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Aristotle, by Francesco Hayez.

Aristotelianism ( /ˌærɨstəˈtiːliənɨzəm/ ARR-i-stə-TEE-li-ə-niz-əm) is a tradition of philosophy that takes its defining inspiration from the work of Aristotle. The works of Aristotle were initially defended by the members of the Peripatetic school, and, later on, by the Neoplatonists, who produced many commentaries on Aristotle's writings. In the Islamic world, the works of Aristotle were translated into Arabic, and under philosophers such as Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, Aristotelianism became a major part of early Islamic philosophy. Although some knowledge of Aristotle's logical works was known to western Europe, it wasn't until the Latin translations of the 12th century that the works of Aristotle and his Arabic commentators became widely available. Scholars such as Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas interpreted and systematized Aristotle's works in accordance with Christian theology.

History[link]

Ancient Greece[link]

The original followers of Aristotle were the members of the Peripatetic school. The most prominent members of the school after Aristotle were Theophrastus and Strato of Lampsacus, who both continued Aristotle's researches. During the Roman era the school concentrated on preserving and defending his work.^[1] The most important figure in this regard was Alexander of Aphrodisias who commentated on Aristotle's writings. With the rise of Neoplatonism in the 3rd century, Peripateticism as an independent philosophy came to an end, but the Neoplatonists sought to incorporate Aristotle's philosophy within their own system, and produced many commentaries on Aristotle.

Islamic world[link]

In the Abbasid Empire, many foreign works were translated into Arabic, large libraries were constructed, and scholars were welcomed.^[2] Under the caliphs Harun al-Rashid and his son Al-Ma'mun, the House of Wisdom in Baghdad flourished. Christian scholar Hunayn ibn Ishaq (809–873) was placed in charge of the translation work by the caliph. In his lifetime, Ishaq translated 116 writings, including works by Plato and Aristotle, into Syriac and Arabic.^[3][4] Al-Kindi (801–873) was the first of the Muslim Peripatetic philosophers, and is known for his efforts to introduce Greek and Hellenistic philosophy to the Arab world.^[5] He incorporated Aristotelian and Neoplatonist thought into an Islamic philosophical framework. This was an important factor in the introduction and popularization of Greek philosophy in the Muslim intellectual world.^[6]

The philosopher Al-Farabi (872–950) had great influence on science and philosophy for several centuries, and was widely regarded to be second only to Aristotle in knowledge (alluded to by his title of "the Second Teacher") in his time. His work, aimed at synthesis of philosophy and Sufism, paved the way for the work of Avicenna (980–1037).^[7] Avicenna was one of the main interpreters of Aristotle.^[8] The school of thought he founded became known as Avicennism, which was built on ingredients and conceptual building blocks which are largely Aristotelian and Neoplatonist.^[9]

At the western end of the Mediterranean Sea, during the reign of Al-Hakam II (961 to 976) in Córdoba, a massive translation effort was undertaken, and many books were translated into Arabic. Averroes (1126–1198), who spent much of his life in Cordoba and Seville, was especially distinguished as a commentator of Aristotle. He often wrote two or three different commentaries on the same work, and some 38 commentaries by Averroes on the works of Aristotle have been identified.^[10] Although his writings had only marginal impact in Islamic countries, his works would eventually have a huge impact in the Latin West,^[10] and would lead to the school of thought known as Averroism.

Europe[link]

Although some knowledge of Aristotle seems to have lingered on in the ecclesiastical centres of western Europe after the fall of the Roman empire, by the ninth century nearly all that was known of Aristotle consisted of Boethius's commentaries on the Organon, and a few abridgments made by Latin authors of the declining empire, Isidore of Seville and Martianus Capella.^[11] From that time until the end of the eleventh century, little progress is apparent in Aristotelian knowledge.^[11]

The renaissance of the 12th century saw a major search by European scholars for new learning. James of Venice, who probably spent some years in Constantinople, translated Aristotle's Posterior Analytics from Greek into Latin in the mid-twelfth century,^[12] thus making the complete Aristotelian logical corpus, the Organon, available in Latin for the first time. Scholars travelled to areas of Europe that once had been under Muslim rule and still had substantial Arabic-speaking populations. From central Spain, which had come under Christian rule in the eleventh century, scholars produced many of the Latin translations of the 12th century. The most productive of these translators was Gerard of Cremona,^[13] (c. 1114–1187), who translated 87 books,^[14] which included many of the works of Aristotle such as his Posterior Analytics, Physics, On the Heavens, On Generation and Corruption, and Meteorology. Michael Scot (c. 1175–1232) translated Averroes' commentaries on the scientific works of Aristotle.^[15]

Aristotle's physical writings began to be discussed openly, and at a time when Aristotle's method was permeating all theology, these treatises were sufficient to cause his prohibition for heterodoxy in the Condemnations of 1210–1277.^[11] In the first of these, in Paris in 1210, it was stated that "neither the books of Aristotle on natural philosophy or their commentaries are to be read at Paris in public or secret, and this we forbid under penalty of excommunication."^[16] However, despite further attempts to restrict the teaching of Aristotle, by 1270 the ban on Aristotle's natural philosophy was ineffective.^[17]

William of Moerbeke (c. 1215–1286) undertook a complete translation of the works of Aristotle or, for some portions, a revision of existing translations. He was the first translator of the Politics (c. 1260) from Greek into Latin. Many copies of Aristotle in Latin then in circulation were assumed to have been influenced by Averroes, who was suspected of being a source of philosophical and theological errors found in the earlier translations of Aristotle. Such claims were without merit, however, as the Alexandrian Aristotelianism of Averroes followed "the strict study of the text of Aristotle, which was introduced by Avicenna, [because] a large amount of traditional Neoplatonism was incorporated with the body of traditional Aristotelianism".^[18] Albertus Magnus (c. 1200–1280) was among the first among medieval scholars to apply Aristotle's philosophy to Christian thought. He produced paraphrases of most of the works of Aristotle available to him.^[19] He digested, interpreted and systematized the whole of Aristotle's works, gleaned from the Latin translations and notes of the Arabian commentators, in accordance with Church doctrine. His efforts resulted in the formation of a Christian reception of Aristotle in the Western Europe.^[19] Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), the pupil of Albertus Magnus, wrote a dozen commentaries on the works of Aristotle.^[20] Thomas was emphatically Aristotelian, he adopted Aristotle's analysis of physical objects, his view of place, time and motion, his proof of the prime mover, his cosmology, his account of sense perception and intellectual knowledge, and even parts of his moral philosophy.^[20] The philosophical school that arose as a legacy of the work of Thomas Aquinas was known as Thomism, and was especially influential among the Dominicans, and later, the Jesuits.^[20]

Modern era[link]

After retreating under criticism from modern natural philosophers, the distinctively Aristotelian idea of teleology was transmitted through Wolff and Kant to Hegel, who applied it to history as a totality.^{[citation needed]} Although this project was criticized by Trendelenburg and Brentano as un-Aristotelian,^{[citation needed]} Hegel’s influence is now often said to be responsible for an important Aristotelian influence upon Marx.^[21] Postmodernists, in contrast, reject Aristotelianism’s claim to reveal important theoretical truths.^[22] In this, they follow Heidegger’s critique of Aristotle as the greatest source of the entire tradition of Western philosophy.

Contemporary Aristotelianism[link]

Aristotelianism is understood by its proponents as critically developing Plato’s theories.^[23] Recent Aristotelian ethical and ‘practical’ philosophy, such as that of Gadamer and McDowell, is often premised upon a rejection of Aristotelianism’s traditional metaphysical or theoretical philosophy.^{[citation needed]} From this viewpoint, the early modern tradition of political republicanism, which views the res publica, public sphere or state as constituted by its citizens’ virtuous activity, can appear thoroughly Aristotelian.^{[citation needed]}

The contemporary Aristotelian philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre is specially famous for helping to revive virtue ethics in his book After Virtue. MacIntyre revises Aristotelianism with the argument that the highest temporal goods, which are internal to human beings, are actualized through participation in social practices. He opposes Aristotelianism to the managerial institutions of capitalism and its state, and to rival traditions—including the philosophies of Hume, Kant, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche—that reject its idea of essentially human goods and virtues and instead legitimize capitalism. Therefore, on MacIntyre’s account, Aristotelianism is not identical with Western philosophy as a whole; rather, it is "the best theory so far, [including] the best theory so far about what makes a particular theory the best one."^[24] Politically and socially, it has been characterized as a newly 'revolutionary Aristotelianism'. This may be contrasted with the more conventional, apolitical and effectively conservative uses of Aristotle by, for example, Gadamer and McDowell.^[25] Other important contemporary Aristotelian theorists include Fred D. Miller, Jr.^[26] in politics and Rosalind Hursthouse in ethics.^[27]

See also[link]

• Hylomorphism
• Phronesis
• Platonism

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

• The Peripatos after Aristotle: Origin of the Corpus Aristotelicum with an annotated bibliography
• Clayton, Edward. (2005) Political Philosophy of Alasdair MacIntyre, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• International Society for MacIntyrean Enquiry

William James Durant (November 5, 1885 – November 7, 1981) was a prolific American writer, historian, and philosopher. He is best known for The Story of Civilization, 11 volumes written in collaboration with his wife Ariel Durant and published between 1935 and 1975. He was earlier noted for The Story of Philosophy, written in 1926, which one observer described as "a groundbreaking work that helped to popularize philosophy."^[1]

He conceived of philosophy as total perspective, or, seeing things "sub specie totius," a phrase inspired by Spinoza's "sub specie aeternitatis."^[2] He sought to unify and humanize the great body of historical knowledge, which had grown too voluminous and become fragmented into esoteric specialties, and to vitalize it for contemporary application.^[3] Durant was a gifted prose stylist and storyteller who won a large readership in great part because of the nature and excellence of his writing, which, in contrast to formal academic language, is lively, witty, charismatic, colourful, ornate, epigrammatic, in short, "humanized." Max Schuster, co-founder of the publisher Simon & Schuster (which also published Durant's works), and himself an admirer of Durant's writings for their beauty, remarked that Durant's prose "begs to be read aloud."^[4] John Little, who founded and heads the Will Durant foundation and has devoted much effort towards popularizing Durant's works in the 21st century, echoes Schuster's admiration for Durant's works in words which Durant himself sometimes used to describe a few of the finest works of Classical Antiquity: "prose so beautiful it rivals poetry."^[5]

Will and Ariel Durant were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1968 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977.

Early life[link]

Durant was born in North Adams, Massachusetts of French-Canadian parents Joseph Durant and Mary Allard, who had been part of the Quebec emigration to the United States.

In 1900, Durant was educated by the Jesuits in St. Peter's Preparatory School and, later, Saint Peter's College in Jersey City, New Jersey. Historian Joan Rubin writes of this period, "Despite some adolescent flirtations, he began preparing for the vocation that promised to realize his mother's fondest hopes for him: the priesthood. In that way, one might argue, he embarked on a course that, while distant from Yale's or Columbia's apprenticeships in gentility, offered equivalent cultural authority within his own milieu."^[6]

In 1905, he began experimenting with socialist philosophy but, after World War I, began recognizing that a "lust for power" underlay all forms of political behavior.^[6] However, even before the war, "other aspects of his sensibility had competed with his radical leanings," notes Rubin. She adds that "the most concrete of those was a persistent penchant for philosophy. With his energy invested in Spinoza, he made little room for Bakunin. From then on, writes Rubin, "his retention of a model of selfhood predicated on discipline made him unsympathetic to anarchist injunctions to 'be yourself'. . . To be one's 'deliberate self,' he explained, meant to 'rise above' the impulse to 'become the slaves of our passions' and instead to act with 'courageous devotion' to a moral cause."^[6]

He graduated in 1907. He worked as a reporter for Arthur Brisbane's New York Evening Journal for ten dollars a week. At the Evening Journal, he wrote several articles on sexual criminals. In 1907, he began teaching Latin, French, English and geometry at Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey. Durant was also made librarian at the college.

Teaching career[link]

The Modern School in New York City, circa 1911–12. Will Durant stands with his pupils. This image was used on the cover of the first Modern School magazine.

In 1911 he left the seminary. He became the principal of Ferrer Modern School, an advanced school intended to educate the working-classes; he also taught there. Alden Freeman, a supporter of the Ferrer Modern School, sponsored him for a tour of Europe.  At the Modern School, he fell in love with and married a pupil, 13 years his junior, Chaya (Ida) Kaufman, whom he later nicknamed "Ariel". The Durants had one daughter, Ethel, and adopted a son, Louis.

By 1914 he began to reject "intimations of human evil," notes Rubin, and to "retreat from radical social change." She summarizes these changes in his overall philosophy:

"Instead of tying human progress to the rise of the proletariat, he made it the inevitable outcome of the laughter of young children or the endurance of his parents' marriage. As Ariel Durant later summarized it, he had concocted, by his mid-thirties, 'that sentimental, idealizing blend of love, philosophy, Christianity, and socialism which dominated his spiritual chemistry' the rest of his life.

"Those attributes ultimately propelled him away from radicalism as a substitute faith and from teaching young anarchists as an alternative vocation. Instead, late in 1913 he embarked on a different pursuit: the dissemination of culture."^[6]

In 1913, he resigned his post as teacher. To support themselves, he began lecturing in a Presbyterian church for five- and ten-dollar fees; the material for these lectures became the starting point for The Story of Civilization.

Author[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

In 1917, while working on a doctorate in philosophy at Columbia University, Will Durant wrote his first book, Philosophy and the Social Problem. He discussed the idea that philosophy had not grown because it avoided the actual problems of society. He received his doctorate that same year from Columbia.^[7] He was also an instructor at the university.

[edit] The Story of Philosophy

The Story of Philosophy originated as a series of Little Blue Books (educational pamphlets aimed at workers) and was so popular it was republished in 1926 by Simon & Schuster as a hardcover book^[8] and became a bestseller, giving the Durants the financial independence that would allow them to travel the world several times and spend four decades writing The Story of Civilization. He left teaching and began work on the eleven volume Story of Civilization. Will drafted a civil rights "Declaration of Interdependence" in the early 1940s, nearly a full decade before the Brown decision (see Brown v. Board of Education) ignited the Civil Rights Movement. This Declaration was introduced into the Congressional Record on October 1, 1945.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] The Story of Civilization

The Durants strove throughout The Story of Civilization to create what they called "integral history". They opposed this to the "specialization" of history, an anticipatory rejection of what some have called the "cult of the expert." Their goal was to write a "biography" of a civilization, in this case, the West, including not just the usual wars, politics and biography of greatness and villainy, but also the culture, art, philosophy, religion, and the rise of mass communication. Much of The Story considers the living conditions of everyday people throughout the twenty-five hundred years their "story" of the West covers. They also bring an unabashedly moral framework to their accounts, constantly stressing the repetition of the "dominance of strong over the weak, the clever over the simple." The Story of Civilization is the most successful historiographical series in history. It has been said that the series "put Simon and Schuster on the map" as a publishing house.

The Story of Civilization is also noteworthy because of the excellence of its writing style, and contains numerous apothegms worthy of the Roman and Renaissance authors Durant admired. Discussing certain inconsistencies in the character of Botticelli in The Renaissance (page 137), he writes: "Doubtless like all of us he was many men, turned on one or another of his selves as occasion required, and kept his real self a frightened secret from the world."

For Rousseau and Revolution, (1967), the 10th volume of The Story of Civilization, they were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for literature; later followed one of the two highest awards granted by the United States government to civilians, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by President Ford in 1977.

Other works[link]

Throughout his career, Durant had several brilliant speeches; among such was the "Persia in the History of Civilization" that was presented as an address before the Iran-America Society in Tehran on April 21, 1948, and its manuscript had been intended for inclusion in the Bulletin of the Asia Institute (formerly Bulletin of the American Institute for Persian, then Iranian, Art and Archaeology), Vol. VII, no. 2, which never saw publication.^[9] They were followed by Rousseau and Revolution with a slender volume of observations called The Lessons of History, which was both synopsis of the series as well as analysis. Though they had intended to carry the work into the 20th century, they simply ran out of time and had expected the 10th volume to be their last. However, they went on to publish a final volume, their 11th, The Age of Napoleon in 1975. They also left behind notes for a twelfth volume, The Age of Darwin, and an outline for a thirteenth, The Age of Einstein, which would have taken The Story of Civilization through to 1945.

Two posthumous works by Durant have been published in recent years, The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time (2002) and Heroes of History: A Brief History of Civilization from Ancient Times to the Dawn of the Modern Age (2001).

Final years

The Durants also shared a love story as remarkable as their scholarship;^{[citation needed]} they detail this in Dual Autobiography. After Will went into the hospital, Ariel stopped eating. Will died after he heard that Ariel had died. They died within two weeks of each other in 1981 (she on October 25 and he on November 7). Though their daughter, Ethel, and grandchildren strove to keep the death of his Ariel from the ailing Will, he learned of it on the evening news, and he himself died at the age of 96. He was buried beside his wife in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Writing about Russia[link]

In 1933, he published Tragedy of Russia: Impressions from a Brief Visit and soon after, The Lesson of Russia. A few years after the books were published, social commentator Will Rogers had read them and described a symposium he had attended that included Will Durant as one of the contributors. He later wrote of Durant, "He is just about our best writer on Russia. He is the most fearless writer that has been there. He tells you just what it's like. He makes a mighty fine talk. One of the most interesting lecturers we have, and a fine fellow."^[1]

Legacy[link]

Will Durant fought for equal wages, women's suffrage and fairer working conditions for the American labor force. Durant not only wrote on many topics but also put his ideas into effect. Durant, it has been said widely, attempted to bring philosophy to the common man. He authored The Story of Philosophy, The Mansions of Philosophy, and, with the help of his wife, Ariel, wrote The Story of Civilization. He also wrote magazine articles.

He was trying to improve understanding of viewpoints of human beings and to have others forgive foibles and human waywardness. He chided the comfortable insularity of what is now known as Eurocentrism, by pointing out in Our Oriental Heritage that Europe was only "a jagged promontory of Asia." He complained of "the provincialism of our traditional histories which began with Greece and summed up Asia in a line" and said they showed "a possibly fatal error of perspective and intelligence."

Philosophical writings[link]

On the decline and rebuilding of civilizations[link]

Much like Oswald Spengler, Will Durant saw the decline of a civilization as a culmination of strife between religion and secular intellectualism, thus toppling the precarious institutions of convention and morality:

"Hence a certain tension between religion and society marks the higher stages of every civilization. Religion begins by offering magical aid to harassed and bewildered men; it culminates by giving to a people that unity of morals and belief which seems so favorable to statesmanship and art; it ends by fighting suicidally in the lost cause of the past. For as knowledge grows or alters continually, it clashes with mythology and theology, which change with geological leisureliness. Priestly control of arts and letters is then felt as a galling shackle or hateful barrier, and intellectual history takes on the character of a "conflict between science and religion." Institutions which were at first in the hands of the clergy, like law and punishment, education and morals, marriage and divorce, tend to escape from ecclesiastical control, and become secular, perhaps profane. The intellectual classes abandon the ancient theology and—after some hesitation—the moral code allied with it; literature and philosophy become anticlerical. The movement of liberation rises to an exuberant worship of reason, and falls to a paralyzing disillusionment with every dogma and every idea. Conduct, deprived of its religious supports, deteriorates into epicurean chaos; and life itself, shorn of consoling faith, becomes a burden alike to conscious poverty and to weary wealth. In the end a society and its religion tend to fall together, like body and soul, in a harmonious death. Meanwhile among the oppressed another myth arises, gives new form to human hope, new courage to human effort, and after centuries of chaos builds another civilization."^[10]

More than twenty years after his death, Durant's quote of "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within"^[11] appeared as the opening graphic of Mel Gibson's 2006 film Apocalypto.

On religion and evolution[link]

In an article in 1927, he wrote his thoughts about reconciling religion and Darwinism. An excerpt from the article:

"As to harmonizing the theory of evolution with the Biblical account of creation, I do not believe it can be done, and I do not see why it should be. The story of Genesis is beautiful, and profoundly significant as symbolism: there is no good reason to torture it into conformity with modern theory."^[12]

Selected books[link]

See a full bibliography at Will Durant Online [1].

• Durant, Will (1917) Philosophy and the Social Problem. New York: Macmillan.
• Durant, Will (1926) The Story of Philosophy. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will (1927) Transition. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will (1929) The Mansions of Philosophy. New York: Simon and Schuster. Later with slight revisions re-published as The Pleasures of Philosophy
• Durant, Will (1930) The Case for India. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will (1931) Adventures in Genius. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will (1931) Great Men of Literature, taken from Adventures in Genius. New York: Garden City Publishing Co.
• Durant, Will (1953) The Pleasures of Philosophy. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will & Durant, Ariel (1968) The Lessons of History. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will & Durant, Ariel (1970) Interpretations of Life. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will & Durant, Ariel (1977) A Dual Autobiography. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will (2001) Heroes of History: A Brief History of Civilization from Ancient Times to the Dawn of the Modern Age. New York: Simon and Schuster. Actually copyrighted by John Little and the Estate of Will Durant.
• Durant, Will (2002) The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will (2003) An Invitation to Philosophy: Essays and Talks on the Love of Wisdom. Promethean Press.
• Durant, Will (2008) Adventures in Philosophy. Promethean Press.

=== The Story of Civilization

• Durant, Will (1939) The Life of Greece. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will (1944) Caesar and Christ. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will (1950) The Age of Faith. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will (1953) The Renaissance. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will (1957) The Reformation. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will, & Durant, Ariel (1961) The Age of Reason Begins. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will, & Durant, Ariel (1963) The Age of Louis XIV. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will, & Durant, Ariel (1965) The Age of Voltaire. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will, & Durant, Ariel (1967) Rousseau and Revolution. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will, & Durant, Ariel (1975) The Age of Napoleon. New York: Simon and Schuster.

See also[link]

• American philosophy
• List of American philosophers
• List of historians

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Will Durant

• Will Durant Foundation
• Will Durant's list of One Hundred Best Books for an Education
• Internet Archive
• The Pulitzer Prizes: 1968
• "Durant, Will and Durant, Ariel." Encyclopædia Britannica from Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service. (Accessed May 14, 2005)

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

Portrait from the Uffizi Gallery, in Florence.
Born	(1463-02-24)24 February 1463 Mirandola, Italy
Died	17 November 1494(1494-11-17) (aged 31) Italy
Era	Renaissance philosophy
Region	Western Philosophers
School	Renaissance philosophy
Main interests	Politics, history, religion magic
Influenced by Plato, Marsilio Ficino, Aristotle, Pseudo-Dionysius, Neoplatonism, Nicholas of Cusa, Kabbalah
Influenced John Colet, Erasmus, Sir Thomas More

Count Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (Italian pronunciation: [dʒoˈvanni ˈpiko della miˈrandola]; 24 February 1463 – 17 November 1494) was an Italian Renaissance philosopher.^[1] He is famed for the events of 1486, when at the age of 23, he proposed to defend 900 theses on religion, philosophy, natural philosophy and magic against all comers, for which he wrote the famous Oration on the Dignity of Man, which has been called the "Manifesto of the Renaissance",^[2] and a key text of Renaissance humanism and of what has been called the “Hermetic Reformation."^[3]

Family[link]

Giovanni was born at Mirandola, near Modena, the youngest son of Francesco I, Lord of Mirandola and Count of Concordia (1415–1467), by his wife Giulia, daughter of Feltrino Boiardo, Count di Scandiano.^[4] The family had long dwelt in the Castle of Mirandola (Duchy of Modena), which had become independent in the fourteenth century and had received in 1414 from the Emperor Sigismund the fief of Concordia. Mirandola was a small autonomous county (later, a duchy) in Emilia, near Ferrara. The Pico della Mirandola were closely related to the Sforza, Gonzaga and Este dynasties, and Giovanni's siblings wed the scions of the hereditary rulers of Corsica, Ferrara, Bologna and Forlì.^[4]

Born twenty-three years into his parents' marriage, Giovanni had two much older brothers, both of whom outlived him: Count Galeotto I (1442–1499) continued the dynasty, while Antonio (1444–1501) became a general in the Imperial army.^[4] The Pico family would reign as dukes until Mirandola, an ally of Louis XIV of France, was conquered by his rival, Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor, in 1708 and annexed to Modena by Duke Rinaldo d'Este, the exiled male line becoming extinct in 1747.^[5]

Giovanni's maternal family was singularly distinguished in the arts and scholarship of the Italian Renaissance. His cousin and contemporary was the poet Matteo Maria Boiardo, who grew up under the influence of his own uncle, the Florentine patron of the arts and scholar-poet, Tito Vespasiano Strozzi.^[6]

Education[link]

A precocious child with an amazing memory, Giovanni was schooled in Latin, and possibly Greek, at a very early age. Intended for the Church by his mother, he was named a papal protonotary at the age of ten and in 1477 he went to Bologna to study canon law.^[7]

At the sudden death of his mother three years later, Pico renounced canon law and began to study philosophy at the University of Ferrara.^[7] During a brief trip to Florence, he met Angelo Poliziano, the courtly poet Girolamo Benivieni, and probably the young Dominican monk Girolamo Savonarola. For the rest of his life he remained very close friends with all three, including the ascetic and violently anti-humanist Savonarola.^{[citation needed][8]}

Pico della Mirandola.

From 1480 to 1482, he continued his studies at the University of Padua, a major center of Aristotelianism in Italy.^[7] Already proficient in Latin and Greek, he studied Hebrew and Arabic in Padua with Elia del Medigo, a Jewish Averroist, and read Aramaic manuscripts with him as well. Del Medigo also translated Judaic manuscripts from Hebrew into Latin for Pico, as he would continue to do for a number of years. Pico also wrote sonnets in Latin and Italian, which because of the influence of Savonarola, he destroyed at the end of his life.

He spent the next four years either at home, or visiting humanist centres elsewhere in Italy. In 1485 he travelled to the University of Paris, the most important centre in the whole of Europe for Scholastic philosophy and theology, and a hotbed of secular Averroism. It was probably in Paris that Giovanni began his 900 Theses and conceived the idea of defending them in public debate.

Florence[link]

During this time two life-changing events occurred. The first was when he returned to settle for a time in Florence in November 1484 and met Lorenzo de' Medici and Marsilio Ficino, on the astrologically auspicious day Ficino had chosen to publish his translations of the works of Plato from Greek into Latin under Lorenzo’s enthusiastic patronage. Giovanni appears to have charmed both men immensely, with Ficino endeared, despite continuing philosophical differences, convinced of their Saturnine affinity and the divine provenance of his arrival. Until his death in 1492 Lorenzo supported and protected Giovanni. Without Lorenzo's support it is doubtful that Pico would have survived even the 10 more years that he did.

Soon after this stay in Florence, Pico was travelling on his way to Rome where he intended to publish his 900 Theses and prepare for a “Congress” of scholars from all over Europe to debate them. Stopping in Arezzo he became embroiled in a love affair with the wife of one of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s cousins. It almost cost him his life. Giovanni attempted to run off with the woman, but he was caught, wounded and thrown into prison by her husband. He was released only upon the intervention of Lorenzo himself. The incident is wholly representative of Pico's often audacious temperament and of the loyalty and affection he nevertheless could inspire.

Pico spent several months in Perugia and nearby Fratta, recovering from his injuries. It was there, as he wrote to Ficino, that "divine Providence [...] caused certain books to fall into my hands. They are Chaldean books [...] of Esdras, of Zoroaster and of Melchior, oracles of the magi, which contain a brief and dry interpretation of Chaldean philosophy, but full of mystery."^[9] It was also in Perugia that Pico was introduced to the mystical Hebrew Kabbalah, which fascinated him, as did the late Classical Hermetic writers, such as Hermes Trismegistus. The Kabbalah and the Hermetica were thought in Pico's time to be as ancient as the Old Testament, and for that reason, he accorded them an almost scriptural status. It was always Pico's intention to walk completely around a topic and look at it from many possible angles, in order to derive the truest possible vision of the thing itself. Syncretism, for Pico, was seeing the same absolute from many different points of view, a Scholastic approach with a strong modern resonance.

Pico based his ideas chiefly on Plato, as did his teacher, Marsilio Ficino, but retained a deep respect for Aristotle. Although he was a product of the studia humanitatis, Pico was constitutionally an eclectic, and in some respects he represented a reaction against the exaggerations of pure humanism, defending what he believed to be the best of the medieval and Islamic commentators (see Averroes, Avicenna) on Aristotle in a famous long letter to Ermolao Barbaro in 1485. It was always Pico’s aim to reconcile the schools of Plato and Aristotle, since he believed they both used different words to express the same concepts. It was perhaps for this reason his friends called him "Princeps Concordiae, or "Prince of Harmony" (a pun on Prince of Concordia, one of his family’s holdings.^[10]) Similarly, Pico believed an educated person should also study the Hebrew and Talmudic sources, and the Hermetics, because he believed they represented the same view seen in the Old Testament, in different words, of God.

He finished his Oration on the Dignity of Man to accompany his 900 Theses and traveled to Rome to continue his plan to defend them. He had them published in December 1486 (Conclusiones philosophicae, cabalasticae et theologicae, Rome, 1486) and offered to pay the expenses of any scholars who came to Rome to debate them publicly.

In February 1487, Pope Innocent VIII halted the proposed debate, and established a commission to review the orthodoxy of the Theses. Although Pico answered the charges against them, thirteen of the Theses were condemned. Pico agreed in writing to retract them, but he did not change his mind about their validity, and proceeded to write an Apologia ("Apologia J. Pici Mirandolani, Concordiae comitis" published in 1489) defending them, dedicated to Lorenzo. When the Pope was apprised of the circulation of this manuscript, he set up an inquisitorial tribunal, forcing Pico to renounce the Apologia as well which he also agreed to do.

Nevertheless, the Pope declared his Theses unorthodox calling them "in part heretical, in part the flower of heresy; several are scandalous and offensive to pious ears; most do nothing but reproduce the errors of pagan philosophers...others are capable of inflaming the impertinence of the Jews; a number of them, finally, under the pretext of "natural philosophy", favor arts that are enemies to the Catholic faith and to the human race."^[11] One of Pico’s detractors maintained that "Kabbala" was the name of an impious writer against Jesus Christ.^{[citation needed]}

Pico fled to France in 1488, where he was arrested by Philip II of Savoy, at the demand of the papal nuncios, and imprisoned at Vincennes. Through the intercession of several Italian princes—all instigated by Lorenzo de' Medici—King Charles VIII had him released, and the Pope was persuaded to allow Pico to move to Florence and to live under Lorenzo’s protection. But he was not cleared of the papal censures and restrictions until 1493, after the accession of Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia) to the papacy.

Pico was deeply shaken by the experience. He reconciled with Savonarola, who remained a very close friend. It was at Pico’s persuasion that Lorenzo invited Savonarola to Florence. But Pico never renounced his syncretist convictions.

He settled in a villa near Fiesole prepared for him by Lorenzo, where he wrote and published the Heptaplus id est de Dei creatoris opere (1489) and De Ente et Uno (Of Being and Unity, 1491). It was here that he also wrote his other most celebrated work, the Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinicatrium (Treatise Against Astrology), which was not published until after his death. In it, Pico acidly condemned the practices of the astrologers of his day, and shredded the intellectual basis of astrology itself. Pico was interested in high magic that enhanced man's dignity and strengthened his will. There was no room in such a concept for the determinism of the stars.

After the death of Lorenzo de' Medici, in 1492, Pico moved to Ferrara, although he continued to visit Florence. In Florence, political instability gave rise to the increasing influence of Savonarola, whose reactionary opposition to Renaissance expansion and style had already brought about conflict with the Medici family (they eventually were expelled from Florence) and would lead to the wholesale destruction of books and paintings. Nevertheless, Pico became a follower of Savonarola. Determined to become a monk, he dismissed his former interest in Egyptian and Chaldean texts, destroyed his own poetry and gave away his fortune.^[12]

Pico died under very mysterious circumstances in 1494. It was rumored that his own secretary had poisoned him, because Pico had become too close to Savonarola.^[11] He was interred at San Marco and Savonarola delivered the funeral oration. Ficino wrote: “Our dear Pico left us on the same day that Charles VIII was entering Florence, and the tears of men of letters compensated for the joy of the people. Without the light brought by the king of France, Florence might perhaps have never seen a more somber day than that which extinguished Mirandola’s light.”^[11]

In 2007, the bodies of Poliziano and Pico della Mirandola were exhumed from St. Mark's Basilica in Florence. Scientists under the supervision of Giorgio Gruppioni, a professor of anthropology from Bologna, will use current testing techniques to study the men's lives and establish the causes of their deaths. A TV documentary is being made of this research,^[13] and it was recently announced that these forensic tests showed that both Poliziano and Pico likely died of arsenic poisoning, probably at the order of Lorenzo's successor, Piero de' Medici.^[14]

Writings[link]

In the De hominis dignitate (Oration on the Dignity of Man, 1486), Pico justified the importance of the human quest for knowledge within a Neoplatonic framework.

The Oration also served as an introduction to Pico's 900 theses, which he believed to provide a complete and sufficient basis for the discovery of all knowledge, and hence a model for mankind's ascent of the chain of being. The 900 Theses are a good example of humanist syncretism, because Pico combined Platonism, Neoplatonism, Aristotelianism, Hermeticism and Kabbalah. They also included 72 theses describing what Pico believed to be a complete system of physics.

Mirandola's De animae immortalitate (Paris, 1541), and other works developed the view that man's possession of an immortal soul freed him from the hierarchical stasis. Pico may have believed in either universal reconciliation since one of his 900 theses was "A mortal sin of finite duration is not deserving of eternal but only of temporal punishment;" it was among the theses pronounced heretical by Pope Innocent VIII in his bull of Aug. 4, 1487.^[15] In the Oration he writes that "human vocation is a mystical vocation that has to be realized following a three stage way, which comprehends necessarily moral transformation, intellectual research and final perfection in the identity with the absolute reality. This paradigm is universal, because it can be retraced in every tradition."^[16]

A portion of his Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem was published in Bologna after his death. In this book Pico presents arguments against the practice of astrology that have had enormous resonance for centuries, up to our own time. Disputationes is influenced by the arguments against astrology espoused by one of his intellectual heroes, St. Augustine of Hippo, and also by ideas held by his teacher, Marsilio Ficino, who may have encouraged him to write it. Pico’s antagonism to astrology seems to derive mainly from the conflict of astrology with Christian notions of free will. But Pico’s arguments moved beyond the objections of Ficino (who was himself an astrologer). The manuscript was edited for publication after Pico’s death by his nephew, an ardent follower of Savonarola, and may possibly have been amended to be more forcefully critical. This might possibly explain the fact that Ficino championed the manuscript and enthusiastically endorsed it before its publication.

Pico’s Heptaplus, a mystico-allegorical exposition of the creation according to the seven Biblical senses, elaborates on his idea that different religions and traditions describe the same God. De ente et uno, has explanations of several passages in Moses, Plato and Aristotle.

He wrote in Italian an imitation of Plato's Symposium. His letters (Aureae ad familiares epistolae, Paris, 1499) are important for the history of contemporary thought. The many editions of his entire works in the sixteenth century sufficiently prove his influence.

Another notorious text by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola is De omnibus rebus et de quibusdam aliis, "of all things that exist and a little more" which is mentioned in some entries on Thomas More's Utopia and makes fun of the title of Lucretius' "De Rerum Natura".

Cultural references[link]

In James Joyce's Ulysses, the precocious Stephen Dedalus recalls with disdain his boyhood ambitions, and apparently associates them with the career of Mirandola: "Remember your epiphanies written on green oval leaves, deeply deep...copies to be sent if you died to all the great libraries of the world...Pico della Mirandola like."^[17]

Of minor interest is a passing reference to Mirandola by H. P. Lovecraft, in the story The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1927). Mirandola is given as the source of the fearsome incantation used by unknown evil entities as some sort of evocation. However, this "spell" was first depicted (as the key to a rather simple form of divination, not a great and terrible summoning) by, and in all likelihood created by, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim in his Three Books of Occult Philosophy. This was written several decades after Mirandola's death and was the first written example of that "spell", so it is almost impossible for Mirandola to have been the source of those "magic words".

Psychologist, Otto Rank, a rebellious disciple of Sigmund Freud, chose a substantial excerpt from Mirandola's Oration on the Dignity of Man as the motto for his book Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development, including: "...I created thee as a being neither celestial nor earthly... so that thou shouldst be thy own free moulder and overcomer...".^[18]

In Umberto Eco's novel Foucault's Pendulum the protagonist Casaubon claims that the idea that the Jews were privy to the enigma of the Templars was "a mistake of Pico Della Mirandola" caused by a spelling mistake he made between "Israelites" and "Ismaelites."

Philosopher of social science René Girard mentions Mirandola passingly in his book Des choses cachées depuis la fondation du monde Things hidden since the foundation of the world, Girard writes in a disparaging tone, "People will accuse us of playing at being Pico della Mirandola-the renaissance man-certainly a temptation to be resisted today, if we wish to be seen in a favourable light." (p. 141, 1987)

In Roberto Bolaño's novel 2666, the philosophy professor Oscar Amalfitano begins his three-columned list of philosophers with Pico della Mirandola. Adjacent to Mirandola, Amalfitano writes Hobbes, while beneath him he writes Husserl (p. 207, 2008).

In Frédéric Lenoir's novel "L'Oracle della Luna" (2006) the philosophy of Pico della Mirandola forms one of the major teachings acquired by the protagonist, Giovanni, from his main spiritual Master. The year is 1530. The major mentions are:

• at the end of Chapter 21 the sage - a fictitious character - says he has personally met Pico della Mirandola and discusses Mirandola's disagreement with the pope about the 900 Theses (with Lenoir stating that only 7 of them had not been accepted) and the philosopher's later fate. In the words of the sage, the main goal of Ficino and Pico della Mirandola was to acquire universal knowledge, free from prejudice and from linguistic and religious barriers;
• at the end of Chapter 24, having discussed Luther's concept of free will, the sage wants the acquaint Giovanni with Mirandola's ideas on this issue and lets him read "De hominis dignitate"; Giovanni peruses the book with great interest in Chapter 25;
• at the beginning of Chapter 26, with Giovanni having now read the Oration on the Dignity of Man, the sage discusses two issues from the book with him. One is Pico della Mirandola's attempt to form one unified and universal philosophy and the difficulties thereof. The other one is Mirandola's concept of free will. Giovanni has learnt one passage from the book by heart, about God addressing man and telling him, that He has made him neither a heavenly nor an earthly creature and that man is the forger of his own fate. This passage is quoted in the novel.

See also[link]

Platonic Academy (Florence)

References[link]

Footnotes[link]

Bibliography and further reading[link]

External links[link]

• The Pico Project at the University of Bologna and Brown University is a project to make accessible a complete resource for the reading and interpretation of the Dignity of Man.
• Oration on the Dignity of Man, translated by A. Robert Caponigri (Chicago: Regnery Publishing, 1956).
• Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem [2]
• Syncretism in the West Overview of the 900 Theses, with some downloadable texts
• Pico in English: A Bibliography, the works of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494), with a List of Studies and Commentaries.
• Edition of the complete translations by Flavius Mithridates On Flavius Mithridates' Hebrew-Latin Translations of kabbalistic works for Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
• (French) Biography
• Pico della Mirandola by Richard Hooker, 6 June 1999.
•  "Giovanni Pico della Mirandola". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. 
• Giovanni Pico della Mirandola entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• 999lultimocustode.com
• Life of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Giovanni Pico della Mirandola". Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company. 

René Descartes

Portrait after Frans Hals, 1648[1]
Born	(1596-03-31)31 March 1596 La Haye en Touraine, Touraine (present-day Descartes, Indre-et-Loire), France
Died	11 February 1650(1650-02-11) (aged 53) Stockholm, Sweden
Era	17th-century philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy
School	Cartesianism, Rationalism, Foundationalism
Main interests	Metaphysics, Epistemology, Mathematics
Notable ideas	Cogito ergo sum, method of doubt, Cartesian coordinate system, Cartesian dualism, ontological argument for the existence of Christian God; Folium of Descartes
Influenced by Plato, Aristotle, Alhazen, Ghazali,[2] Averroes, Avicenna, Anselm, St. Augustine, Aquinas, Ockham, Suarez, Mersenne, Sextus Empiricus, Michel de Montaigne, Duns Scotus[citation needed]
Influenced Most philosophers after including: Aflaq, Spinoza, Hobbes, Arnauld, Malebranche, Pascal, Locke, Leibniz, More, Kant, Husserl, Brunschvicg, Žižek, Chomsky, Stanley, Dirck Rembrantsz van Nierop, Durkheim
Signature

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René Descartes (French pronunciation: [ʁəne dekaʁt]; Latinized form: Renatus Cartesius; adjectival form: "Cartesian";^[3] 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy', and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings,^[4][5] which are studied closely to this day. In particular, his Meditations on First Philosophy continues to be a standard text at most university philosophy departments. Descartes' influence in mathematics is equally apparent; the Cartesian coordinate system — allowing algebraic equations to be expressed as geometric shapes in a two-dimensional coordinate system — was named after him. He is credited as the father of analytical geometry, the bridge between algebra and geometry, crucial to the discovery of infinitesimal calculus and analysis. Descartes was also one of the key figures in the Scientific Revolution and has been described as an example of genius.

Descartes frequently sets his views apart from those of his predecessors. In the opening section of the Passions of the Soul, a treatise on the Early Modern version of what are now commonly called emotions, Descartes goes so far as to assert that he will write on this topic "as if no one had written on these matters before". Many elements of his philosophy have precedents in late Aristotelianism, the revived Stoicism of the 16th century, or in earlier philosophers like St. Augustine. In his natural philosophy, he differs from the schools on two major points: First, he rejects the analysis of corporeal substance into matter and form; second, he rejects any appeal to ends—divine or natural—in explaining natural phenomena.^[6] In his theology, he insists on the absolute freedom of God’s act of creation.

Descartes was a major figure in 17th-century continental rationalism, later advocated by Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz, and opposed by the empiricist school of thought consisting of Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Hume. Leibniz, Spinoza and Descartes were all well versed in mathematics as well as philosophy, and Descartes and Leibniz contributed greatly to science as well.

He is perhaps best known for the philosophical statement "Cogito ergo sum" (French: Je pense, donc je suis; English: I think, therefore I am), found in part IV of Discourse on the Method (1637 – written in French but with inclusion of "Cogito ergo sum") and §7 of part I of Principles of Philosophy (1644 – written in Latin).

Biography[link]

Graduation registry for Descartes at the Collège Royal Henry-Le-Grand, La Flèche, 1616

Descartes was born in La Haye en Touraine (now Descartes), Indre-et-Loire, France. When he was one year old, his mother Jeanne Brochard died. His father Joachim was a member in the provincial parliament. At the age of eight, he entered the Jesuit Collège Royal Henry-Le-Grand at La Flèche.^[7] After graduation in December 1616, he studied at the University of Poitiers, earning a Baccalauréat and Licence in law, in accordance with his father's wishes that he should become a lawyer.^[8]

"I entirely abandoned the study of letters. Resolving to seek no knowledge other than that of which could be found in myself or else in the great book of the world, I spent the rest of my youth traveling, visiting courts and armies, mixing with people of diverse temperaments and ranks, gathering various experiences, testing myself in the situations which fortune offered me, and at all times reflecting upon whatever came my way so as to derive some profit from it." (Descartes, Discourse on the Method).

In 1618, Descartes was engaged in the army of Maurice of Nassau in the Dutch Republic, but as a truce had been established between Holland and Spain, Descartes used his spare time to study mathematics.^[9] In this way he became acquainted with Isaac Beeckman, principal of Dordrecht school. Beeckman had proposed a difficult mathematical problem, and to his astonishment, it was the young Descartes who found the solution. Both believed that it was necessary to create a method that thoroughly linked mathematics and physics.^[10] While in the service of the Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, Descartes was present at the Battle of the White Mountain outside Prague, in November 1620.^[11]

On the night of 10–11 November 1619, while stationed in Neuburg an der Donau, Germany, Descartes experienced a series of three powerful dreams or visions that he later claimed profoundly influenced his life. He concluded from these visions that the pursuit of science would prove to be, for him, the pursuit of true wisdom and a central part of his life's work.^[12] Descartes also saw very clearly that all truths were linked with one another, so that finding a fundamental truth and proceeding with logic would open the way to all science. This basic truth, Descartes found quite soon: his famous "I think".^[10]

In 1622 he returned to France, and during the next few years spent time in Paris and other parts of Europe. It was during a stay in Paris that he composed his first essay on method: Regulae ad Directionem Ingenii (Rules for the Direction of the Mind).^[10] He arrived in La Haye in 1623, selling all of his property to invest in bonds, which provided a comfortable income for the rest of his life. Descartes was present at the siege of La Rochelle by Cardinal Richelieu in 1627.

He returned to the Dutch Republic in 1628, where he lived until September 1649. In April 1629 he joined the University of Franeker, living at the Sjaerdemaslot, and the next year, under the name "Poitevin", he enrolled at the Leiden University to study mathematics with Jacob Golius and astronomy with Martin Hortensius.^[13] In October 1630 he had a falling-out with Beeckman, whom he accused of plagiarizing some of his ideas. In Amsterdam, he had a relationship with a servant girl, Helena Jans van der Strom, with whom he had a daughter, Francine, who was born in 1635 in Deventer, at which time Descartes taught at the Utrecht University. Francine Descartes died in 1640 in Amersfoort, from Scarlet Fever.