #28 it. Renaissance humanists didn't just write about new ideas, they lived their ideas as well. The medieval ideal was the ascetic monk, but the Renaissance gave us the ideal of the Renaissance Man: a person who lives in the world and learns as much as they can about as many different features of the world as possible not just for the sake of esoteric knowledge, but to better improve human life in the here and now. The anticlerical and anti-church inclinations of the humanists were a direct result of their reading ancient authors who didnt care about gods, didnt believe in any gods, or believed in gods who were far and remote from anything that the humanists were familiar with. Renaissance Humanism was a revolution in thinking and feeling which left no part of society, not even the highest levels of Christianity, untouched. Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (October 28,[1] 1466 July 12, 1536), known as Erasmus of Rotterdam, was a Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, and a theologian. Erasmus was a classical scholar who wrote in a pure Latin style and enjoyed the sobriquet "Prince of the Humanists." He has been called "the crowning glory of the Christian humanists." Using humanist techniques for working on texts, he prepared important new Latin and Greek editions of the New Testament. These raised questions that would be influential in the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation. He also wrote The Praise of Folly, Handbook of a Christian Knight, On Civility in Children, Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style, Julius Exclusus, and many other works. Erasmus lived through the Reformation period, but while he was critical of the Church, he could not bring himself to join the cause of the Reformers. In relation to clerical abuses in the Church, Erasmus remained committed to reforming the Church from within. He also held to Catholic doctrines such as that of free will, which some Reformers rejected in favor of the doctrine of predestination. His middle road approach disappointed and even angered scholars in both camps. He died in Basel in 1536 and was buried in the formerly Catholic cathedral there, recently converted to a Reformed church. Erasmus was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. Desiderius was a self-adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The Roterodamus in his scholarly name is the Latinized adjectival form for the city of Rotterdam. Niccol di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (Italian pronunciation: [nikkol makjavlli], 3 May 1469 21 June 1527) was an Italian historian, philosopher, humanist, and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance. He is one of the main founders of modern political science.[1] He was a diplomat, political philosopher, playwright, and a civil servant of the Florentine Republic. He also wrote comedies, carnival songs, poetry, and some of the most well-known personal correspondence in the Italian language. His position in the regime of Florence as Secretary to the Second Chancery of the Republic of Florence lasted from 1498 to 1512, a period in which the Medici were not in power. Machiavelli's most well-known writing was, however, after this period, during the time when the Medici recovered power, and Machiavelli was removed from all positions of responsibility. In The Prince, Machiavelli offered a monarchical ruler advice designed to keep that ruler in power. He recommended policies that would discourage mass political activism, and channel subjects' energies into private pursuits. Machiavelli wanted to persuade the monarch that he could best preserve his power by the judicious use of violence, by respecting private property and the traditions of his subjects, and by promoting material prosperity. Machiavelli held that political life cannot be governed by a single set of moral or religious absolutes, and that the monarch may sometimes be excused for performing acts of violence and deception that would be ethically indefensible in private life. During the Renaissance Italy was a scene of intense political conflict involving the dominant city-states of Florence, Milan, Venice, and Naples, plus the Papacy, France, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire. Each city attempted to protect itself by playing the larger powers off against each other. The result was massive political intrigue, blackmail, and violence. The Prince was written against this backdrop, and in its conclusion Machiavelli issued an impassioned call for Italian unity, and an end to foreign intervention. Machiavellis other major work, Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius (1513-21), was mainly concerned with republics, defined as states controlled by a politically active citizenry. In Discourses he emphasized that for a republic to survive, it needed to foster a spirit of patriotism and civic virtue among its citizens. Machiavelli argued that a republic would be strengthened by the conflicts generated through open political participation and debate.Partly because Machiavellis pragmatic view of

Sevinc Yusifova #28 the relationship between ethics and politics, he has been widely misinterpreted. The adjective Machiavellian has become a pejorative used to describe a politician who manipulates others in an opportunistic and deceptive way.It is a common misconception that Machiavelli faked his own death. There is no historical evidence that he did. Sir Thomas More ( /mr/; 7 February 1478[1] 6 July 1535), also known by Catholics as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was an important councillor to Henry VIII of England and, for three years toward the end of his life, Lord Chancellor. He is recognised as a saint within the Catholic Church and is commemorated by the Church of England as a "Reformation martyr". He was an opponent of the Protestant Reformation and in particular of Martin Luther and William Tyndale. More coined the word "utopia" a name he gave to the ideal, imaginary island nation whose political system he described in Utopia, published in 1516. He opposed the king's separation from the Catholic Church and refused to accept the king as Supreme Head of the Church of England, a status the king had been given by a compliant parliament through the Act of Supremacy of 1534. He was imprisoned in 1534 for his refusal to take the oath required by the First Succession Act, because the act disparaged the power of the Pope and Henrys marriage to Catherine of Aragon. In 1535, he was tried for treason, convicted on perjured testimony, and beheaded. Intellectuals and statesmen across Europe were stunned by More's execution. Erasmus saluted him as one "whose soul was more pure than any snow." Two centuries later Jonathan Swift said he was "the person of the greatest virtue this kingdom ever produced", a sentiment with which Samuel Johnson agreed. Historian Hugh Trevor-Roper said in 1977 that More was "the first great Englishman whom we feel that we know, the most saintly of humanists, the most human of saints, the universal man of our cool northern renaissance."[3] The Catholic Church proclaimed him a saint in 1935. Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (French pronunciation: [mil ekm d m ]), February 28, t 1533 September 13, 1592, was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, known for popularising the essay as a literary genre and is popularly thought of as the father of Modern Skepticism. He became famous for his effortless ability to merge serious intellectual speculation with casual anecdotes and autobiographyand his massive volume Essais (translated literally as "Attempts") contains, to this day, some of the most widely influential essays ever written. Montaigne had a direct influence on writers the world over, including Ren Descartes,[3] Blaise Pascal, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Friedrich Nietzsche, Stefan Zweig, Eric Hoffer, Isaac Asimov, and perhaps William Shakespeare (see "Influences" section below). In his own time, Montaigne was admired more as a statesman than as an author. The tendency in his essays to digress into anecdotes and personal ruminations was seen as detrimental to proper style rather than as an innovation, and his declaration that, 'I am myself the matter of my book', was viewed by his contemporaries as self-indulgent. In time, however, Montaigne would be recognized as embodying, perhaps better than any other author of his time, the spirit of freely entertaining doubt which began to emerge at that time. He is most famously known for his skeptical remark, 'Que sais-je?' ('What do I know?'). Remarkably modern even to readers today, Montaigne's attempt to examine the world through the lens of the only thing he can depend on implicitlyhis own judgmentmakes him more accessible to modern readers than any other author of the Renaissance. Much of modern literary non-fiction has found inspiration in Montaigne and writers of all kinds continue to read him for his masterful balance of intellectual knowledge and personal story-telling. Giordano Bruno (1548 February 17, 1600), born Filippo Bruno, was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. His cosmological theories went beyond the Copernican model in proposing that the Sun was essentially a star, and moreover, that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited worlds populated by other intelligent beings.[1] He was burned at the stake by civil authorities in 1600 after the Roman Inquisition found him guilty of heresy for his pantheism and turned him over to the state, which at that time considered heresy illegal. After his death he gained considerable fame;

Sevinc Yusifova #28 in the 19th and early 20th centuries, commentators focusing on his astronomical beliefs regarded him as a martyr for free thought and modern scientific ideas. Recent assessments suggest that Bruno's ideas about the universe played a smaller role in his trial than his pantheist beliefs, which differed from the interpretations and scope of God held by the Catholic Church.[2] [3] In addition to his cosmological writings, Bruno also wrote extensive works on the art of memory, a loosely organized group of mnemonic techniques and principles. More recent assessments, beginning with the pioneering work of Frances Yates, suggest that Bruno was deeply influenced by the astronomical facts of the universe inherited from Arab astrology, Neoplatonism and Renaissance Hermeticism.[4] Other recent studies of Bruno have focused on his qualitative approach to mathematics and his application of the spatial paradigms of geometry to language. Tommaso Campanella (5 September 1568 21 May 1639), baptized Giovanni Domenico Campanella, was an Italian philosopher, theologian, astrologer, and poet. Born in Stignano (in the county of Stilo) in the province of Reggio di Calabria in southern Italy, Campanella was a child prodigy. Son of a poor and illiterate cobbler, he entered the Dominican Order before the age of fifteen, taking the name of fra' Tommaso in honour of Thomas Aquinas. He studied theology and philosophy with several masters. Early on, he became disenchanted with the Aristotelian orthodoxy and attracted by the empiricism of Bernardino Telesio (15091588), who taught that knowledge is sensation and that all things in nature possess sensation. Campanella wrote his first work, Philosophia sensibus demonstrata ("Philosophy demonstrated by the senses"), published in 1592, in defence of Telesio. In Naples he was also initiated in astrology; astrological speculations would become a constant feature in his writings. Campanella's heterodox views, especially his opposition to the authority of Aristotle, brought him into conflict with the ecclesiastical authorities. Denounced to the Inquisition and cited before the Holy Office in Rome, he was confined in a convent until 1597. After his liberation, Campanella returned to Calabria, where he was accused of leading a conspiracy against the Spanish rule in his hometown of Stilo. Campanella's aim was to establish a society based on the community of goods and wives, for on the basis of the prophecies of Joachim of Fiore and his own astrological observations, he foresaw the advent of the Age of the Spirit in the year 1600. Betrayed by two of his fellow conspirators, he was captured and incarcerated in Naples, where he was tortured on the rack. [1] He made a full confession and would have been put to death if he had not feigned madness and set his cell on fire. He was tortured further (a total of seven times) and then, crippled and ill, was sentenced to life imprisonment.[2][3] Campanella spent twenty-seven years imprisoned in Naples, often in the worst conditions. During his detention, he wrote his most important works: The Monarchy of Spain (1600), Political Aphorisms (1601), Atheismus triumphatus (Atheism Conquered, 16051607), Quod reminiscetur (1606?), Metaphysica (1609 1623), Theologia (16131624), and his most famous work, The City of the Sun (originally written in Italian in 1602; published in Latin in Frankfurt (1623) and later in Paris (1638)). He even intervened in the first trial against Galileo Galilei with his courageous The Defense of Galileo (written in 1616, published in 1622). Ironically, Galileo himself probably would not have wanted Campanella's assistance because of Campanella's sometimes outlandish ideas and prior conviction of heresy. Campanella was finally released from his prison in 1626, through Pope Urban VIII, who personally interceded on his behalf with Philip IV of Spain. Taken to Rome and held for a time by the Holy Office, Campanella was restored to full liberty in 1629. He lived for five years in Rome, where he was Urban's advisor in astrological matters. In 1634, however, a new conspiracy in Calabria, led by one of his followers, threatened fresh troubles. With the aid of Cardinal Barberini and the French Ambassador de Noailles, he fled to France, where he was received at the court of Louis XIII with marked favour. Protected by Cardinal Richelieu and granted a liberal pension by the king, he spent the rest of his days in the convent of Saint-Honor in Paris. His last work was a poem celebrating the birth of the future Louis XIV (Ecloga in portentosam Delphini nativitatem).