Lecture 5. RENAISSANCE PHILOSOPHY
Plan
1. Characteristic features of
Renaissance. Humanism and anthropocentrism.
2. Ideology of Reformation.
3. Natural philosophy and philosophy of
natural studies.
The
Renaissance (from French: Renaissance "re-birth", Italian: Rinascimento, from rinascere "to be reborn")
was a cultural movement
that spanned the period roughly from the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in
Italy in the Late Middle Ages
and later spreading to the rest of Europe. Though availability of paper and the
invention of metal movable type sped the dissemination of
ideas from the later 15th century, the changes of the Renaissance were not
uniformly experienced across
As
a cultural movement, it encompassed innovative flowering of Latin and
vernacular literatures, beginning with the 14th-century resurgence of learning
based on classical sources,
which contemporaries credited to Petrarch,
the development of linear perspective and other
techniques of rendering a more natural reality in painting, and gradual but
widespread educational reform.
In
politics, the Renaissance contributed the development of the conventions of diplomacy,
and in science an increased reliance on observation. Historians often argue
this intellectual transformation was a bridge between the Middle Ages
and the Modern era.
Although the Renaissance saw revolutions in many intellectual pursuits, as well
as social and political upheaval, it is perhaps best known for its artistic
developments and the contributions of such polymaths as Leonardo da Vinci
and Michelangelo,
who inspired the term "Renaissance man".
There
is a consensus that the Renaissance began in Florence,
Italy, in the 14th century.Various theories have been proposed to account for
its origins and characteristics, focusing on a variety of factors including the
social and civic peculiarities of Florence at the time; its political
structure; the patronage of its dominant family, the Medici;
and the migration of Greek scholars and texts to
Italy following the Conquest of Constantinople
at the hands of the Ottoman Turks.
The
Renaissance has a long and complex historiography, and in line with general scepticism
of discrete periodizations,
there has been much debate among historians reacting to the 19th-century
glorification of the "Renaissance" and individual culture heroes as
"Renaissance men", questioning the usefulness of Renaissance
as a term and as a historical delineation. The art historian Erwin Panofsky
observed of this resistance to the concept of Renaissance
It
is perhaps no accident that the factuality of the Italian Renaissance has been
most vigorously questioned by those who are not obliged to take a professional
interest in the aesthetic aspects of civilization— historians of economic and
social developments, political and religious situations, and, most
particularly, natural science— but only exceptionally by students of literature
and hardly ever by historians of Art.
Some
have called into question whether the Renaissance was a cultural
"advance" from the Middle Ages, instead seeing it as a period of
pessimism and nostalgia
for the classical age,while
social and economic historians of the longue durée
especially have instead focused on the continuity between the two eras, linked,
as Panofsky himself observed, "by a thousand ties".
The
word Renaissance, whose literal translation from French into English is
"Rebirth", was first used and defined by French historian Jules Michelet
in his 1855 work, Histoire de France. The word Renaissance has
also been extended to other historical and cultural movements, such as the Carolingian Renaissance
and the Renaissance of the 12th century.
In the 15th and 16th centuries a
revival of scientific interest in nature was accompanied by a tendency toward
pantheistic mysticism—that is, finding God in all things. The Roman Catholic
prelate Nicholas of Cusa anticipated the work of the Polish astronomer Nicolaus
Copernicus in his suggestion that the Earth moved around the Sun, thus
displacing humanity from the center of the universe; he also conceived of the
universe as infinite and identical with God. The Italian philosopher Giordano
Bruno, who similarly identified the universe with God, developed the
philosophical implications of the Copernican theory. Bruno’s philosophy
influenced subsequent intellectual forces that led to the rise of modern
science and to the Reformation.
Renaissance
philosophy was
the period of the history of philosophy in
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
Francesco
Petrarca (July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374), known in English
as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the
earliest Renaissance humanists. Petrarch is often called
the "Father of Humanism".[1]
Based on Petrarch's works, as well as those of Giovanni Boccaccio and above all Dante Alighieri,
Pietro Bembo
in the 16th century created the model for the modern Italian language,
later endorsed by the Accademia della Crusca. His sonnets were
admired and imitated throughout
Petrarch is best known for
his Italian poetry, notably the Canzoniere
and the Trionfi
("Triumphs"). However, Petrarch was an enthusiastic Latin scholar and
did most of his writing in this language. His Latin writings include scholarly
works, introspective essays, letters, and more poetry. Among them are Secretum
("My Secret Book"), an intensely personal, guilt-ridden imaginary dialogue
with Augustine of Hippo; De Viris Illustribus ("On Famous
Men"), a series of moral biographies; Rerum Memorandarum Libri,
an incomplete treatise on the cardinal virtues;
De Otio Religiosorum
("On Religious Leisure") and De Vita Solitaria
("On the Solitary Life"), which praise the contemplative life; De Remediis Utriusque Fortunae
("Remedies for Fortune Fair and Foul"), a self-help book which
remained popular for hundreds of years; Itinerarium
("Petrarch's Guide to the Holy Land"), a distant ancestor of Fodor's
and Lonely Planet;
a number of invectives against opponents such as doctors, scholastics, and the French;
the Carmen Bucolicum, a
collection of 12 pastoral poems; and the unfinished epic Africa. Petrarch also published many
volumes of his letters, including a few written to his long-dead friends from
history such as Cicero
and Virgil.
Cicero, Virgil, and Seneca were his literary models. Most of his
Latin writings are difficult to find today. However, several of his works are
scheduled to appear in the Harvard University Press series I Tatti . It
is difficult to assign any precise dates to his writings because he tended to
revise them throughout his life.
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 didn't 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.[24]
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. 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
glory should be grounded in classical example and philosophical contemplation.
Renaissance philosophy was the
period of the history of philosophy in
Renaissance humanism was a movement that affected
the cultural, political, social, and literary landscape of
Humanism's divergence from orthodox Christianity can be
identified with the condemnation of Pelagianism by Jerome and Augustine. Like
the Humanists, Pelagius perceived humans as possessing inherent capacity for
developing the qualities that the church perceived as necessitating the gift of
grace from God. Pelagius rejected the doctrine of original sin. The Humanists
likewise recognize humans as born not with a burden of inherited sin due to
their ancestry but with potential for both good and evil which will develop in
this life as their characters are formed. The Humanists therefore reject
Calvinistic predestination, and understandably therefore arouse the hostility
of Protestant fundamentalists.
Renaissance humanists believed that the liberal
arts (music, art, grammar, rhetoric, oratory, history, poetry, using classical
texts, and the studies of all of the above) should be practiced by all levels
of wealth. They also approved of self, human worth and individual dignity.
Noteworthy humanist scholars from this period
include the Dutch theologian Erasmus, the English author (and Roman Catholic
saint) Thomas More, the French writer François Rabelais, the Italian
poet Francesco Petrarch and the Italian scholar Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.
In astronomy, heliocentrism is the theory that the Sun is at the center of
the Solar System. The word came from the Greek ( Helios = sun= center). Historically, heliocentrism was
opposed to geocentrism, which placed the earth at the center. (The distinction
between the Solar System and the Universe was not clear until modern times, but
extremely important relative to the controversy over cosmology and religion.)
Although a number of early cosmologists such as Aristarchus speculated about
the motion of the Earth around a stationary Sun, most of them refrained
themselves from speaking out out of the fear for imprisonments and even
execution based on claims of blasphemy and other charges from the Church at the
time. It was not until the 16th century with sacrifices of scientists such as
Giordano Bruno and the Polish mathematician and astronomer Copernicus presented
a fully predictive mathematical model of a heliocentric system, which was later
elaborated and expanded by Kepler and defended by Galileo, becoming the center
of a major dispute.
The City of the Sun is a philosophical work by the Italian Dominican philosopher Tommaso Campanella. It is an important early utopian work. The City of the Sun is
presented as a dialogue between "a Grandmaster of the Knights Hospitaller
and a Genoese Sea-Captain". Inspired by Plato's Republic and the
description of Atlantis inTimaeus,
it describes a theocratic society where goods, women and children are held in
common. It also resembles the City of
Arise, O Lord, and judge Thy cause. A wild boar has
invaded Thy vineyard. Arise, O Peter, and consider the case of the Holy Roman
Church, the mother of all churches, consecrated by thy blood. Arise, O Paul,
who by thy teaching and death hast illumined and dost illumine the Church.
Arise all ye saints, and the whole universal Church, whose interpretations of
Scripture has been assailed. (papal
bull of Pope Leo X, 1520)
It truly seems to me that if this fury of the
Romanists should continue, there is no remedy except that the emperor, kings,
and princes, girded with force and arms, should resolve to attack this plague
of all the earth no longer with words but with the sword. . . . If we punish
thieves with the gallows, robbers with the sword, and heretics with fire, why
do we not all the more fling ourselves with all our weapons upon these masters
of perdition, these cardinals, these popes, and all this sink of Roman sodomy
that ceaselessly corrupts the church of God and wash our hands in their blood
so that we may free ourselves and all who belong to us from this most dangerous
fire?(Martin Luther, 1521)
Young people have lost that deference to their elders
on which the social order depends; they
reject all correction. Sexual offenses, rapes, adulteries, incests and
seductions are more common than ever before. How monstrous that the world
should have been overthrown by such dense clouds for the last three or four
centuries, so that it could not see clearly how to obey Christ's commandment to
love our enemies. Everything is in shameful confusion; everywhere I see only
cruelty, plots, frauds, violence, injustice, shamelessness while the poor groan
under the oppression and the innocent are arrogantly and outrageously harassed.
God must be asleep. (John Calvin)
The 16th century in
But the 16th century was more than just the story of
the Renaissance. The century witnessed the growth of royal power, the
appearance of centralized monarchies and the discovery of new lands. During the
great age of exploration, massive quantities of gold and silver flood
We have to ask why something like the Reformation took
place when it did. In general, dissatisfaction with the Church could be found
at all levels of European society. First, it can be said that many devout
Christians were finding the Church's growing emphasis on rituals unhelpful in
their quest for personal salvation. Indeed, what we are witnessing is the shift
from salvation of whole groups of people, to something more personal and
individual. The sacraments had become forms of ritualized behavior that no
longer "spoke" to the people of
These abuses called for two major responses. On the
one hand, there was a general tendency toward anti-clericalism, that is, a
general but distinct distrust and dislike of the clergy. Some people began to
argue that the layperson was just as good as the priest, an argument already
advanced by the Waldensians of the 12th century. On the other
hand, there were calls for reform. These two responses created fertile ground
for conflict of all kinds, and that conflict would be both personal and social.
The deepest source of conflict was personal and
spiritual. The Church had grown more formal in its organization, which is
hardly unsurprising since it was now sixteen centuries old. The Church had its
own elaborate canon law as well as a dogmatic theology. All of this had been
created at the Fourth Lateran
Council of 1215. That Council
also established the importance of the sacraments as well as the role of the
priest in administering the sacraments. 1215 also marks the year that the
Church further elaborated its position on Purgatory. Above all, the Fourth
Lateran Council of 1215 established the important doctrine that salvation could
only be won through good works -- fasting, chastity, abstinence and asceticism.
The common people, meanwhile, sought a more personal,
spiritual and immediate kind of religion -- something that would touch them
directly, in the heart. The rituals of the Church now meant very little to them
-- they needed some kind of guarantee that they were doing the right thing –
that they would indeed be saved. The Church gave little thought to reforming
itself. People yearned for something more while the Church seemed to promise
less. What seemed to be needed was a general reform of Christianity itself.
Only such a major transformation would effect the changes reflected in the
spiritual desires of the people.
Throughout the 14th and 15th centuries the Church was
faced with numerous direct challenges.
Heretics had been assaulting the
Church since the 12th century. The heretics were Christians who deviated from
Christian dogma. Many did not believe in Christian baptism -- the majority felt
left out of the Church.
There were also numerous mystics who
desired a direct and emotional divine illumination. They claimed they had been
illuminated by an inner light that assured them of salvation.
There was an influential
philosophical movement called nominalism that stressed the reality of anything
concrete and real, thus doubting faith.
Renaissance humanism rejected the
Christian matrix almost completely and instead turned to the Classical World,
the true source of virtue and wisdom.
The breakdown of feudalism and the
discovery and exploitation of the
The Church was also challenged by an
increasing awareness of ethnicity and nationalism, e.g. Joan of Arc and the 100
Years' War.
Merchants and skilled workers living
in cities were growing wealthy and influential as they began to supply
European kings consolidated their
power over their nobility.
There was an awareness, thanks to the
age of discovery, that there was a pagan world outside the world of
The Reformation was dominated by the figure of MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546). Luther was the son of
Hans Luther, a copper miner from the district of Saxony. Hans was a self-made
man. As a youth he worked menial jobs in copper mines -- but by the time Martin
was born at Eisleben, he had risen to prominence and owned several mines. Hans
Luther wanted his son to do even more with his life so while Martin was in his
teens, it was decided that he would study law. So, after his preliminary
education was complete, at the age of 17 young Martin Luther entered the
But at this point, Luther rejected the world. He was
twenty-one at the time. In 1505, Luther tells us that he experienced the
"first great event" of his life. In that year he experienced some
kind of conversion after having been struck by a bolt of lightning. He cried out,
"Help, St. Anne, I will become a monk." He was struck by the hand of
God and felt that God was in everything. He felt doubt within himself – he
simply could not reconcile his faith with his worldly ambitions. And so, Luther
was plagued by an overwhelming sense of guilt, fear and terror. To relieve his
anxiety he joined the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine. There he would be
shielded from worldly distractions. There he would find the true path to heaven.
He fasted, prayed and scourged himself relentlessly. But he still felt doubts.
One day, as he sat in his cell, he through his Bible on the table and pointed
at a passage at random. The passage was from the Epistles of St. Paul:
"For the justice of God is revealed from faith to faith in that it is
written, for the just shall live by faith." (Romans 1:17)
By 1508, Luther had been and was transferred
from the monastery at
In 1512, he returned to
The storm broke on October 31, the
eve of All Saints Day. On that day Luther nailed a copy of the NINETY-FIVE THESES to the door of
the
The particular indulgence which attracted Luther's
attention was being sold throughout
Luther also attacked indulgences in general, and he
voiced his objections to the sale of indulgences in his LETTER to the Archbishop of Mainz in 1517.
According to the Church, indulgences took their existence from the surplus
grace that had accumulated through the lives of Christ, the saints and martyrs.
The purchase of an indulgence put the buyer in touch with this grace and freed
him from the earthly penance of a particular sin, but not the sin itself. But Tetzel's
sales pitch implied that the buyer was freed from the sin as well as the
penance attached to it. Tetzel also sold people on the idea that an indulgence
could be purchased for a relative in Purgatory – this meant the relative's soul
would now fly to Heaven. For Tetzel: "As soon as pennies in the money
chest ring, the souls out of their Purgatory do spring." Luther answered
(Theses 28) in the following way: "It is certain that when the money
rattles in the chest, avarice and gain may be increased, but the Suffrage of the Church
depends on the will of God alone."
Luther claimed that it was not only Tetzel but the
papacy itself which spread the false doctrine of the indulgence. By attacking
the issue of the indulgences, Luther was really attacking the entire theology
and structure of the Church. By making salvation dependent on the individual's
faith, Luther abolished the need for sacraments as well as a clergy to
administer them. For Luther, faith alone, without the necessity of good works,
would bring salvation. This was obviously heretical thinking. Of course, Luther
couched his notion of "justification by faith alone" within a scheme
of predestination. That is, only God knows who will be saved and will be
damned. Good works did not guarantee salvation. Faith did not guarantee
salvation. God alone grants salvation or damnation.
This discussion all begs the question: why did people
follow Luther? It is simply amazing that within a relatively brief period of
time, that so many people turned their back on the Roman Church, and followed
Luther. For the wealthy, becoming a Lutheran was one way to keep their wealth
yet still be given a chance for salvation without paying homage to Rome. In
other words, it can be said that the wealthy followed Luther as a form of
protest against the Church. For the very poor, Luther offered individual
dignity and respect. Not good works or servitude to
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564)
represents the second wave of the Protestant Reformation. Although Luther and
Calvin were more less contemporaries of one another, Calvin was an entirely
different man. John Calvin acquired his early education in
On All Saints Day in 1533, Calvin delivered an address
at
Calvin came to
Calvin urged -- actually forced -- all citizens of
Of course, foundation of Calvinism was clearly the
doctrine of predestination, that is, the idea that all of mankind is assigned
to either Heaven or Hell at birth. There is nothing you can do that would
change or destiny since it was an hands of all-powerful God. Such an opinion
logically leads to anxiety -- after all, no one knew just what to do. While
Calvin would not argue, as did the Church, that good works were one needed to
go to Heaven, he did admit that good works served a purpose. Good works, then,
became a divine sign, a sign that the individual was making the best of their
life here on earth. It was, however, still no guarantee.
Calvin also introduced his concept of the
"calling." Some men and women seemed ill-fitted for life on earth.
They were avaricious, slothful, amoral. However, there were others who seemed
to work happily in their lifetime, accomplishing much and in the right spirit.
In other words, they had been "called" to do a certain thing here on
earth.
Of course, we wake up early, work at your calling, are
thrifty, sober and abstain from frivolity, there is an unintended consequence.
That consequence was the acquisition of wealth. So, while Calvin did not invent
free enterprise, nor did he invent capitalism, or the desire for wealth, he did
rationalize that desire by arguing that certain men are imbued with the spirit
of acquisition, the correct spirit. That spirit has often been called the
Protestant Work Ethic. In The
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904), the German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) asked why it is that the
world's most wealthy men were of Protestant origin. His answer was that it was
these men who were also Calvinists, men who had internalized the religious code
set down first by Calvin and then by the Puritans of 17th century England. In
other words, the ethic says to work hard, save what you have made, and reinvest
any profit in order to increase wealth. That is capitalism in a nutshell.
Calvin does not invent this idea, he simply rationalizes it by ascribing a
certain spirit or calling to certain men of his own age, all of whom just
happened to be Calvinists. Of course, such a scheme could and did lead to
tension, conflict and anxiety. How much of a calling was a good thing? When did
one know when enough was enough? Anxiety and its sister guilt, then, seemed to
become one of the guiding principles of Calvinism.
While Lutheranism spread widely in
The
Reformation was a religious revolution in
Background
on the Catholic Church:
Samples
of Catholic religious objects—The Holy Bible, a Crucifix, and a Rosary.
Altar in
St Mary's Church in
I. The
Church in the Middle Ages:
During the Middle Ages, the Church was one of the most important
institutions in
II.The
Secularization of the Church: As man
in general became interested in worldliness, so also did the men of the
church. The church had always been
involved in the affairs of the world and as those affairs became more secular,
the church became involved in politics, wars, money, etc. The church began to drift away from religion
and theology. The church sought new ways
to obtain money to support itself. Many
members of the clergy wanted to live in luxury and splendor, something the
Bible specifically prohibited.
III. The
Decline of the Church: By
v Simony
– the buying and selling of church offices.
v Nepotism
– the giving of offices on the basis of family relations rather than on merit.
v Pluralism
– holding two or more church offices at the same time.
v Indulgences
– “sinners” could buy their way out of time in Purgatory.
v Celibacy
(or lack there of) – Pope Alexander VI openly acknowledged his children for
instance; his most famous son was Caesar Borgia.
v The
church also charged money for burial and the administration of the sacraments.
Financially
the burden was on those poorer people who could not afford the “cost of
religion.” The feeling existed that
those with money could “buy their way into heaven,” and the higher clergy lived
luxuriously. The money used for payment
went to
Needless
to say, these practices were blasphemy to those devoted to the teachings of
Jesus described in the New Testament of the Bible. One such person was Martin Luther
(1483-1531), a professor of religion at the
According to the official Church position,
justification of one’s faith through monetary compensation was the only way to
get into heaven – and the only way those in the Church elite could maintain
their extravagant life styles. Luther,
in his research however, came to the conclusion that justification of ones
faith could only truly be determined by God, not the Pope (“Sin bravely and
believe more strongly”).
Three basic differences emerged to Luther between
the Church possession and the word of the Bible. Luther felt that:
Salvation came thru faith alone (not thru
ceremonies, priests, or papal decrees)
That the
Bible is the ultimate authority in Church matters (Popes can interpret, not
decree church doctrine)
All human beings are equal.
Luther, however, was not
looking to establish a new church – he wanted to reform the current one (which
was what the Ninety-five Theses were about in 1517). Obviously, the Pope and
the Church establishment didn’t like these new interpretations.
This led to a standoff between two different modes of
thought towards the future of Christianity. With the Church excommunicating him
following his formal declaration of beliefs (Edict of Worms) in 1520 and HRE
Charles V issuing a warrant for his arrest and execution in 1521, Luther was
found allies in the German princes, who were seeking to expand their authority
against the Church and the HRE.
This escalation within the German states led to a
series of Civil Wars amongst the “protest”ants and the church loyalists, most
notably the Thirty Years War, which ended in 1555 with the Treaty of Westphalia
(more on that in a few days).
Read More The Renaissance Period: Leaving
Scholasticism Behind
Protestant Reformation
Erasmus had rebuked the church for its corrupt ways.
But his pointed writings created just a fraction of the clamor of those of a
young Augustinian monk to follow him. Martin Luther (1483–1546) inveighed
against the clergy's attention to self-indulgence and greed. But nothing
focused his attention like the sale of papal indulgences by a Dominican friar
named Tetzel. Any person could pay a fee and buy off the guilt and penalties
for his or her sins. Luther knew that such a practice was theologically corrupt
and nailed his famous “Ninety-five Theses” to the door of the
The Protestant Reformation was in part a response to
the rampant corruption that had spread through the papacy. Martin Luther was
outraged by the selling of indulgences — in other words, paying a monetary fee
for the sacrament of confession.
The issue of selling indulgences was just a symptom of
a greater cause. Luther's attack on indulgences led to a battle with the church
over issues of fundamental importance concerning theology and church authority.
His protest resounded all the way to
Luther was not the radical antireligionist that many
of his opponents made him out to be. In fact, he was close to Augustine on many
doctrinal matters, including his views on the authority of Scripture, God's
punishment for sin, and other issues. But his excommunication had far-reaching
effects throughout
An interesting note about Luther and Calvin is their
contribution to their respective languages. This was an age when educated
people spoke Latin. With the humanist movement and the Reformation, nations
came to celebrate their uniqueness and their languages. Luther and Calvin's
voluminous writings in their native languages helped contribute to the
evolution of modern German and French.
Luther had taught that people could follow their own
interpretation of the Bible and individual conscience. In undercutting the
religious authority of the Catholic Church, downplaying subservience to
tradition, and placing new importance on the individual, the Reformation caused
a groundswell against all intellectual authorities and traditions. The upshot
of the Protestant Reformation was that more worshipers followed their own
personal reflections.
The Copernican Revolution
The Polish astronomer Nicholas Copernicus (1473–1543)
provided the first modern theory of planetary motion that was heliocentric —
that placed the sun motionless at the center of the solar system with all the
planets, including the earth, revolving around it.
His theory ran counter to the Ptolemaic system
advanced nearly 1,500 years before. The church embraced the Ptolemaic system,
which held that the sun revolved around the earth. As it turned out,
Copernicus's system was not published until 1543, the year he died.
After studying astronomy at the
The Copernican System
The work that immortalized Copernicus was his De
revolutionibus orbium coelestium (The Revolution of the Heavenly Bodies), in
which he sets forth his beliefs concerning the universe, known as “the
Copernican system.” The treatise, which was dedicated to Pope Paul III, was
probably completed by 1530, but it was not published until Copernicus was on
his deathbed. Modern astronomy was built upon the foundation of the Copernican
system.
The new astronomy opposed the theological orthodoxy of
the day. The church could not relinquish its belief that the earth was at the
center of the solar system. If the earth was not at the center, then
humankind's importance was symbolically reduced. Fearing controversy and even
condemnation by the church, Copernicus held off publishing his book.
It was published a few days before his death. At first
it did not engender controversy. In fact, it escaped Catholic condemnation
until the time of Galileo. This was due in part to the book being dedicated to
the pope. Furthermore, a friend, who was a Lutheran clergyman, had prudently
added a preface saying that the Copernican theory was only a hypothesis.
Galileo and the Rejection of
Teleology
Galileo was an empiricist, basing his conclusions on
the evidence he studied. His guiding principle was to measure and quantify
nature. He rejected the Aristotelian assumption that every material body has a
place in the order of things and that the motion of objects is to be explained
by the natural tendency of each body to seek its own place. Instead, he
observed, weighed, measured, and calculated in order to test his mathematical
hypotheses. He was convinced that mathematics would reveal the structure and
the laws of the universe. In an essay known as “The Assayer” (1623), he wrote:
Philosophy is written in this grand book, the
universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be
understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the
letters in which it is composed. It is written in the language of mathematics,
and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures without
which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it: without those
one wanders around in the dark labyrinth.
So underlying Galileo's investigation of nature is the
presupposition that mathematics was the key to understanding the universe. He
is therefore regarded as a scientist rather than a philosopher. His thinking became
the basis for the scientific revolution in seventeenth-century
For many, Galileo will always be associated with two
discoveries. With the use of a telescope he supported Copernicus's notion that
Ptolemy's hypothesis of an earth-centered solar system was seriously flawed.
Despite his work, in 1633 he publicly recanted his views on the matter to save
his life. He remained under house arrest until his death.
Galileo cannot merely be pigeonholed as an astronomer.
Some of his most important work lay in dynamics and the principles of movement.
Galileo was the first to discover the law of falling bodies, or constant
acceleration, published after his recantation and while he was still under
house arrest. He found that bodies do not fall with velocities proportional to
their weights, but he did not arrive at the correct conclusion (that the
velocity is proportional to time and independent of both weight and density)
until about twenty years later. The famous story about Galileo dropping weights
from the Leaning Tower of Pisa is probably fictional.
In addition, what would later become
Galileo changed the language of the way nature was
described. He quantified the processes in nature. Whether he was summoned
before the Inquisition or not is irrelevant. He was forced to recant his view
that Copernicus's theory correctly described the heavens. But his clash with
the church pointed the way to a new science.
Evaluation and Significance
The Renaissance is known best for its meaning — the
“rebirth” of the classics. But it is also known for its transition to a less
scholastic and more modern outlook on culture, religion, art, philosophy, and
science. As much as Plato and Aristotle and other things classical were
revived, a new methodological outlook on learning was born.
Articles related to
Renaissance
The Quintessential Renaissance Man
You can't have a Renaissance man without the
Renaissance! Obviously the term was unknown before the Renaissance, and it
slowly started to be used in the following centuries. Today it's a pretty
well-known expression, and Leonardo da Vinci's name inevitably comes up when
you start talking about Renaissance men. So, you might ask, what exactly are
they? Was there an application to fill out? Did it require special licensing?
Medieval Training
Before the Renaissance, the medieval period (which
lasted from about 1200 to 1450) had its own distinct culture. At that time, the
arts were more generalized than they are today. There were no divisions between
fine art, architecture, and other crafts. The apprentice-based educational
system meant that artists learned a wide range of skills, rather than being
pigeonholed. A strong architect was also expected to be talented in visual arts,
tapestries, woodworking, sculpture, and all the other crafts required to create
projects.
Unveil the Arts!
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as the
Renaissance took hold, the division of arts became more pronounced. At the same
time, though, general knowledge was still fairly limited compared to modern
standards. Because of these limitations, people could be experts in many
different fields at once. And this didn't just apply to artists. Even the
general population was involved; as more was known and the general intellectual
level of society increased, gentlemen, nobility, and courtiers of the day were
expected to keep up with this rapidly growing cultural era.
Expectations were high during the Renaissance, and most members of the
upper classes of society could sing or play a musical instrument and speak
different languages. They also had to earn a living at their day jobs, of
course, so these artistic talents were in addition to becoming skilled at their
chosen professions.
Quality over Quantity
Leonardo was considered one of the earliest
Renaissance men because he not only studied a diversity of subjects, he become
good at them, too. He wasn't just a dabbler in painting and architecture; he
was a skilled designer who produced work that remains unrivaled. He was
considered an expert in not just art, but also mathematics, invention,
engineering, and construction. He was also clearly a talented writer; his own
notebooks are one of our best sources of information about his life and career,
as well as his ideas.
Leonardo's inventions may seem primitive in light of
modern technology and science, but for the Renaissance they were utterly
astounding. What is most unusual is that many of his designs were advanced
enough to have been innovative even 500 years later.
The Renaissance Boom
The Renaissance brought a boom as new ideas and
techniques flourished in art and architecture, as well as in astronomy. Many
major religious structures and hospitals were designed and built during this
period, which had a huge impact on art and architecture for future generations.
Unlike astronomy, paintings and buildings stood as tangible, credible, and
readily believable proof of the developments that occurred during this
remarkable period.
Renaissance music also made its mark on history.
Musicians used mathematical constructs to achieve certain types of chords and
phrases. Intervals of thirds and multiple-line harmony were characteristic of
the period. Johannes Ockeghem (1410–1497) introduced the concept of
counterpoint, and the polyphony of the Italian madrigal took center stage.
The widespread interest in astronomy and science
carried into music as well, particularly in the concept of music of the
spheres. This idea was generated and took shape entirely during the
Renaissance. Music of the spheres is the concept that the world is united by
musical harmony; everything has its own music and rhythm, from people to the
stars and planets. Revelations in astronomy, proven or otherwise, eventually
made their way to many other areas of Renaissance life.
Pre-Renaissance Theory
Until the Renaissance period, the predominant view of
the universe was geocentric—everything revolved around Earth. The Catholic
Church was quite pleased with this model, originally presented by Ptolemy in
the first century A.D., because it posited that the Sun and planets
traveled in perfectly circular orbits around Earth. Placing Earth in the center
of the universe seemed a divinely correct thing, and questioning this theory
was like questioning God himself, a major taboo in a world where religion and
justice were often one and the same.
Epicyclic Model
The old epicyclic model (planets traveling in small
circles that are part of larger circles, as mentioned in Chapter 1) used to
explain a geocentric universe was horribly complex, requiring advanced diagrams
and theories that were never understood by most people. Ptolemy and his
followers used epicycles to explain retrograde motion. While planets rotated
about small axes called epicycles in this theory, they also orbited in larger
circles around Earth; the larger orbit was called the deferent. When the
epicycle and deferent coincided, the planet appeared to be moving in the opposite
direction in a phenomenon known as retrograde motion.
Forcing the motions of the planets into the epicyclic
model was a contrivance, in part designed to assure the Catholic Church that
Earth and God were the center of the universe. Luckily, this theory was
challenged during the Renaissance, opening the door for true scientific
enlightenment.
The Church
During the early Renaissance, Church officials
expanded the role of the Church from pure religion to secular events. The
Church wanted to control the exploration of science, education, and many other
secular pursuits. Such interests led to increased wealth and what many
perceived to be corruption in the Church. Record numbers of clergy were having
illegitimate children, and general morale was quite low. One of what some
consider to be the Church's lowest moments in history was the sale of
indulgences; for a price, people could buy their way out of purgatory and into
heaven.
Martin Luther and his 95 Theses of 1517 presented the
greatest challenge the Roman Catholic Church had ever seen in the form of the
Protestant Reformation. Luther and his followers disapproved of the Church
taking any interest in power and wealth. The creation of Lutheranism rocked the
Church's foundation because it was no longer the one and only focus of
Christianity. John Calvin (1509–1564) followed suit in
The relationship between the Church and science during
the Renaissance was especially strained. With the Church's political power came
control of money, information, laws, and public opinion. So strong was its hold
that it took over 200 years for the advances in science and astronomy, among
other things, to be disseminated and accepted.
There had been attempts to reform the Church prior to
the Renaissance, of course. John Wycliffe (1330–1384) attacked the wealth of
the Church in his
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