This is my seminar paper from the first seminar group,sorry it took me so long to put up I have been having trouble with my blogger account and my laptop, but it is all sorted now.
In the Renaissance there was a very important shift from the ecclesiastic authority which had not dominated but more monitored the learning and thinking within the Middle Ages. This shift away from the dogmatic teachings of the Church allowed free thought to come forth and the scientific authority allowed people to question ideas that had come before. During the Middle Ages the Church had taught the works of the great Greek thinkers like Aristotle and Plato. They taught these ideas almost like dogmatic law and discourage people from questioning what had come before them, isolating and controlling the development of new ideas. In a way the Church helped the formation of the free thinking of the Renaissance by keeping the teachings of the ancient Greeks intact, but the Church can also be ridiculed for hindering the advancement of the ideas.
When you think of the Renaissance most of what comes to mind is beautiful architecture, paintings and sculptures and there were many great pieces of artwork created in this period. The most important thing about the artwork created within the Renaissance was the introduction of humanism. Throughout the Middle Ages paintings weren’t true to life representations of humans, they had human features and were recognisable and the human form but they did not look human. The introduction of humanism within artwork, especially within religious artwork saw an important shift towards the Church becoming more lenient, for lack of a better word, and allowing freedom within thinking and artwork. This shift from the dogma of the Church to the humanism and scientific authority of the Renaissance allowed thinkers to begin to analyse and challenge other aspects of the society which brought about new ways of thinking in many different fields.
Italy in at the beginning of the Renaissance was a changing country, after the death of Frederick II it was free from any foreign political influences, letting it govern itself. During this period many small city states arose, each governed by a powerful and influential family. This was a period of political unrest in Italy as these states would fight each other for control of more land. I will not go into depth about the history of the conflicts between the city states at this time, but within this turmoil there was a lot of growth within politics. Russell mentions three main families who controlled the large city states during this period; these were the Medici, Borgia and the Sforza. These groups fought for control of Italy and also the Church. There were many conflicts between the families focused on gaining Papal authority because the Pope commanded so much power during the Renaissance this led to a corrupt and somewhat unholy church during the Renaissance where the Pope was more of a political power than a religious figurehead.
With the growth of politics arising from the conflicts between the many states within Italy a new type of philosophy arose, political philosophy. The man who is mainly considered to have been the founder of this new political thinking was Niccolò Machiavelli (1469 – 1527). He was a very clever man who was empirically logical in his thinking, his most important piece of writing The Prince (1513) was written to give advice on how a principality was won, held and lost, and was dedicated to Lorenzo the Second to try and gain favour with the Medici family. He took his ideas for the book from his own experiences when working as a diplomat within Italy. Machiavelli’s ideas within The Prince are a perfect example of what can come out of free speech which was hailed within the Renaissance. Within The Prince he outlines many ways a leader must act towards and treat his subjects, and one of his most intriguing ideas is his thoughts on Cruelty vs. Clemency. Machiavelli believed that it is better for a ruler to be feared than loved because “commitments made in fear are kept out of fear”. What Machiavelli is saying is that a ruler must be firm so his subjects fear him and therefore will not revolt, but must not be cruel because cruelty inspires revolution.
I find Machiavelli’s logic particularly interesting because he is a great example of an amoral thinker, he sees no difference between good and evil, and moral and immoral behaviour within politics because he writes that to win over a public a side must be, or appear to be more virtuous than the other. So as long as a group can appear to be more virtuous by controlling propaganda then it does not matter if they truly are more virtuous because they will have succeeded. In Russell’s opinion on Machiavelli at the end of the chapter he said “It is futile to pursue a political purpose by methods that are bound to fail; if the end is held good, we must choose methods adequate to its achievement” he then continues describing how in the end Machiavelli saw political conquest as a scientific action and if at the end you obtain success then your methods must have been the correct one. It is this kind of skewed logic that I think made Machiavelli stand out from other philosophers are the time.
I read that The Prince was later believed to be a piece of political satire designed to give the wrong advice to princes and therefore hopefully bring an end to the principalities dividing Italy, and providing Machiavelli with what he really wanted, a united Italy. Mary Deitz (1986) writes that Machiavelli's agenda was ... "offering carefully crafted advice (such as arming the people) designed to undo the ruler if taken seriously and followed." Deitz and many others had the opinion that Machiavelli’s Prince was full of so many moral absurdities and illogical ideals that it was in fact designed to highlight tyranny for what it was and bring it to an end. Although these are opinions and a reading of Prince and Discorsi would be needed for me to form my own decision I do like the idea of Machiavelli trying to make the tyrannical leaders of the time sabotage their own principalities.
More lead an interesting life; his was imprisoned by Henry VII because of More’s influence in the opposition of Henry in parliament. When Henry VIII came into power More fell back into the favour of the King and returned to working in law, but this favour from the King was not desired by More and it could be said it lead to his martyrdom later in life. When Henry VIII wish to become leader of The Church of England was granted by parliament More refused to sign the Oath of Supremacy and once it was discovered he expressed his opposition to the Act of Supremacy he was convicted of high treason and beheaded.
More’s most well known writing is called Utopia. In this book he describes a traveller finding an island with political peace where everyone is equal and content. More outlines how there are no personal belongings and everything is shared between the inhabitants of the island. He outlines how labour is spread equally between men and women, how marriage is important and protected and how religion is accepted but does not define an individual. This world seems perfect and fair where everyone would be happy and respectful, but Russell criticises it saying “life in More’s Utopia, as in most others, would be intolerably dull. Diversity is essential to happiness”. Russell is saying that the social boundaries of Utopia are a good liberal way of running society but would eventually fail due to the boredom of the people living within it.
The Reformation and Counter Reformation was a period where the Catholic and Protestants were fighting for acknowledgement and influence. The reformation began in north Europe and saw a shift from countries following the Catholic Church towards favouring the Protestant church. Luther began this shift in Germany when he translated the Bible from Latin into “the language of the people”, which lead to the standardisation of German. This allowed more people to read the Bible and instead of believing the word of priests they could make their own decisions. The main difference between Catholicism and Protestant teachings was the idea that absolution of sins could be bought rather than earned through good deeds. This and other changes in the teachings lead to a split between the two religions which divided countries. This also lead to a division in power with the prince of Protestant countries becoming the head of the Church in his own country which caused two problems, it was a direct defiance of the Pope and it caused an increase in the power of kings.
This battle between the Catholics and Protestants lead to the Thirty Years’ War which made people realise that neither side was going to gain absolute dominance and the idea of doctrinal unity was abandoned. This meant that a leniency had to be introduced which lead to an increase in the freedom of free thought. Russell said that this helps to explain why the seventeenth century contains the greatest names and makes the most notable advance since Greek times.
Descartes was born in March 1596 and had influences within science, philosophy and politics. He spent a lot of his life travelling through and living in many different countries throughout his life. He spent his early life in scholastic education which gave him grounding in science and maths and allowed him to make the advancements he did in later life. One of his most important mathematical works was the theory of the conservation of momentum. This dispelled and challenges to the idea that the world was rotating as it moved around the sun because it could now be proven why an object will land directly below the point it was dropped.
Cartesian doubt, as it has become known, grew from Descartes’ need for an even base to build his philosophical ideas upon. He began with scepticism towards his senses; he challenged what he was seeing and asked the question is he actually seeing what his mind is telling him, or is there someone manipulating these scenes in his head. He began to realise that when he dreamed he would believe what he was seeing because everything he saw had been experienced when he was awake. For example if he saw a winged horse he knew it wasn’t possible but he had seen wings and a horse before so he then questioned why it wasn’t possible. This thought allows Descartes to begin to challenge everything he sees and he comes to the conclusion that his senses cannot be trusted because they could be manipulated by God or some sort of demon who wishes to deceive him. His most well-known example is that of wax. He knows the properties of wax, how it feels, looks and smells, but when a flame is introduced the properties change. Even though your senses are telling you the wax has changed you know it is still wax and therefore you cannot trust your senses. With his Cartesian doubt Descartes also decided that physics and astrology cannot be trusted because they rely upon the study of physical objects, which Descartes thought could be manipulated. He came to the conclusion that he could not trust his body and the only thing he could truly know as existing were his thoughts, because he was thinking them. This inspired him to write “Cogito ergo sum” or I think therefore I am. This was Descartes most important work within the realms of philosophy and is believed to be the birth of modern philosophy because, once this work was published, it allowed a base for future philosophers to work from because once the material world cannot be trusted then everything is influenced by the mind.
Descartes was a devout Catholic and after “Cogito ergo sum” he had stripped all his thought back to one idea. Descartes began to then think about our bodies in relation to our minds. He begins to think about the objects around him, and rather than refusing that they exist, he thinks that they are there. However, he has knowledge of what the object is, and if the object is changed then he still knows what it is. This is how Descartes rationalises the existence of God, because God has given him senses then because God can be trusted so can his senses and if God is benevolent then he can same faith in what his senses tell him. This allows Descartes to then qualify the existence of everything around him.
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