Lesson 2 - Renaissance Flashcards
What is scholasticism? How did it evolve into the Christian religion?
At first, church was accepting of Aristotle’s work and other philosophers
However since it relied heavily on reason it became considered pagan
After that, the work was synthesized with Christian dogma
• Scholasticism = synthesis of Aristotle work + church dogma
What did Peter Abelard do? What was his book about?
Used his dialectic method (same as Socrates) to overcome the inconsistencies in the statements made by theologians through the years
• Wrote “Sic et Non”, where he presented 158 questions on which contradictory opinions had been given
• Ex: is God a single unitary being, or not?
• Began discussions about the church dogma and highlighted which parts of it were contradictory, which the church really did not like
Explain the debate between realism and nominalism, and how it was resolved with conceptualism
- Realism: Philosophical position that universals (abstract concept, like Plato’s Forms) are just as real as physical, measurable material
- Nominalism: Philosophical position that universal or abstract concepts do not exist in the same way as physical, tangible material
- Conceptualism: Share the nominalists’ perspective that abstractions have no actual basis in reality, but hold that concepts exist in our minds as some sort of ideas
Describe Thomas Aquinas work about Aristotle’s ideas. What shift in the philosophers thinking did this induce?
Argued that reason and faith were not incompatible and lead to the same thing, God and his glory
He synthesized Aristotle’s work in the Christian tradition
Once Aristotle’s ideas were assimilated in the church dogma, it became unarguable
• Which was not what Aristotle’s wanted
• Reason became a means to understanding God
Philosophers tried to argue that faith and reason could be separate
• It began a shift of attention from Heaven to Earth
• Would allow the upcoming Renaissance to happen
Describe the philosophy of William of Ockham
Pursuit of Reason
Argued that explaining things required no unnecessary assumptions
• Keeping explanations as simple as possible made them more likely to be accurate
Ockham’s razor: “shaving” extra assumptions
How did the return of Aristotle’s ideas ignited the Renaissance?
After the control exerted by the church and how it slowed the progress of science, its authority had to be broken in order for Aristotle’s ideas to be re-discovered
• Crusades will re-awaken the interest in Aristotle’s work
• Renaissance humanism will shift the focus to the individual, away from the divine
• The Church will be fractioned by the Protestant reformation
• Scientific discoveries will create turmoil
People started wondering if the Church willingly kept them into ignorance by telling them that the pursuit of knowledge was a bad thing
• Islamic people found a connection between the pursuit of knowledge and divinity, which the Catholic church never embraced
Explain how artistic work shifted in the Renaissance
Shift in the subject of artistic work
• More detailed
• Nude was previously not allowed
• Captures essence of things more easily
What did the newfound interest in the individual change in the perception of religion?
Newfound interest in the individual brought the beginning of Renaissance Humanism
• Changed the focus from God and salvation, to making the most out of our life here on Earth (rather than waiting for the afterlife)
We can see that this emphasis is evident in the art form from that time period
• For example by highlighting the beauty of the human body (which was previously not done)
Describe the 4 major themes of Renaissance humanism
4 major themes of Renaissance Humanism
1. Individualism and an interest in all things human
a. How we think, feel, and see the world
2. Personal religion: less formal and ritualistic (requires no middleman to communicate with God, therefore avoiding to be fooled by the Church superiors)
3. Intense interest in the works of the early Greek and Roman poets, philosophers, and politicians
4. Anti-Aristotelians
• Push-back as to how the Church used his work to fit its dogma
• Ex: the Unmoved Mover could be perceived as God
• Prefer to read Aristotle’s work as it was intended, rather than to suit the church’s ideas
Explain how the Catholic Church began to be fragmented (hint: Luther)
Shift from divine to individual + renaissance humanism = weakening of the church
• Martin Luther also weakened the Church and its power
• Being able to read made scholars more aware of the state of the church: It seemed to value money and power more than faith, by taking advantage of their followers (it was possible to buy forgiveness)
He started the Protestant revolution with his 95 theses, which proposed a more unified church that would de-emphasize the rituals and the hierarchy of the Church
Explain the work and contributions of Claudius Ptolemy
Ptolemaic Model: geocentric (Earth is at the center, and all heavenly bodies revolve around us)
• The heavenly bodies were spherical in shape
• The sun and moon and all planets orbit around the Earth
• This model prevailed until the 17th century
It fit with the religious dogma, as well as fitting with our senses (we do not feel that we are spinning)
• To challenge this was to challenge the Church
Explain the work and contributions of Nicolaus Copernicus
Challenged the Ptolemaic system
Some people suggested a Heliocentric (Copernican) model that claimed that the Sun was at the center of the universe
*Aristarchus of Samos had conceived this in 200 BCE, 1700 yrs before Copernicus
Explain the work and contributions of Girodano Bruno
If we are not the center of the Universe, does it mean that we are not favoured by God? The Church got this wrong, so what else is it wrong about?
Former Dominican priest and became Hermetic
• Believed in the divinity of the humans and the sun
• Copernican model fit well with the Hermetic tradition
Was faced by the Inquisition and burned after being imprisoned
Explain the work and contributions of Johannes Kepler
One of the first converts to the Copernican system
Agreed that the sun was part of the divine
• Used maths to calculate the path of the planets and found that the planets revolve around the sun in ellipses, which creates mathematical harmony of the heliocentric model
• The sun exerts an active force to push the planets around in orbit
Explain the work and contributions of Galileo Galilei
Set out to explain the true mathematical reality beyond the world of appearances
• Sought scientific observations to exemplify laws
• Used mathematical deduction to describe the law, and thus the universe
• Wrote a book on the heliocentric universe theory and suffered the repercussions
• Discovered the mountains of the moon - telescope
• Revealed that the Milky Way was made up of many stars that were not visible to the naked eye
• Found 4 moons of Jupiter at least 11 bodies in the solar system instead of 7
His work was controversial - looking through his telescope was considered heresy (if God wanted us to see the sky he would have given us telescopic eyes) - stars/planets were thought to be produced by the telescope
Galileo faced the Inquisition when he was 70 and spent the rest of his life under house arrest
