Period: ~1350–1600 | Context: rediscovery of Greco-Latin classics; dignity of man; critique of Scholasticism; religious rupture with the Protestant Reformation

Historical Context

Humanism (second half of the 14th century – 16th century) values the litterae humaniores — grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history and moral philosophy. The Renaissance represents the cultural synthesis of this period in Italy, expanding throughout Europe. The Protestant Reformation (16th century) is the religious unfolding of the same critical spirit.

Main currents:

  • Neoplatonism (Cusanus, Ficino, Pico)
  • Neo-Epicureanism (Valla)
  • Renaissance Aristotelianism
  • Humanist Skepticism (Montaigne)
  • Religious Reformation
  • Modern Political Philosophy (Machiavelli, More, Bodin)
  • Naturalism (Bruno, Campanella, Telesio)

I. Initiators of Humanism

Petrarch (1304–1374)

  • Return to Latin classics; critique of Aristotelian Scholasticism
  • Interiority and individuality as central themes

Leonardo Bruni (~1370–1444) and Coluccio Salutati (1331–1406)

  • Studia humanitatis as civic formation; the lettered citizen as ideal

II. Renaissance Neoplatonism

Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464)

  • Neither humanist (rhetoric) nor scholastic (disputatio); uses mathematics as analogy
  • Learned Ignorance (docta ignorantia): the human mind (finite) cannot attain divine infinity; we approach truth through asymptotic inquiry
  • Coincidence of Opposites (coincidentia oppositorum): in God all opposites coincide — enlarge the circle until it becomes a straight line
  • Complication/Explication/Contraction: God complicates all things in himself; the universe is the explication of God; each thing is a contraction of God
  • Man as microcosm
  • Works: On Learned Ignorance, On Conjectures, The Ball Game

Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499)

  • Directs the Platonic Academy of Florence (under Lorenzo de’ Medici)
  • Translates Plato, Plotinus and the Corpus Hermeticum into Latin
  • Soul as copula mundi: hierarchy God → Angel → Soul → Quality → Matter
  • Platonic love in a Christian sense: ascent from sensible beauty to divine Beauty
  • Natural magic: the philosopher can act upon nature through the sympathetic forces that permeate it
  • Works: Platonic Theology, On Love (De Amore)

Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494)

  • Dignity of Man (De Dignitate Hominis): man is the only creature at the boundary of two worlds; unlike angels and animals, man has no fixed nature — he is the artificer of himself
  • Christian Kabbalah: fusion of Jewish mysticism with Neoplatonic and Christian philosophy
  • 900 Theses proposed for public debate (prohibited by Pope Innocent VIII)
  • Works: Oration on the Dignity of Man, Philosophical Conclusions

III. Neo-Epicureanism

Lorenzo Valla (1407–1457)

  • Recovers Epicureanism in a Christian context: all products of nature are holy and praiseworthy, including pleasure
  • There are degrees of pleasure; the apex is Christian love of God
  • Philological method: respect the word in its historical-linguistic context (critique of medieval texts, including the Donation of Constantine)
  • Works: On Pleasure and the True Good

IV. Humanist Skepticism

Montaigne (1533–1592)

  • “Que sais-je?” (What do I know?) — motto of moderate skepticism
  • Moderate Skepticism: distrust of reason, not of faith; faith is on a different plane and is unassailable
  • Fideism: absolute truths are grounded in revelation, not in reason
  • Self-knowledge as philosophical program: know thyself
  • Man’s greatness lies in his mediocrity — happiness springs from accepting human limits
  • Work: Essays (3 vols.)

V. Religious Reformation

Desiderius Erasmus (~1466–1536)

  • Greatest humanist of Northern Europe; friend of Thomas More
  • Critique of Aristotelian-scholastic philosophy; true philosophy is philosophia Christi (faith, charity, hope lived)
  • The Praise of Folly: self-praise by the goddess Folly — daughter of Plutus (god of wealth) and Youth; folly is what gives life to the world; critique of the Church, war, marriage, theologians and monks; the apex is the “sacred folly” of Christian faith
  • Philological method applied to the Bible (Novum Instrumentum — NT in Greek and Latin)
  • Works: The Praise of Folly, Adages, Colloquia, Manual of the Christian Soldier

Martin Luther (1483–1546)

  • Foundations: justification by faith alone (sola fide); infallibility of Scripture (sola Scriptura); universal priesthood; free examination of Scripture
  • Rupture with Rome (1517 — 95 Theses); excommunication (1521)
  • Translation of the Bible into German — founds German literary language

John Calvin (1509–1564)

  • Predestination: God determines from eternity who is saved and who is condemned
  • Providence = continuation of the creative act
  • Influence: Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism (Max Weber)

Counter-Reformation

  • Council of Trent (1545–1563): confirms tradition + Scripture; Inquisition; Index; Society of Jesus (Jesuits — Ignatius of Loyola)

VI. Political Philosophy

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527)

  • Founder of modern political science — separation between ethics and politics
  • The Prince (1513):
    • Human nature: neither good nor bad, but tends toward evil
    • Forms of government: republics and principalities
    • Virtù: force, skill, will, cunning
    • Fortuna: luck governs half of events; virtù faces the other half
    • Prince = lion (force) + fox (cunning)
    • Consequentialism: the ends justify the means in politics
  • Discourses on Livy (c. 1513–1519, published 1531): Machiavelli the republican
  • Works: The Prince, Discourses on the First Decade of Livy, The Art of War

Thomas More (1478–1535)

  • Chancellor of Henry VIII; refused to recognize him as head of the Church; beheaded; canonized (1935)
  • Utopia (1516): ideal society without money, with moderate work (6 hours/day), religious tolerance, equality — deliberate ambiguity between critique and ideal
  • Name in Greek means “place that does not exist” (ou-topos)
  • Works: Utopia, Epigrams

Jean Bodin (1530–1596)

  • Foundation of the State: sovereignty — perpetual and absolute power
  • Limits of absolutism: natural and divine laws
  • Defends religious tolerance
  • Works: Six Books of the Commonwealth

Hugo Grotius (1583–1645)

  • Founder of modern international law
  • Natural law grounded in reason and human nature; valid even if God did not exist
  • Works: The Rights of War and Peace (De Iure Belli ac Pacis)

VII. Renaissance Naturalists

Giordano Bruno (1548–1600)

  • Burned at the stake by the Inquisition
  • Infinite and Copernican universe; infinite worlds; God as infinite Monad transcending things
  • Hierarchy: God (infinite Monad) → Universal Intellect (divine force in things) → Matter (one-many universe)
  • Death = accidental mutation; man becomes one with the whole (heroic frenzy)
  • Pantheism: anticipates Spinoza, Schelling and Romanticism
  • Works: On the Infinite, the Universe and the Worlds; On Cause, Principle and Unity; The Heroic Frenzies

Bernardino Telesio (1509–1588)

  • Autonomy of physics with respect to theology
  • 3 natural principles: heat (expansive force), cold (contractive force), corporeal mass

Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639)

  • City of the Sun: theocratic-naturalist utopia
  • God as being by essence: supreme Power/Wisdom/Love

General References

  • Giovanni Reale & Dario Antiseri, History of Philosophy, vol. 3 (Humanism and Renaissance)
  • Nicholas of Cusa: On Learned Ignorance (Portuguese trans. Loyola)
  • Machiavelli: The Prince (various Portuguese trans.)
  • Erasmus: The Praise of Folly (Portuguese trans. L&PM)
  • Giordano Bruno: On the Infinite, the Universe and the Worlds
  • Ernst Cassirer, The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy