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MODERN PHILOSOPHY |
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Select: The Resurgence of the Philosophical Schools - Platonism - Marsilio Ficino Giovanni Pico della Mirandola - Aristotelianism - Pietro Pomponazzi Stoicism and Epicureanism - Pierre Gassendi - Skepticism and Eclecticism Desiderius Erasmus - Michel de Montaigne |
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General Notions Humanism and the Renaissance are a vast and profound literary, cultural and speculative movement, having many varying aspects which it is difficult to group together in a single term or expression. Humanism, which covers the entire fifteenth century, is predominantly literary; the Renaissance, which spans the whole of the sixteenth century, is cultural and speculative; both have come to be called Renaissance in the broad sense of the term. Humanism and the Renaissance are an era of transition between the Middle Ages and the modern age. As a period of transition they naturally partake of many elements of the age which preceded them, and have all the ferment and restlessness of the age which follows. Without doubt the greater part of the representative men of the Renaissance are Christians who affirm their faith in the transcendence of God and who respect and uphold the Church. Their life, however, is pagan, and the principles which are the absolute basis of their speculation are in opposition to God and Church. Thus there exists a strange mixture of Christianity and paganism which it is difficult to separate. As one typical of this age we may mention Lorenzo de' Medici who, though he renewed pagan orgies in his carnivals at Florence, wrote verses in honor of the Virgin Mary and the saints, and from his deathbed called for Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who refused to absolve him. To say that Humanism is the study of "human letter," and that with the study of the ancient classics a love for the pagan world infiltrated civilization; and to say that the Renaissance signifies the study of man and nature carried on outside ecclesiastical authority, is to give only partial definitions which do not really express the spirit of these movements. The Renaissance actually consists in Neo-Platonic pantheism, which was more or less consciously present during the entire period -- it was indeed the sole font of thought. It is in the spirit of Neo-Platonism that Humanism divinizes man as a free and independent entity, and seeks the explanation of all reality. It is in the Neo-Platonic spirit that the state was to be considered as above all morality, that cunning was to be called a virtue, and that the Protestant Reform was to seek justification for individual interpretation of Sacred Scripture. Neo-Platonism was the heritage which the Renaissance passed on to the following ages; these in turn developed the germs of immanentism contained in it. How was it possible that the Renaissance philosophers, the majority of whom were Christians, could think and live like pagans? The answer is to be found in what has been said of the principle of the double truth; the falsity of the principle was not fully realized at the time of the Renaissance. It would be a grave error to believe that the exaltation of man and of nature could be attained in no other way than through Neo-Platonism. For this exaltation can be achieved, and on a much higher level, through the doctrine of Christianity. The Christian concept of the exaltation of man and of nature is profoundly different from that of Neo-Platonism and the Renaissance, because of the radical antithesis which exists between transcendentalism and immanentism. For the Renaissance, man and nature are the Divine (God); for Christianity, they are the image of God and hence have divine value. In man this divine value consists in the supernatural (grace). It does not destroy nature but unites it to the Divinity. In this order of transcendence, man and nature find their real value; and the problem of evil, inexplicable in any Neo-Platonic system of thought, finds it justification. The humanists of the fifteenth century could have risen to the truly Christian motives for man's nobility. Instead, they bound themselves to paganism and Neo-Platonism, and plunged, unknowingly, into pantheism and immanentism. Elsewhere On the Internet
THE RESURGENCE OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL SCHOOLS Humanism was not an age of creation, but essentially one of imitation of the ancient classics, many of which were at this time rediscovered and passionately studied. The ancient classics had been studied also during the Middle Ages; but Humanism is drawn to them not only under the aesthetic aspect of philology, but even more because of the desire to discover in them a model of life for more because of the desire to discover in them a model of life for man make newly conscious of his nobility and of the creative force of his spirit. Thus is attained the concept of man proper to Humanism: man the builder of the world in which he is to live and to rule. This is the world which is of interest to the Humanist; before it every vision of another life and another world which transcends the visible world loses all value. To conquer this world, man must make levy not upon the goods of fortune but upon the nobility of his nature. Thus there is had the curious hybrid of the Christian who lives like a pagan but lacks the thoughtlessness of ancient paganism, an attitude which was impossible after the message of Christianity and the rational justification given by the great masters of Scholasticism. Granted these intentions, it was natural that the study of Plato's thought should take first place. The works of Plato were only partly known during the preceding age, which had had the translation of Leonardo Bruni, made in 1404. The complete works were known in Italy only in 1423 through a Camaldolese monk, the theologian Ambrose Traversari, who brought them from Constantinople. Actually, the decisive impulse toward Platonic studies in Italy, as toward the study of the classics in general, followed upon the arrival of the learned Byzantines at the Council of Florence (1439), which was called for the reunion of the Greek and the Latin Churches. Later, the fall of Constantinople into the hands of the Turks caused another influx of learned Orientals to the West. Florence was the preferred city of these intellectuals, as it was for the Council. The most representative figure among these Orientals was Georgius Gemistus Pletho (c. 1355 - c. 1450). With his work On the Differences between Plato and Aristotle, he opened a bitter controversy which had heated and even fantastic phases. It will be mentioned only that the Aristotelian George of Trebizond wrote a violent reply to Gemistus Pletho in his work, Comparison of Plato and Aristotle, in which he affirms the superiority of the Stagirite over Plato because of Aristotle's doctrine on God and the soul; of the greater accord between Aristotle's works and Christianity; and because of his scientific spirit. To George of Trebizond replied Basilius Bessarion, also of Trebizond, who had come to Italy for the Council of Florence, and having received the cardinalate from Pope Eugene IV, remained in Italy after the fall of Constantinople. These spirited controversies led to an ever-growing affection for Platonism at Florence. In a villa close to the city and donated by Cosimo de' Medici, there was founded the Platonic Academy, a favorite meeting place for men of letters, artists, and philosophers. The Platonism of the Academy of Florence, however, is not pure Platonism, but rather Neo-Platonism with a pronounced tendency toward immanentism as it had been developed by the Neo-Platonists of the Middle Ages: John Duns Scotus, John Scotus Erigena and Master Eckhart.
1. Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) The most representative philosopher of this academy was Marsilio Ficino (picture), who was born at Figline, Valdarno, in 1433. Ficino, who during his entire lifetime enjoyed the protection and patronage of the Medici and was friendly with most of the men of letters and thinkers of his time, men like Pulci and Lorenzo de' Medici, was personally most upright of character although living amid the corruption common to his time. Ordained a priest in 1473, he lived entirely in love with philosophy. He died in 1499. Ficino Greatest work is Theologia Platonica, written with the intention of proving that Christianity had in Plato its theological precedent, and hence of demonstrating, in single historical picture the harmony between Platonism and Christianity. The Theologia Platonica is characterized, metaphysically, by the peculiar immanentism of Neo-Platonism; in a series of emanations man holds his place at the center. He is the microcosm, the "copula mundi," because in the twofold knowledge of sense and intellect he embraces what exists above and below him. This thought was very dear to the Humanists. It was Facino who manifested his literary activity in a translation from the Greek into elegant Latin of the works of Plato, of Plotinus, and of a few Neo-Platonist philosophers. His translation of Plotinus was until recent times the only one in existence. In the same Academy of Florence was a friend of Ficino, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, celebrated for his prodigious memory and gifted with a broad culture. He wrote De dignitate hominis, in which Neo-Platonism is intermingled with the Cabala: at the base of nature there are occult powers, and man can use these forces to uncover the secrets of nature. Elsewhere On The Internet
2. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) Popular legends and scholarly tradition used to represent Pico as a resuscitated Greek god who had taught, by means of Platonic ideas, a new religion of worldly individualism. But, in fact, Pico della Mirandola (picture), who charmed his greatest contemporaries and was admired by Reuchlin and Erasmus, by Lorenzo de' Midici and Savonarola, was no pagan thinker, no heretic, no pantheist. His great aim was to reconcile all philosophies which, according to him, conflicted with one another only in appearance. He especially tried to synthesize Plato and Aristotle, and constantly refused to depreciate Aquinas or Scholasticism in general, although his aesthetic sense was captivated by Platonism. But it was the Jewish Cabala that inspired him most. He held that Christian faith was not fundamentally different from the Cabala and expressed his strong conviction that every great philosophical or religious doctrine uses esoteric wisdom to veil secret teachings, which only the cabalist scholar is able to unveil. At the age of 24, Pico planned to challenge all scholars of the known world by defending 900 conclusions or theses in a public disputation at Rome, but papal authorities prevented him from doing so and condemned thirteen of his conclusions. Pico's metaphysics, despite its Platonic wrappings, depended largely on Aquinas as well as on the Cabala. His Heptaplas is a commentary on the Cabalist doctrine of Sefiroth, the ten creative powers. His last work De Ente et Uno (On Being and One) was inspired by his Hebrew teacher Eliah Del Medigo who had written a book De Esse, Essentia et Uno. Pico was one of the most elegant stylists. He had an extraordinary talent for striking formulas. Thus he expressed his standpoint in the short sentence: "No philosophy turns us away from the trend to mysticism; philosophy seeks, theology finds, religion possesses truth." Of princely descent, related to almost all ruling dynasties in Italy, handsome, learned, an untiring worker, a reliable friend, Pico enchanted everyone he met, except the officers of papal jurisdiction. In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On The Internet
While Platonism held prevalence at Florence, at Padua and Bologna Aristotelianism held the primacy. As at Florence Platonism was not the pure speculation of Plato but, rather, Neo-Platonism, so also in Padua and Bologna Aristotelianism was not precisely the philosophy of Aristotle which had already been developed and perfected by the masters of Scholasticism; instead, here were set forth the two currents of Aristotelian thought which had their sources in Alexander of Aphrodisias and in Averroes. The interpretation of Alexander of Aphrodisias led to pure naturalism, for he not only denied the personal "intellectus agens," but held that the "intellectus agens" was material in nature and only a degree superior to sensitive cognition. Thus for Alexander there is no immortality of the soul, either personal or universal. Averroes, on the other hand, although denying the individual intellect, held to the existence of a separate intellect; and if the individual soul died with the body, the separate intellect, which was immortal, would continue to live. Both interpretations were contrary not only to Catholic philosophy -- Scholasticism and Thomism -- but also to the fundamental requirements of Humanism, which extolled the divine in man. Averroism, moreover, seemed more in antithesis to the humanistic mentality, in so far as it made man depend upon an impersonal intellect, in relation to which he was merely a passive potency. Alexandrianism, on the other hand, denied immortality, and made man a means and end unto himself; hence this trend of thought had great success. The Aristotelians of the University of Padua took an interest in the interpretation of the scientific writings of Aristotle. At Padua, too, the pure Aristotelians upheld the science of Aristotle with a dogmatic faith, and accused of anti-Aristotelianism those who departed from what Aristotle had said. This condition endured to the time of Galileo and entered into the noted argumentation which occurred during that period. The greatest advocate of the Alexandrian School is Pietro Pomponazzi.
While the philosophy of the Renaissance is characterized by the overthrow of the authority of Aristotle and the revival of Platonism, Pietro Pomponazzi (picture), one of the most acute thinkers who lived in that period, remained a staunch Aristotelian, for he was not affected by the religious and artistic currents of his time, and possessed neither a reactionary nor traditional but rather a progressive and independent mind. He was the philosophical teacher of Copernicus, and in the middle of the 19th century his example encouraged Roberto Ardigo, the leader of Italian positivism to abandon the Church and to devote himself to secular science. Pomponazzi was by no means uncritical when he adopted Aristotle's views, and he was opposed to both Aquinas' and Averroes' interpretation of his master, although he had also learned much from Averroes. His principal work On the Immortality of the Soul (1516), in which he denied immortality, aroused a storm of indignation, and Pope Leo X charged Agostino Nifo with refuting it. Pomponazzi was insistent that the conviction of mortality of the soul allows man to be good and virtuous. Pomponazzi's general design was to defend and secure experience, which he conceived so broadly that it included magic and miracles which he explained as natural and not performed by angels or demons. What he considered outside the wide range of natural causes assumed by him, he combated as superstition. From his investigation of the relation between prayer and fulfillment of the wishes expressed by prayer, he proceeded to views on the history of religions. He stated that religions are subject to the law of change and necessary decline, and he did not except Christianity from these laws. But he distinguished simple faith from the spirit of inquiry, and declared that philosophical thoughts must not influence man's behavior as a faithful Christian and member of the Catholic Church. This version of the Averroist assumption of "double truth" allowed him to remain unmolested as a professor at the Universities of Padua, Ferrara, and Bologna. In The Radical Academy
Elsewhere On The Internet
III. Stoicism and Epicureanism Humanism, in its passionate invocation of the past, had a practical end besides its artistic purpose: to find a model way of life which would be worthy of the wise man. This explains the success of Stoicism and Epicureanism; both these philosophies had been presented in ancient times as models of life for the sage. Stoicism, with its praise of virtue and disdain for vice, appeared as a substitute for Christianity. Vice is a penalty in itself, and virtue finds its reward in the act of virtue itself. Hence man can live honestly without moral constraint and without keeping the authoritative directives of the Church. Many Humanists even took the name of a representative figure of Stoicism; Brutus and Catilina were the most popular names chosen. Under the banner of such heroes, revolutions were born, and when the perpetrators were discovered and accused of treason, they went fearlessly to their death, as happened in Rome under Eugene IV. Epicureanism met with equal favor and fever, and its doctrine and its morality of pleasure were revived. Its representative is Lorenzo Valla (1406-1457), who wrote Of Pleasure and Of the True Good, in which he upholds the theory that the end of life is pleasure; this pleasure begins with earthly enjoyments, and is fulfilled in the heavenly beatitude. Such teachings were vain attempts to justify paganism in the presence of Christianity. They were just as vain and useless as the attempt to deny the presence of evil, for evil is the most efficacious answer to all those who propose earthly happiness as the end of man. Later, the materialism of the Frenchman Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655), a contemporary and opponent of Descartes, had even greater influence. Gassendi renewed the atomist and mechanist concept of Democritus and Epicurus in a work entitled The Life, Customs, and Doctrine of Epicurus, wherein he gives a popular interpretation of Epicurean morality. Elsewhere On The Internet
When, in 1622, Galileo was tormented by his condemnation and was watched narrowly by the Inquisition, many scholars were terrified, and not a few denied any connection with him. But Pierre Gassendi (picture), a Catholic priest, known by his writings on astronomy, physics and mathematics, wrote a letter to Galileo that had to pass the censorship of the Inquisition, as Gassendi knew. He comforted Galileo by protesting that the ecclesiastical sentence had nothing to do with the conscience of a scientist, and Galileo had no reason to accuse himself of any moral failure. There were not many savants who acted as frankly as Gassendi did. Gassendi himself was wise, or at least cautious enough to avoid persecution on the part of the Church, although he professed materialism and criticized Descartes' idealistic views. For Gassendi combined his atomistic materialism with the belief in the Biblical God, and asserted that the atoms, conceived in accordance with the doctrines of Democritus and Epicurus, were created by the Christian God. Gassendi therefore was called the "Christianized Epicurus." Also in his personal life, Gassendi knew how to be a dignified priest, a learned theologian, and how to enjoy the society of witty and cheerful men, no matter whether they were faithful Christians or libertines. In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On The Internet
IV. Skepticism and Eclecticism In ancient times the contrast between the philosophical schools led to Skepticism those who were unable to make a critical survey of the various theories; the same phenomenon occurred as regards Humanism, from which a new Skepticism was born. Other reasons also contributed to this resurgence of Skepticism, such as the search for the individual, the inquiry for detail, the search for aesthetic form, and especially the desire to save religious faith from the attacks of its adversaries. The most important monument of the Skepticism of the Renaissance is the Essais of the Frenchman Michel de Montaigne (see below), wherein Skeptic, Stoic, and Epicurean motives are interwoven. Montaigne makes man the center of reference and of coordination as regards the experiences of nature, and his discussion of every question concludes with the expression, "I don't know." Outside proper individual concreteness everything is uncertain, and hence must be regarded with benevolent tolerance. Aesthetic motives led the Humanists to a veritable idolatry of Cicero, model of the new man, who through his individual resources creates his own powerful personality. But if Cicero is a great orator, this does not mean that he is a great philosopher; he is a representative of Eclecticism which is the negation of all philosophy. Still, the Humanists' love of Cicero led them to consider him a philosopher, and hence brought about the rebirth of Eclecticism. In opposition to this exaggerated cult for Cicero, Erasmus of Rotterdam reacted with his Ciceronianus, and François Rebelais with Gargantua -- with the intention of pointing out the emptiness of such formalism and calling attention to what is individual.
Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) Born in Rotterdam, Desiderius Erasmus (picture) was brought up in the tradition of the Brethren of the Common Life. He believed in Christ and His mission and regarded Christianity not only as a religion and doctrine of salvation, but also as a guide to moral life. He held that philosophy and the arts could also show the right way. In his later years, he conceived of Christianity more as a religion of the spirit based upon confidence in human reason. He stated that all human evils were rooted in ignorance and infatuation and therefore education of humanity was the essential task of his life. Although he suffered from living in "a century of fury," he endeavored to stem the tide of fanaticism by complaining and despising religious exaltation and partisanship, thereby exposing himself to the fury of all religious parties. Sometimes referred to as the Voltaire of the Age of Reformation, he was essentially a man of deep religious feeling and conviction; an independent thinker; the greatest philologist of his time and one of the greatest of all times; a staunch defender of human reason, opposed Luther's teachings; a fearless critic of clerical abuses; and a religious reformer who tried to avoid schisms. Though he disapproved of Luther's theology, of his doctrine of predestination, and his derogation of human reason, he defended Luther only for the sake of freedom of conscience and because he approved of Luther's criticisms of the existing Church, which he himself had severely criticized. In fact, it was Erasmus' courageous intervention that saved Luther's life at the very beginning of the latter's reforming activities. Luther essentially relied on St. Paul; Erasmus maintained that the Sermon on the Mount was the principal basis of the Christian religion. He refused to give dogma primary importance, placed piety above tenets, moral righteousness above orthodoxy, and nothing above "true and perfect friendship, dying and living with Christ." Erasmus exerted considerable influence in the spiritual life of England. He died in Basle in 1536. In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On The Internet
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) While noblemen used to adorn their coats-of-arms with grandiloquent devices, Michel de Montaigne (picture) wrote under his own: "Que sais-je?" (What do I know?). His lifetime was a period of constant quarreling between theologians, philosophers, and scientists, and a time of bloody religious wars. Montaigne fought for peace and tolerance, using, for that purpose, the weapons of irony and skepticism. Against fanaticism he appealed to clear thinking and considerate reason, and, due to his literary skill, he succeeded in inspiring confidence in the value of reason at least in small circles of men everywhere in Europe, though most of the rulers, politicians and theologians continued to incite the fanaticism of the masses. Montaigne, born in the castle of Montaigne near Bordeaux, France, was the son of a father who probably was of Jewish descent, and a mother, whose family was certainly Jewish. Some of Montaigne's relatives were Marranos, baptized Jews who secretly continued to profess Judaism, and Montaigne knew that. He admired the tenacity with which the Jews held to their faith in the face of persecution, and doubted that any one of them became a true convert to another religion. Montaigne tried to undermine the position of any orthodoxy and fanaticism by showing the common weaknesses of men in order to make them aware of the possibility that other people might be right and they themselves could be wrong. He declared that arrogance is the natural and characteristic disease of man who, in fact, is the most fragile of all creatures. But his manner of exhorting to humility had nothing in common with that of ecclesiastical sermons. Montaigne completely changed the tone of religious and philosophical discussions. He did not express indignation. He emphasized the personal character of his views and experiences, and did not exclude other people's opinions on the same items. He understood men of genius as well as plain people. He studied Athens' civilization and was interested in the life of American Indians. At those who think that the entire universe is established and moving only for the commodity and the service of human beings he smiled. But while rejecting anthropocentric teleology and opposing any belief in absolute knowledge, Montaigne far from denied the values of human life and character, of nature, beauty, the arts and sciences. The relativity of values was to him no proof that there are no values or duties at all. Kindness toward fellow men was presented as an almost absolute value by Montaigne. For his confessions, Montaigne created a new literary form -- namely, the essay. It was used by Bacon, Descartes, Locke, Rousseau, and Voltaire, among others, and has remained popular to the present day. One of Montaigne's most interested readers was William Shakespeare and he was followed by Molière, Laurence Sterne, Anatole France and a host of others. In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On The Internet
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