Ration & Reason During Renaissance
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Renaissance is a French term that equates to rebirth. In so doing, the term accurately depicts the intellectual, scientific, and economic changes that occurred in Europe after the Dark Ages lasting through the sixteenth century. Within the Renaissance the rebirth of classical Greek ideals helped turn in new directions art, society, science, and thought. Curiosity and objectivity about the world asserted the importance of individualism which would lead to humanism. From such a view, it was felt that ration and trained thought as perpetrated by Platonic ideals were the highest goal to which man could aspire. For rational thought and virtuous behavior would lead to the highest development of the soul, not pious preaching or devout worship of idols. We see this in the writings of Pietro Pomponazzi when he discusses the kind of men that have become most godlike on earth: “Hence there are three kinds of men to be found. Some are numbered with the gods, although such are but few. And these are the men who, having subjugated the vegetative and sensitive, have become almost completely rational. Some from total neglect of the intellect and from occupying themselves with the vegetative and sensitive alone, have become almost completely rational” (393). During the Renaissance scholars used the pagan values of Greco-Roman society and helped loosen the grip of Christianity that had been so strong during the Middle Ages.
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cus on the individual during the Renaissance does not mean that those who learned toward ration and intellect were atheists. Nor does it mean that those who believed in the power of the individual to use ration to discover the meaning of life were opposed to the concept of a higher power or the soul of human beings. The rise of humanism and the human as the focus of the center of the universe, including rational thought, does not mean either that individuals who could attain a highly developed sense of intellect and ration could discern all of the mysteries of life. Perhaps we see such notions most clearly expressed in the writings of Pomponazzi. For in his discussion of whether or not the soul is mortal or immortal, he makes references to both St. Thomas Aquinas and Plato. His conclusion is that when such learned or religious figures disagree on an answer to one of life’s mysteries, more often than not it is a mystery that only the presence of a God could show its answer. In The Immortality of the Soul he writes:
No natural reasons can be brought forth proving that the soul is immortal, and still less any proving that the soul is mortal, as very many scholars who hold it immortal declare. Wherefore I do not want to make a
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Approximate Word count = 2125
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)
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