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A journey of humanism

From Roman to Renaissance

Historical Timeline
Middle Ages / Dark Ages Birth of Christianity Greek Rome 300 BCE 300 CE 476 CE Fall of Rome Renaissance 1400 CE

After Aristotle
Romans invasion to Greek territory (around 300 BC) making chaos and more uncertainty to life The main question of philosophy are how is it best to live? what is the nature of the good life? what is worth believing in?

What constitutes of good life?


Skepticism

Early View of Life


Cynicism

Epicureanism Latter View of Life

Stoicism
Neoplatonism

Early view of life


Skepticism
Pyrrho of Elis Nothing could be known with certainty, so why believe anything? Life should be guided by simple sensations, feelings, and the conventions of ones society appearance (basic sensations and emotions) were acceptable as guides for living, but no for judgments or interpretation of appearances

Early view of life


Cynicism Antisthenes; Diogenes

nature should be the guide of human behavior The best life is a simple, close to nature and free of wants and passions

RESPONSE to the early view


Epicureanism Epicurus

The good in life is find pleasure; seeking the greatest amount of pleasure over longest period of time life of moderation

RESPONSE to the early viEW


Stoicism Zeno

There are divine plan, so that everything is part of the plan, more or less Human have to be good actor and participating in divine plan accept whatever happens with courage and indifference. The good life involved living in harmony with nature.

LATTER VIEW of life


Neoplatonism Plotinus

Try to find philosophical base that hasnt been established by other views Combination of Judaism and Platos philosophy emphasized on spirit rather than flesh The One Spirit Soul physical world Become the foundation of Christianity

View of life in roman empire


Emphasis on spirit Christianity arise as a form of religion and philosophy a new paradigm of monotheism After struggled from many obstacles, in 313 Emperor Constantine made Christianity a tolerated religion in 325 made unification of many diverse doctrines/versions into standard Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire

Human in christianity
St. Augustine Form the philosophical framework of Christianity humans can know God through intense introspection Free will : humans responsible for their own destiny, and personal guilt became an important means of controlling behavior

DARK AGES
Characteristics :
Greek and roman books were lost or destroyed Little or no progress was made in science, philosophy or literature Uniform Roman law collapsed and was replaced by a variety of local customs Villages armed themselves against attack from both their neighbors and invaders from afar Christian church became increasingly powerful Europe was dominated by mysticism, superstition and antiintellectualism

Islamic and Jewish influences


Translated the works of Greek and Roman philosopher (mainly Aristotles) Attempting to make them compatible with their religion (Aristotelian-Islam; Aristotelian-Judaism) Work of Avicenna, Averoes, and Maimonides were spread to Western

Faith vs reason in dark ages


St. Anselm & Lombard : reason and faith were compatible, Abelard & Albertus Magnus : embrace the work of Aristotle Realist vs nominalist
Realist : universals and essences had a real, independent existence empirical events only manifestations Nominalist : universals were nothing more than verbal labels allowing the grouping of objects or events that resemble one another

Faith vs reason in dark ages


Abelard : offering conceptualism universal essences dont exist, but similarities among categories of experiences do. Scholasticism : synthesize Aristotles philosophy with the Christian religion St. Thomas Aquinas : acceptance of both reason and faith as ways of knowing God inadvertently created the atmosphere that lead to Renaissance

Renaissance
New paradigm : humanism (more emphasize to human), with four major themes:
A belief in the potential of the individual; An insistence that religion be more personal and less institutionalized; An intense interest in the classics A negative attitude toward Aristotles philosophy

Pre-renaissance philosopher
Francesco Petrarch
Concerned with freeing the human spirit form the confines of medieval traditions A persons life in this world is at least as important as life after death Thus develop the climate to enhance the potentiality of human in every subjects

Factors that influenced renaissance


Work of the humanist
recaptured the spirit of open inquiry reflected in the classics. Stressed on human potential to act upon the world and change it for the better

Exploration of new places, like central Asia, China, America, and around the globe Modern printing techniques by Guttenberg Martins Luther challenge to Catholicism Shifting from geocentricism to heliocentricism

Heliocentric theory
Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo
Emphasize the mathematical principles from Phytagoras Plato inline with the development of the Renaissance which focused on mathematics Found that the planets move on elliptical path, and all planetary motion could be described by a single mathematical statement Motions of all bodies under all circumstances are governed by a single set of mathematical laws experiment is performed to confirm or disconfirm the law

Implication of Galileos view to humanism


Consciousness can never be studied by the objective method of science Shift the paradigm of human position in the world human conscious experience as secondary, unreal, and totally dependent on the senses, which are deceitful. Psychology was impossible because of the subjective nature of human thought processes.

Implication of Newtons law to humanism


Universe as a complex, lawful, knowable machine that had been created and set in motion by God agreed with Scholastics, Copernicus and Kepler Law of gravitation : all objects in the universe attract each other (see principles of Newtonian science; p. 113)

Implication of bacons view to humanism Nature could be understood only by studying it directly and

objectively. Demanded science based on induction no theories, no hypotheses, no mathematics, and no deductions but should involve only the facts of observation. 4 source of errors : cave, tribe, marketplace, theater (see p. 116)

Implication of descartes view to humanism Rationalist, nativist and phenomenologist influence his

view about human Ultimate knowledge is always mathematical knowledge Believe in innate ideas find truth through introspective activity Sensory information could be trusted because God had created our sensory apparatus and would not deceive us

Descartes view of human behavior


Inspired by the fountain machine mechanistic principles of animal and much of human behavior Interactionism Dualism mind and body as separate but interacting; body can influence the mind, and mind can influence the body

The way of introspective knowledge


Doubt in everything that could be doubted Doubting is the only thing that could be certain to To doubt was to think I think therefore I am

Characteristics of philosopher in 16th and 17th


Mixture of religious subjectivity and the need to be completely objective. Believed that their work was revealing Gods secrets Refuse to allow past beliefs or methods to influence their inquiries Motivated by apparent errors in previously accepted dogma

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