Schmitt C.B. (ed.) The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy
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The Renaissance concept
of
philosophy 6
7
material reality in its multiplicity reflected absolute being, it too must be
infinite, without centre or boundaries, and not contained within the finite
enclosure of the heavenly spheres.
28
Therefore Nicholas
entrusted
philos-
ophy with the responsibility for establishing a new relationship between
the infinite points which resulted from the dissolution of the finite classical
cosmos.
While affirming
that
all
truths,
relative and particular, should be
regarded as approximations
of
the unique Truth, he emphasised the affinity
between this and arithmetical progressions, each of which potentially
contained infinity in itself.
Just
as mathematicians passed from straight to
curved lines by a series of ever closer approximations, so metaphysical
knowledge
could come to comprehend the Absolute and the One by an
infinite process which unfolded in the finite multiplicity of the created
earth.
It is not surprising, therefore,
that
Nicholas perceived beneath the
most diverse religious rites and beliefs a common if limited
attempt
to
approach the unattainable and ineffable divine
truth
of
being.
29
Thus, faith
and science, theology and philosophy, were different but ultimately
convergent
paths
leading through
civic
and religious peace to a single
common destination.
FICINO
AND
PICO:
PIA
PHILOSOPHIA
AND THE
PHILOSOPHY
OF
CONCORD
Nicholas
of Cusa has often been seen as the instigator of the late fifteenth-
century Platonic revival, and Cassirer has argued, not entirely convin-
cingly,
for his influence over Marsilio Ficino. In reality, the roots
of
Ficino's
thought lie closer to the debates between the Byzantine emigres like George
of
Trebizond and Cardinal Bessarion about the relative superiority of
Aristotle
and Plato, and to the idiosyncratic religious metaphysics of
Pletho.
30
Also,
some doubt must now
surround
the hypothesis
that
there
was
a radical discontinuity between the humanist philosophy
of
man in the
first half of the fifteenth century and Ficino's revival of a primarily
speculative doctrine owing much to classical metaphysics. First, Ficino's
philosophical development reveals specific elements of continuity: the
interest in Plato shared by many Florentine humanists (Salutati, Bruni,
Manetti and Palmieri) and a number
of
ideas which were widespread in the
fourteenth century: for example, Ficino's version of Dante's Monarchia.
31
Second,
Ficino was writing for a lay public without scholastic training, and
28. Ibid., pp. 61^75 (lib. 11, cap. 1-4). 29. Ibid., vn (De pace fidei).
30. See Pletho 1858. 31. P. Shaw 1978.
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68
The Renaissance concept
of
philosophy
he used rhetorical methods and myths in a Platonic fashion. Finally, he was
defending a unified notion of sapientia. He put forward his Platonism as a
new theology and metaphysics (the two
terms
are interchangeable here)
which,
unlike
that
of the scholastics, was explicitly opposed to Averroist
secularism. His sapientia was linked to the notion
of
a revelation
transmitted
from the ancients by a chain of inspired thinkers until it achieved a final
synthesis in Christian dogma.
32
In his
view
philosophy should first and
foremost include and explain the essence of every sapientia, of every
true
theology
and every moral doctrine,
that
is, the absolute and divine unity
which
generated the hierarchical and providential order
of
a universe whose
multiplicity reflected the supreme creator.
33
Ficino imagined the world as a
perfectly
harmonious heavenly melody or as a mirror reflecting the myriad
faces
of God. The intention o£ the pia philosophia, which Ficino expounded
mainly in his Theologia platonica and De Christiana religione, was to
illuminate the profound convergence of philosophical
truth
and religious
certainty. In this convergence the prisci theologi, such as Hermes
Trismegistus, Zoroaster and Orpheus, had already detected the germs of a
perennial wisdom which was now endangered by impious pseudo-
philosophers and incompetent theologians.
There has been some exaggeration of the importance of astrology and
antique magical elements in Ficino's philosophy. Nevertheless, he did
regard the
entire
universe
—
the heavens, the elements, plants, animals and
man himself—as subject to cosmic influences acting through sympathies and
antipathies. In his De
vita
coelitus comparanda
34
he analysed the relationship
between the powers of the heavenly souls and man's spiritus and found
sufficient
justification for placing man at the centre of the universe as the
microcosm which recapitulated the order of the macrocosm. The great
success
of Ficino's pia philosophia occurred partly because it elevated to the
level
of literary metaphor a number of ideas which were congenial to the
fin-de-siecle mood, troubled by millenarian and spiritual anxieties.
Just
as successful were the ideas of Giovanni
Pico,
who combined an
orthodox training in scholastic philosophy with youthful humanist
influences and
—
a typical feature of sixteenth-century esotericism
—
cabala.
Firmly opposed to any rhetorical reductionism in philosophy, Pico saw
himself
as searching for the deepest common
truth,
where sapientia and its
32.
Especially in Delia religione cristiana, 1st edn, Florence 1474.
33.
Especially in Theologia platonica de
immortalitate
animorum,
1st edn, Florence 1482; see Ficino
1576,1,
pp. 78-424, and 1964-70.
34.
1st edn Florence 1489; see Ficino 1576, 1, pp. 493-572, and 1978.
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The Renaissance concept
of
philosophy
69
various temporal manifestations might reside, untroubled by doctrinal
squabbles. His missionary zeal and enthusiasm for a philosophy of concord
and a great spiritual renewal leading to the universal brotherhood of man
did not square with Ficino's idea of docta pietas. Pico proposed the absolute
value
and centrality of man, his cosmic responsibility, his freedom and
dignity. This idea lies at the
heart
of his celebrated
Or
ado,
35
offered as a
manifesto for the great conference
of
learned men which Pico wished to be
held in Rome at Epiphany in
1487.
36
The desire to defend human liberty
also inspired Pico's Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem
37
a
harsh
and radical assault on astrology and the absolute determinism which a belief
in it ultimately entailed. In his Heptaplus and De ente et uno
38
inspired by
both cabala and pseudo-Dionysian theology, Pico discovered in the
Scriptures a perfectly harmonious philosophical
interpretation
of the
universe and recognised in the inscrutable reality of God
that
radiant
darkness with which man identified
utter
perfection. Pico praised magic
and man's ability to control the most occult powers of
nature
because he
regarded them as 'the practical
part
of the
natural
sciences', able to increase
our freedom in a world over which God had given us dominion.
THE
PLATONIC
TRADITION
AND
SIXTEENTH-CENTURY
ARISTOTELIANISM
The
new ideas of the fifteenth century foreshadow the main themes of
sixteenth-century philosophy.
Valla's
philology and theology, Ficino's pia
philosophia and Pico's philosophy
of
concordia were necessary antecedents for
the philosophia Christi and the uncompromising pacifism of Erasmus.
Ficino,
Pico and Nicholas of Cusa
stand
behind Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples
and his school; and
there
is a specifically fifteenth-century tone in the
speculations
of
Juan
Luis
Vives
and Thomas More as
well
as Erasmus. Of
course, to account fully for such influences it is necessary to
follow
other
developments of sixteenth-century philosophy, such as Agostino Steuco's
philosophia perennis. This synthesis of Ficino's pia philosophia and Pico's
concordia had passed to Francesco Giorgi, Henricus Cornelius Agrippa and
Paracelsus and
then
to the magical and occult traditions.
The
circulation
of
Platonic, magical, Hermetic and cabalistic ideas should
not obscure what is one of the sixteenth century's most
important
35.
G. Pico 1942, pp.
101-65.
36.
For the Conclusiones intended for the conference in Rome, see G. Pico 1572, pp.
63-113.
37.
G. Pico 1946-52. 38. G. Pico 1942, pp. 167-383, 385-441.
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70
The Renaissance concept
of
philosophy
philosophical characteristics: the development of a revivified Aristoteli-
anism. Already in the fifteenth century individuals like Paul
of
Venice,
Paul
of
Pergula and Gaetano da Thiene - all educated at Padua - were taking
their cue from the Oxford and Paris logicians, who were themselves
following
such teachers as Alessandro da Sermoneta, Jacopo
Ricci
and
Apollinare
Offredi. In the decades around the
turn
of the fifteenth century
the powerhouses
of
the Aristotelian revival were the two greatest
northern
Italian universities, Bologna and Padua, where such luminaries as Nicoletto
Vernia,
Alessandro
Achillini,
Pietro Pomponazzi, Marcantonio Zimara
and Agostino Nifo were active. Unlike their late medieval predecessors
these scholastics adopted a number of typically humanist procedures,
especially
in their approach to texts. There is no doubt
that
the Thomist and
Scotist
schools at Padua continued to
evolve,
alongside and rivalling the
Averroist
and Alexandrist professors. But the influence of such surviving
terminist tendencies was considerably outweighed by
that
of the Greek
commentators whose diffusion owed much to the labour
of
such humanist
philologists as Ermolao Barbaro and Girolamo Donato. At Padua in 1497
Niccolo
Leonico Tomeo began to teach Aristotle from the Greek texts, and
the Aldine editio princeps
of
Aristotle
was published at Venice between 1495
and 1498.
39
Instead of dwelling on the various interpretative or syncretist
currents
within Aristotelianism, it is more useful here to concentrate on the
difference between Aristotelianism in general and the humanist philosophy
of
man, its notion of a unified sapientia and the religious character of the
ideas of Ficino, Pico and Nicholas of Cusa.
Aristotelians drew a
sharp
distinction betwen philosophy and theology
and jealously resisted any
attempt
to submit Aristotle's ideas to the higher
truths
of
religion.
Critical
of
beliefs
which obstructed the exercise
of
reason,
they defended the independence of philosophy and espoused a number of
Peripatetic doctrines (for instance, the Averroist account
of
the intellect and
the eternity of the world) which had long been rejected by theologians.
Aristotelians retained the various canonical sub-divisions of philosophy,
affirming - in contrast to the humanists - the superiority
of
speculative over
poetical philosophy; and, in accordance with the university curricula, they
established a well-defined syllabus for the study of philosophy.
It would, however, be wrong to see sixteenth-century Aristotelianism as
a rational philosophy anticipating libertinisme and to regard it as anti-
theological
and even anti-religious in contrast with the doctapietas
of
Ficino
39.
Aristotle 1495-8; on
this
edition, see Sicherl 1976.
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The
Renaissance concept
of
philosophy
7i
and Steuco. Admittedly, the De
immortalitate
animae, the Defato and the De
incantationibus
40
of Pietro Pomponazzi, the most original and influential
sixteenth-century university philosopher, are emphatically opposed to
rhetorical or consolatory doctrines. He emphasised the rigorous order of
natural
laws and the
natural
and temporal dimension of human existence,
which
was demonstrated by the indivisible unity of the body-soul
compound
that
constituted our reality and by the substantial connection
between
all its functions. In his De incantationibus Pomponazzi
turned
an
unusually open mind on several features of religion, which he reduced to
their
natural
causes. He also subscribed to the
belief
that
the origins and
courses
of
the great religions were caused by astral influences. However, the
majority
of
Aristotelians
were considerably more cautious, accepting some
elements of Platonic theology and admitting
that
Aristotelianism could
have
a propaedeutic value in grasping some
of
its mysteries. In any case, the
procedures
of
the Seconda Scolastica were much indebted to the Aristotelian
tradition and to sixteenth-century Italian Aristotelian studies.
Also
note-
worthy
is the success of Paduan
authors
in the Protestant universities of
Germany which had been reformed by Philipp Melanchthon, a self-
proclaimed follower of Aristotle.
PHILOSOPHY
AS
METHOD:
THE
SIGNIFICANCE
OF THE
SIXTEENTH-CENTURY
PHILOSOPHY
OF
NATURE
AND
THE
ANTI-ARISTOTELIAN
POLEMIC
Though
sharply disagreeing about the relative worth of their
logical
and
linguistic
tools, humanists and Aristotelians were both concerned to
evolve
a general methodology, a theory
of
how
knowledge should be acquired and
organised. Much
of
sixteenth-century thinking about philosophy is obscure
unless
attention
is paid to those debates about
important
issues such as the
role of philosophy in the sciences, the rhetorical or
logical
character of
knowledge
and the relationship between teaching and research. Lorenzo
Valla,
for instance, in the context of teaching the artes sermonales, clearly
favoured
rhetorical and dialectical procedures. This preference was
assimilated by George
of
Trebizond
in his insistent criticisms
of
the sophistic
logic
of
the schools;
41
and between the late fifteenth century and the middle
of
the sixteenth century, it influenced first Rudolph
Agricola
42
and
then
a
40. Pomponazzi 1954, 1957, 1556.
41.
George
of
Trebizond c. 1470, frequently
reprinted
in the
late
fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.
42.
Agricola 1523.
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72
The
Renaissance concept
of
philosophy
number of important European humanists, including Philipp Melanch-
thon,
43
Johannes Sturm
44
and
Juan
Luis
Vives.
45
With differences of
emphasis each of these thinkers assigned a fundamental importance to
methodus as essential in any organisation of knowledge and to procedures
either of the topic type or connected with the rhetorical doctrine of
dispositio. Particularly favoured by Protestants, this tendency culminated in
Petrus Ramus' concept of the methodus unica, the basic instrument in the
creation of a systematic, encyclopaedic and organic knowledge.
46
At the
heart
of
Ramus'
polemic was a comparison between his unified philosophi-
cal
method and the multiplicity of methods and techniques suggested, in
particular, by the Aristotelians.
The
problem of method was particularly important at Padua, where
Jacopo Zabarella in his De methodis discussed the various instruments of
knowledge
and analysed their relationship to the different forms of
knowledge
and to the structure of the sciences.
47
Zabarella's
logical
and
methodological
ideas had a considerable influence in late sixteenth- and
early
seventeenth-century Europe, reaching even Theodor Zwinger and
Bartholomaeus Keckermann, both of whom had had a Ramist training.
Revealingly,
it was philosophers trained at Padua who most strongly
challenged
the primacy and predominance of Aristotelian philosophy, as
well
as proposing radical ideas about the
nature
of speculative philosophy.
Bernardino
Telesio,
for instance, criticised traditional philosophers for
over-confidence,
for 'arbitrarily creating their pretend world', and
proposed instead a new philosophy of
nature
based on the senses and
therefore suited to understanding the innermost structures of nature.
Another
thinker trained at Padua was Francesco Patrizi, whose Discussiones
peripateticae
48
offer the most radical critique
of
the contradictions, whether
genuine or supposed, in the Aristotelian system. In his Nova de universis
philosophia
49
he condemned the impiety
of
Aristotle's
thought, questioned
the notion
of
a closed and finite universe and proposed a renewed Christian
philosophy founded on a strongly hermeticising Platonism and a pantheis-
tic conception of reality.
43.
See Melanchthon 1537
chiefly;
the first edition was 1528 and subsequent editions were drastically
reworked; for the Erotemata dialectices of 1547, see Melanchthon 1834-60, xin,
cols.
513-752.
44.
See especially Sturm 1539, expanded to
three
books in the Strasburg 1543 edition and to four in the
Strasburg 1560 edition.
45.
For Inpseudodialecticos, see
Vives
1555^.272-86,
1979a,
1979b;
for Libri de causis
corruptarum
artium,
De
tradendis disciplinis and Libri de artibus, see
Vives
1555, ff. 288ff.
46.
See, e.g., Ramus
1543
a
>
1
543°, and Ramus and Talon
1556,
reprinted with several changes in Paris in
1566
and 1572.
47.
See J. Zabarella 1578. 48. Patrizi [da Cherso] 1581. 49. Patrizi [da Cherso] 1591.
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The Renaissance concept
of
philosophy
73
The
critique
of
Aristotle
and Aristotelianism, nourished by Pythagorean
and Democritean ideas, culminated at the end
of
the sixteenth century with
Giordano Bruno's
call
for radical renewal in ethics and his notion of an
infinite universe coincident with its divine foundation. The humanist
rebellion against traditional codifications
of
knowledge
found other forms
of
expression which were no less influential in the long evolution
of
modern
thought. The recovery of the classical scepticism of Pyrrho and Sextus
Empiricus (which united the dissimilar activities
of
Gianfrancesco
Pico and
Michel
de Montaigne) encouraged the
view
of philosophy as systematic
doubt, methodically revealing the contingency and uncertainty of all pre-
established
truths.
THE
LEGACY
OF
RENAISSANCE
PHILOSOPHY
Thus it can be seen
that
in coming to
terms
with the scientific revolution and
a variety of new moral, political and religious problems, late Renaissance
philosophy anticipated some of the themes which would characterise
seventeenth-century philosophy. The reaction against traditional scholastic
authorities had grown into a questioning
of
all
authorities, even the classics.
The
myths which had nourished Neoplatonic metaphysics (Hermeticism
and cabala) came
under
the ever closer scrutiny of philologists. The new
philosophy of
nature,
often more welcoming to scientific and technical
developments, was beginning to dissolve the
imago
mundi
which had
enclosed theology and philosophy for so long. The context
of
these changes
was
a religious crisis of unprecedented gravity whose political and social
consequences deeply affected philosophy in all its aspects. Bruno's thought,
with
its doctrinal problems and complexities,
stands
at the end
of
this
cycle.
It demonstrates in an extreme fashion how the process
of
criticism initiated
by
the early humanists grew to envelop even the most ancient and respected
authorities. Apart from the new awareness
of
methods and procedures, one
great
legacy
of
Renaissance philosophy was the seventeenth century's grand
attempt
to re-establish the unity and completeness of knowledge, to
recreate
—
with a new and fuller awareness of the difficulties and dangers
involved
in such a project - the or do scientiarum. From Campanella to Bacon,
from Descartes to Leibniz, the same themes lie at the
heart
of
a continuous
dialectic between tradition and innovation, at the
heart
both of grandiose
Utopian
projects for social renewal and of thoughtful reminders of the
concrete reality of the critical exercise of knowledge.
Above
all, the
principal lesson from the various Renaissance conceptions
of
philosophy
—
a
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74
The
Renaissance concept
of
philosophy
lesson
whose force was to be felt over the next two centuries
—
was the need
to jettison pre-established
truths,
to re-evaluate constantly all doctrinal and
methodological
choices and to respect the perpetual newness of the
problems with which philosophy and scientific research have to deal.
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Ill
TRANSLATION,
TERMINOLOGY AND
STYLE
IN PHILOSOPHICAL DISCOURSE
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Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008