Schmitt C.B. (ed.) The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy
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Humanism
127
the Renaissance in all of its aspects, then at least for
that
large sector of its
thought, learning and literature
that
is dominated by the humanists.
THE
ORIGINS OF
HUMANISM
Since
most of the contributions of the humanists to the philosophy of the
Renaissance
will
be treated in other chapters of this volume, I shall limit
myself
in the remainder of this chapter to a brief history of Renaissance
humanism and shall conclude my remarks with a short description of its
impact
on the philosophy and general thought of the period.
The
origins of Renaissance humanism have traditionally been traced to
the work and writings
of
Petrarch, but more recently to a group
of
scholars
active
in
northern
and central Italy during the late
thirteenth
and early
fourteenth century.
39
Among these pre-humanists or proto-humanists,
Albertino
Mussato
of
Padua stands out as the author
of
some
Latin poems, a
Latin
tragedy and several historical works in the classical style, and as a
defender of poetry. Giovanni del
Virgilio
of
Bologna
is notable as an early
professor
of rhetoric and poetry at his university, as a commentator on
Ovid,
and as the author of
Vergilian
eclogues
that
were addressed to, and
answered
by, no less a person
than
Dante
Alighieri.
40
For the appearance of
classical
studies and classicist literature at this particular place and time
various
explanations may be offered, including the first stirring
of
a
national
feeling
that
looked to the ancient Romans as the
true
ancestors of the
Italians, and the economic and political rise of the city republics which in
their institutions as
well
as in their intellectual interests felt more akin to
classical
antiquity
than
to the imperial, ecclesiastical and feudal culture of
the rest of Europe and of their own immediate past. This early humanism
was
due to the merger
of
two
previous traditions
that
had been quite distinct
from
each other and
that
in their combination brought forth something
new
and different. On the one hand,
there
was in Italy and especially in
Bologna
a strong tradition of rhetoric, called the ars dictaminis, which
flourished
from
the late eleventh to the early fourteenth century and which
with
the help of textbooks and formularies provided instruction and
training for future notaries and secretaries - a large, influential and literate
class
of
lay
citizens - helping them to compose documents and letters, both
public
and private, and later also speeches, usually in Latin but sometimes
also
in the vernacular.
41
The link with humanist epistolography and
39.
Roberto
Weiss
1947, 1949; G.
Billanovich
1953. 40.
Kristeller
1961b.
41.
Galletti
1904-38;
Medieval Eloquence 1978;
Murphy
1974, who
fails
to
mention
secular
eloquence
and to
recognise
the
continuation
of the ars dictaminis
after
1300.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
128
Humanism
oratory
is
obvious, both
in
professional
and in
literary terms,
and it is
confirmed
by the
fact
that
Giovanni del
Virgilio
himself
composed
a
treatise
on dictamen.
On the
other hand,
the
dictamen tradition was purely practical,
and
it had in its
patterns, style
and
content
few if
any classical features.
The
study
and
imitation
of
ancient writers was the
job
of
the grammarians,
not
the rhetoricians,
and the
tradition
of
reading
and
interpreting ancient
Roman writers
in
school was very much alive
in
France
and
other
northern
countries from
the
ninth
to the
early fourteenth century, whereas
the
Italian
share
in
this tradition
was
very slight
up to the
late
thirteenth
and
early
fourteenth century.
It is
significant
that
the
study
of
Roman writers began
to emerge
in
Italy
at a
time when
it had
declined
in
France
and the
North,
and
we
have
at
least some evidence
that
the
French grammarians
and
commentators
of
the Middle
Ages
influenced their Italian successors.
42
The
fact
that
the
medieval dictamen
had
some influence
on the
epistolography
and oratory
of
the Italian humanists does
not
mean
that
the
dictamen, even
in
conjunction with
the
grammatical tradition, should
be
credited with
the
activities
and
achievements
of
Renaissance humanism
as a
whole.
In
the
middle
of the
fourteenth century Italian humanism
had its
first
culmination,
if
not
its
beginning,
in
Petrarch, whose work
and
personality
attained international fame during
his own
lifetime
and who
was
thus
able
to raise
the
prestige
and to
promote
the
diffusion
of
humanistic studies
all
over
Italy
and
elsewhere. Petrarch's fame rested
not
only
on his
Italian
poems, which have been rightly admired
and
imitated until modern times,
but also
on his
voluminous Latin writings, which make
him one of the
leading humanist scholars
and
authors
and
which have been
the
subject
of
much recent study. They include
a
number
of
Latin poems, especially
epigrams, eclogues
and an
epic poem
of
historical content,
the
Africa,
a few
speeches,
several historical works, above
all a
series
of
treatises, some
of
them
in the
form
of
invectives
or
dialogues,
and a
very large number
of
private letters, which
he
carefully collected, edited
and
published.
His
invectives
include
his
writings against
the
physicians
and his
treatise
De sui
ipsius
et
multorum
ignorantia,
in
which
he
offers
a
defence
of
poetry,
eloquence
and
ethics,
that
is, of the
humanities against
the
claims
of
scholastic philosophy
and
science. These invectives document
not the
victory
of
humanism over scholasticism,
as is
often claimed,
but the
42. Kristeller 1964a (appendix); F. Ghisalberti 1933; Wertis 1979. I recently found a humanist
miscellany written in Italy during the fifteenth century which contains, among other humanist and
classical texts, the twelfth-century commentary of Arnulf of Orleans on Lucan (Lisbon, Biblioteca
nacional, fundo geral
3307,
rT.
65-191^.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Humanism
129
affirmative
praise
of the
humanities
as
against
the
sciences,
and
they
represent
an
interesting episode
in
that
continuing battle
of the
arts
and of
various 'cultures'
that
is
still with
us. The De
otio religioso
and the De
vita
solitaria offer
a
defence
of
the contemplative
life,
and the
latter work
at
least
illustrates
the
secularisation
of
this ideal, transferring
it
from
the
monk
to
the
lay
scholar (although Petrarch himself was
a
cleric).
The De
remediis
utriusque fortunae offers
a
detailed discussion
of the
virtues
and
vices,
based
on Stoic doctrines
and
patterned
on a
shorter treatise attributed
to
Seneca.
The
Secretum,
a
dialogue between
the
author
and St
Augustine
(who was
one
of
his favourite writers), offers
a
highly personal
and
moving account
of
his moral conflicts
and
includes some memorable reflections
on
fame
and on
melancholy.
Petrarch's letters,
the
most extensive
and
probably
the
most
impressive
part
of his
work,
are
important
for the
wealth
and
variety
of
their biographical, historical
and
scholarly content
and for
their subtle
and
vivid
style which echoes Seneca,
and
also
for
their thoroughly personal
and
subjective
approach, obviously influenced
by the
letters
of
Cicero
recently
discovered
in
Verona. Petrarch
was
understood
by
himself
and by his
contemporaries
as a
poet
and
orator, historian
and
moral philosopher,
and
was
crowned with
the
laurel
as a
poet
and
historian.
He was not a
grammarian
in the
ordinary sense
of
the word,
for he
was
not a
teacher
and
he left
no
commentaries,
but his
work
as a
classical scholar allows
us to
consider
him as a
grammarian
as
this term
was
understood
in his
time.
His
library included most ancient Roman authors
and
many Latin Church
Fathers,
two
Greek manuscripts containing Homer
and
Plato,
and
almost
no works
of the
medieval scholastics. Many manuscripts owned
and
annotated
by him
have been identified
and
studied. His glosses show his rich
knowledge
of
Roman
and
patristic literature
and
of
ancient history,
as
well
as his exceptional skill as
a
careful reader
and
textual critic. His knowledge
of
ancient philosophy was limited
to
Latin writers, such
as
Cicero,
Seneca
and
Boethius,
Augustine
and
Jerome,
and to
some
of the
available Latin
translations
of
Greek philosophers, such
as
Plato's Timaeus
and
Phaedo
and
Aristotle's
Nicomachean Ethics. Some
of his
attitudes anticipated
and
influenced
later developments:
he
encouraged Leonzio Pilato
to
translate
Homer into Latin;
he
praised Plato
as
superior
to
Aristotle;
and he
opposed
the original Aristotle
to his
medieval Latin translators
and
commentators.
43
During Petrarch's later years
and
after his death, humanistic studies were
carried
on in
various centres
by his
friends, correspondents
and
admirers,
43. Nolhac 1907; Sapegno 1948, ch. 5; G. Billanovich 1951; Wilkins 1961; Petrucci 1967; U. Bosco
1968; Kristeller 1983b.
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130
Humanism
such
as
Giovanni
da
Ravenna,
and
above
all
Boccaccio
and
Salutati
in
Florence.
Boccaccio
was the
author
not
only
of
the Decameron
and
of
many
Italian poems
but
also
of
important antiquarian works
in
Latin
that
deal
with
ancient mythology
and
topography.
He
also discovered manuscripts
of
Tacitus
and
other ancient authors,
and he
sponsored Leonzio Pilato
in
his translation
of
Homer
and in the
teaching
of
Greek, which
he
offered
in
private
and, as we now
know, also
in
public.
44
Salutati,
for
many years
Chancellor
of
the Florentine Republic, played
a
major political role when
in
his state letters
he
defended Florentine liberty against
its
enemies.
His
extensive
private correspondence is notable
for
his defence
of
poetry
and for
his frequent praise
of the
active
life
of the
statesman
and
businessman.
His prose treatises, many
of
which have been published only recently,
deal with such topics
as the
secular
and
religious
life,
fate
and
fortune,
the relative superiority
of
medicine
and law, and an
allegorical inter-
pretation
of the
labours
of
Hercules.
Like
Petrarch,
he was an
ardent book
collector,
and we
know
a
number
of
manuscripts
that
he
owned, some
of
them copied
by or for him or
annotated
in his own
hand.
He was
responsible
for
bringing Manuel Chrysoloras,
a
distinguished Byzantine
scholar,
to the
University
of
Florence
as a
teacher
of
Greek.
45
It
was
not due
to Leonzio
but
rather
to
Chrysoloras,
who
taught
for a
number
of
years
at
Florence
and
then
at
Pavia
and who
attracted many promising students
from
all
over Italy,
that
the
study
of
Greek language
and
literature came
to
acquire
a
firm
and
lasting place
in the
academic
and
intellectual
life
of
Italy
and later
of
Europe.
46
THE
FIFTEENTH
AND
SIXTEENTH CENTURIES
The
fifteenth century
has
been rightly considered
as the
high point
of
Italian
humanism,
and
Italian
and
other historians have often called
it the age of
humanism.
47
It was
that
century which witnessed
a
wide
and
unpre-
cedented diffusion
of
classical Latin literature
in
manuscripts
and
later
in
printed editions, including some newly discovered authors,
the
beginnings
and spread
of
humanist script
and of
humanist education,
and a
steady
progress
in the
textual criticism
and
interpretation
of
ancient writers,
and in
44. Branca 1975- 45- Ullman 1963; Witt 1976, 1983; Langkabel 1981.
46. Geanakoplos 1962, 1966; Roberto Weiss 1977.
47. The age produced Bruni and Poggio Bracciolini, Vergerio and Traversari, Niccoli and Marsuppini,
Filelfo and Guarino, Valla and Biondo, Leto and Calderini, Alberti and Manetti, Panormita and
Pontano, Francesco and Ermolao Barbaro, Landino and Poliziano, and many other scholars and
writers who were
less
famous but quite respectable.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Humanism
131
the study
of
classical
Latin grammar
and
vocabulary, spelling
and
prosody.
It also witnessed
the
steady rise
of
Greek scholarship,
and the
arrival
in the
West
of
many prominent Byzantine scholars, who were able
to
transmit
the
methods
and
traditions
of
Byzantine scholarship
to
their western students
and colleagues.
48
A few
western scholars were able
to
write
in
classical
Greek,
49
and
later
in the
century Poliziano
and
Ermolao Barbaro attained
a
level
of
Greek scholarship
that
was
still recognised during
the
following
centuries.
A
large
part
of the
humanist literature
—
letters
and
speeches,
histories
and
biographies, moral
and
other treatises
and
dialogues
—
was
produced
in
fifteenth-century Italy,
as
were numerous commentaries
on the
classics
and
countless Latin translations from
the
Greek.
The
antiquarian
interests
of
the humanists also
led to the
beginnings
of
such related studies
as
epigraphy
and
archaeology.
50
One
aspect
of
Italian humanism
that
has
attracted much scholarly
attention
in
recent decades
is the
civic
humanism
of
Bruni
and
other
Florentine writers
of the
early fifteenth century. They used their classical
scholarship
for the
defence
of the
Florentine Republic
and of its
free
institutions
in its
struggle against
the
Visconti princes,
and
also advocated
a
classical
education
for the
leading citizens
of the
republic.
51
This
is an
important
and
attractive facet
of
Italian humanism,
but it is
limited
to
Florence
during
the
early fifteenth century
and
characterises only
one
aspect
in
the
work
of
Bruni
and his
friends. Within
the
comprehensive picture
of
Renaissance humanism,
let
alone
of
Renaissance thought,
the
civic
humanism
of
Bruni
and his
circle represents only
one out of
many aspects
and phases
of a
much more complex
and
varied movement.
When
we
reach
the
latter
half
of
the fifteenth
and the
sixteenth century,
a
new
phenomenon must
be
taken into consideration. Many scholars
who
had received
a
humanist secondary education proceeded
to
study other
subjects
at the
universities
or on
their
own, and
many humanist scholars
extended their interests
and
activities
to
fields other
than
the
humanities
in
the strict sense
of the
term. Thus
we
find many humanists
who
were also
philosophers, scientists, physicians
and
medical scholars, jurists
or
even
theologians.
52
It is
this combination
of
interests
that
has
often
led to a
vague
or confused interpretation
of
Renaissance humanism
and
Renaissance
48. They included Cardinal
Bessarion
and Theodore
Gaza,
George of Trebizond and Argyropulos,
Demetrius Chalcondylas and Marcus Musurus, Constantine and Janus Lascaris and many others; see
Geanakoplos 1962, 1966.
49. Especially Bruni, Filelfo and Poliziano. 50. Roberto
Weiss
1969. 5i- Baron 1966.
52.
E.g., Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico; Leon Battista Alberti and Giorgio Valla; Niccolo
Leoniceno; Andrea Alciato; Giles of Viterbo and many others.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
132
Humanism
thought and learning in general. We must distinguish between the
contributions the humanists made to the humanities, which constituted
their proper domain, and those they made to other branches
of
knowledge
on account
of
their subsidiary scholarly interests or their amateur curiosity.
As
the sixteenth century progressed, humanism in Italy changed its
physiognomy
and also lost some ground. It did not, however, disappear, as
is
often believed, but
rather
continued to flourish. The scholarly tradition of
the humanities persisted, producing important philologists and histori-
ans.
53
Vernacular literature increased in volume and importance and came
to deal more and more with scholarly and philosophical topics, although
often
in a popular fashion, a development
that
had begun in the fifteenth
century. Aristotelian philosophy and the other academic traditions actually
gained
new strength, although they did not remain untouched by
humanism.
54
The theological controversies of the Reformation also had
repercussions in Italy, and
there
were many new developments in the
sciences
and in philosophy proper
that
did not derive either from humanism
or from scholastic Aristotelianism.
Outside Italy, the sixteenth century was the great age
of
humanism, and it
is
at
that
time
that
northern
humanism actually surpassed Italian humanism.
Italian humanism had spread its influence to the rest of Europe during the
fifteenth century, mainly through Italian humanists travelling or teaching
abroad or dedicating their works to foreign patrons, and through foreign
students and scholars who visited Italy and her universities and returned
home with new books, new knowledge and new ideas.
55
Thanks to
Petrarch and others, Italian humanism reached other countries, especially
Bohemia
and France, as early as the fourteenth century; and during the
fifteenth century the court of Matthias Corvinus in Hungary was for a
while
a leading centre of Italian humanism.
56
Yet it was the sixteenth
century when scholars of other countries,
well
read in ancient and Italian
sources but trained at home or outside Italy, attained an international
reputation and influence comparable to
that
of Petrarch and the leading
Italian humanists of the fifteenth century and surpassing
that
of their own
Italian contemporaries. It is sufficient to mention Johannes Reuchlin and
Erasmus, Guillaume Budé, Thomas More and
Juan
Luis
Vives,
who made
outstanding contributions to humanistic scholarship, including Greek,
biblical,
patristic and
legal
studies, to Latin literature and to moral thought.
With
reference to Erasmus and his
circle,
scholars have often spoken of
53. E.g.,
Pier
Vettori
and
Carlo
Sigonio.
54.
Schmitt
1983a.
55.
Roberto
Weiss
1967;
Parks
1954;
Kristeller
1980, ch. 3. 56.
Csapodi
1978.
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Humanism
133
Christian humanism and have contrasted it with the paganism of the
Italians. The term has some validity
if
we
denote by it those humanists who
applied their classical scholarship to biblical and patristic studies and who
adopted and defended in their writings some tenets of Christian religion or
theology.
Taken in this sense, Christian humanism is only one of many
currents within the broader humanist movement. Moreover, many
northern
humanists were not Christian humanists in this sense, while many
Italian humanists were.
57
On the other hand, we should remember
that
most,
if
not all, humanists were Christian believers, although they may not
have
touched on religious subjects in their work as scholars or writers.
By
the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, humanist Latin
poetry and prose were as widespread in the North, West and East
of
Europe
as in Italy, and flourished in Scotland, Portugal and Poland no less
than
in
England, Spain, France and Germany. During the same period, France and
the Low Countries became the leading centres
of
classical
scholarship, both
Latin
and Greek.
58
Earlier in the sixteenth century,
Vives
made the attempt
to replace the scholastic tradition in all fields of learning with ancient and
humanist scholarship, and this attempt had considerable influence on later
educational theory and practice.
59
In the seventeenth century pure classical
scholarship tended more and more to loosen its ties with the rhetorical and
literary endeavours which it had inherited from Renaissance humanism.
HUMANISM
AND PHILOSOPHY
Renaissance humanism was
thus
rich, varied and pervasive. It was
essentially
a scholarly, educational and literary movement, and among its
many concerns, philosophical thought was not the only or even the
dominating one. On the other hand, Renaissance philosophy as a whole
owed
no less to the traditions of medieval scholasticism and to the original
ideas of contemporary thinkers
than
it did to humanism and to the ancient
ideas transmitted by the humanists. Much
of
the work
of
leading
humanists
and all of the work of many minor humanists has no significance
whatsoever
for philosophy in any sense
of
the term, but only for scholarship
or literature.
Vice
versa, much of the philosophical literature of the
Renaissance was not due to the humanists, but to Aristotelian philosophers
57. E.g.,
Petrarch,
Lorenzo
Valla,
Giannozzo
Manetti,
and
Ambrogio
Traversari
(on
whom,
see
Stinger
1977).
58. It is
sufficient
to
mention
Adrien
Turnebe,
Justus
Lipsius,
J. J.
Scaliger
and
their
numerous
colleagues
and
successors.
See
Sandys
1908; R.
Pfeiflfer
1976,
part
in;
Grafton
1983-.
59.
Vives,
De tradendis disciplinis
(first
published
in 1531).
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134
Humanism
with
a scholastic training, to Platonist metaphysicians influenced by both
humanism and scholasticism and above all by Plato and the Neoplatonists,
such as Ficino and his
followers,
or to original thinkers marginally
influenced by humanism, from Nicholas of Cusa down to
Telesio,
Bruno
and Francis Bacon.
The
influence
of
humanism on philosophy was very great indeed, but its
precise importance depends on our conception and definition of philos-
ophy. If 'philosophy' is limited to the systematic and technical discussion of
the subjects and problems defined by ancient, medieval and modern
traditions, the humanist contribution is still significant, especially in ethics
and politics and to a lesser extent in
logic.
It is much greater
if
philosophy is
taken in a broader sense to include the wide areas
of
less
systematic and more
popular thought and discussion and the philosophical implications
of
other
disciplines such as theology and jurisprudence, the
arts
and the humanities,
and especially rhetoric and poetics, which occupied a place even in the
Aristotelian corpus.
To
assess this contribution, as
will
become
apparent
in other chapters of
this volume, one must distinguish between the direct and the indirect
contributions of Renaissance humanism to philosophy and between the
contributions due to the movement as a whole and those due to individual
humanists whose ideas and intellectual interests were not necessarily shared
by
other humanists.
The
direct contribution
of
humanism to philosophy was concentrated in
the area of moral philosophy and its ramifications, including political
thought. Moral philosophy was the only branch of philosophy which was
recognised as a
part
of
the humanities and was hence
of
professional concern
to the humanists. Even the university chairs of moral philosophy were at
times, though not consistently, assigned to humanists, and it is the only area
of
philosophy where the humanists found themselves in direct conflict and
competition with their scholastic contemporaries. The humanists actually
produced a large body of moral treatises and dialogues, as we have seen,
which
expressed their ideas on a variety
of
traditional or new problems. It is
this
part
of their work which has always and understandably attracted and
even
monopolised the
attention
of historians of philosophy. The moral
thought
of
the humanists has been extensively studied,
60
and it
will
be duly
treated
elsewhere in this volume. The humanists not only offered
traditional or new thoughts on conventional problems, but also formulated
60.
Garin
1958b,
1961, 1966;
Rice
1958;
Tateo
1967;
Trinkaus
1940, 1970, 1983.
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Humanism
135
or emphasised problems
that
were either new or had not occupied the
centre of attention in earlier thought. They wrote extensively on such
themes as fate and free
will,
the highest good, the various virtues and
vices,
the active and contemplative
life,
will
and intellect, the immortality of the
soul
and the dignity of man.
61
Moreover, the ideas of the humanists on a
variety
of
moral and other philosophical questions were not only expressed
in the treatises they dedicated to the respective themes but also often hidden
away
in their letters, orations or other writings.
Important contributions to other areas of philosophy are not due to
humanism as a general current but to individual humanists. Most
significant,
and recently much discussed, is the form
of
logic
attempted by a
group
of
humanists from
Valla
and
Agricola
to Ramus and
Nizolio.
62
They
were
concerned with didactic clarity
rather
than
with conceptual precision
and replaced the syllogism with the invention of topics and arguments, a
method evidently borrowed from rhetoric. Individual humanists made
contributions to the
arts
and their theory (for instance, Alberti) or to
mathematics (for instance, Giorgio
Valla)
whereas many of the leading
philosophers and scientists of the late fifteenth and of the sixteenth century
had a strong humanist background in addition to their specialised training,
as was the case with Ficino and
Pico,
Copernicus and
Vesalius,
Patrizi and
even
Galileo.
63
Of
equal and perhaps of even greater importance was the indirect
contribution of humanism to Renaissance thought. The humanists were
actively
involved in making the sources of ancient philosophy and science
available
to their contemporaries by discovering, copying and editing
classical
Latin texts, by translating Greek texts into Latin (and later into the
vernaculars), and by discussing and interpreting them in their commen-
taries. Many important works of ancient and especially of Greek philos-
ophy
and science were made available for the first time, while others
that
had been previously known were more widely discussed and better
understood. Many of the new texts contributed to the advance of
mathematics, medicine, botany and other sciences. The direct knowledge
of
the Greek commentators on Aristotle influenced the interpretation
of
the
philosopher by Renaissance Aristotelians, and the new knowledge of
ancient philosophers who were outside the Aristotelian tradition led to
increasing doubts about the exclusive validity and authority of
that
tradition, to a widespread eclecticism and to a renewed interest in, and
61. Di
Napoli
1963;
Kristeller
1979, chs. 9—11.
62. Ong
1958a;
N. W.
Gilbert
1960;
Vasoli
1968a.
63.
Rose
1975.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
136
Humanism
adherence to, other ancient schools of philosophy, especially Neoplato-
nism, Stoicism, Epicureanism and scepticism (Academic and Pyrrho-
nian).
64
The libraries and the minds of Renaissance readers and thinkers
were stocked with many texts and ideas unknown to their predecessors, and
even
if we were to deny any lasting validity to the doctrines of most
Renaissance philosophers, the intellectual ferment brought about by the
addition of new sources and of new ideas to the medieval heritage was an
important
factor in preparing the intellectual climate for the new science
and the new philosophy of the seventeenth century. The great role played
during the Renaissance by astrology, alchemy, magic and other occult
sciences
has few links with humanism or for
that
matter
with
Aristotelianism, but came to be associated with Platonism. But this area of
thought was cultivated by at least some humanists and was influenced by
some ancient sources made available by the humanists.
65
The
indirect influence of the humanists on thought and philosophy was
not limited to the diffusion of ancient texts or of ancient and new ideas. It
also affected, and perhaps in a more pervasive and lasting way, the style and
pattern
of
philosophical literature. The philosophical dialogue continued to
flourish to the early nineteenth century although it has since practically
disappeared. However, if most philosophical
literature
in recent centuries,
even
the most technical,
follows
the form
of
the short essay or of the neatly
composed treatise
rather
than
that
of the commentary or the quaestio, this
fact
is clearly due to humanism
rather
than
to scholasticism, as is the practice
of
arguing precisely and also plausibly instead of accumulating arguments
regardless of their relative strength, as had been the medieval scholastic
practice. Philosophical
literature
has also
followed
the rules of Latin
vocabulary,
syntax and composition as defined by the humanists, rules
that
were later transferred to the modern vernacular languages after Latin ceased
to be used for academic and scholarly discourse (which happened much
later and much more gradually
than
is usually believed). In
view
of
the fact
that
terminology has always played a vital
part
in philosophical discourse,
the impact
of
humanism on the development
of
philosophical terminology
seems to be in need of much further exploration. The subjective and
individualistic
attitude
that
characterises and pervades humanist discourse
from Petrarch to Montaigne and
that
to some extent explains the humanist
preference for the letter, the dialogue and the essay also
tends
to
penetrate
64. For
Stoicism,
see
Zanta
1914;
Saunders
1955;
Abel
1978;
Oestreich
1982; for
Academic
scepticism,
Schmitt
1972; for
Pyrrhonian
scepticism,
Popkin
1979.
65.
Yates
1964;
Walker
1958, 1972.
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