Most prominent representatives of HUMANISM

In this lesson from a PROFESSOR we offer you a brief summary of the doctrine known as humanism, and we tell you who its main representatives were. It takes place in Europe, in the fourteenth century, during the pre-Renaissance period, a movement with which it has a close relationship. It is a return to the classics of Greece and Rome, so the reason about faith and its main center of interest is the to behuman, as the center of the universe, thus opposing religious dogmatism. Its top representatives were Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Michel de Montaigne, Tomas Moro, or Juan Luis Vives, among others. If you want to know more about the representatives of humanismas well as his source, keep reading this article from a TEACHER.

Index

1. Origin of humanism
2. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, the first representative of humanism to use the term
3. Erasmus of Rotterdam, the highest representative of humanism
4. Tomas Moro, an important thinker of humanism

Before talking to you about the main representatives of humanism, we are going to briefly explain what their source.

The birth of humanism takes place in the Italy of the century XIV, mainly in Rome, Florence and Venice, with Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarca, Giovanni Boccaccio... But it was not until the middle of the century, when it was called with the term humanism Y Giovanni Pico della Mirandola was the one who named it. By then, the printing press was already a reality, which is going to directly influence the rise of humanism, which was able to expand its ideas quickly.

The great diffusion of humanist ideas, it is not only due to invention of the printing press. The language common used by these thinkers in their works, caused their books to reach a significant part of the population, and not just intellectuals. Another important fact that undoubtedly marked its rapid expansion was access to academies and universities for other sectors of the population, which could benefit from a education that until then was exclusive to a privileged few.

Erasmus of Rotterdam Y Michel de MontaigneThey have gone down in history, as the highest representatives of humanism.

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He was a great student of Averroes, Arab philosopher who introduced the thought of Aristotle in the West, which influenced his idea of ​​the cultural unification of the different traditions.

Pico della Mirandola he was a humanist from head to toe and his life was not without controversy. His workConclusions philosophicae, cabalisticae et theologicae,or The 900 thesesIt was quite a scandal. The work in question gathers the ideas of thinkers from different cultures and traditions, Latin, Arab, Hebrew, esoteric, Peripatetic and Platonic.

The introduction was titled, Speech on the dignity of man, a whole manifesto of the Renaissance.

“I have read in the ancient writings of the Arabs, revered fathers, that Abdullah the Saracen, questioned as to which was to In his eyes the most wonderful spectacle in this scene in the world, he had replied that nothing saw more splendid than man. With this affirmation the famous Hermes one agrees: Great miracle, oh Asclepius, is man. "

Oratio de hominis dignitate, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

Image: Emaze

Humanist philosopher who bet on a reform of Christianity and the church, defending a interpretation freer from the scriptures, which caused the rejection of a good part of the church representatives.

But Erasmus did not fight against the dogmas of the Catholic religion, but rather, with the lifestyle, both from the church, and from Catholics in general, which was often contrary to the ideas they defended.

"They say that the kingdom is increased if a place or a lordship is won so that it is later put on the cards: Lord of such people. And they do not look at how many robberies of their subjects, with how much blood, with how many widows and orphans that span of land they earn is bought"

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This thinker understood the Reform as an attack on the unity of the church and society, and furthermore, a heresy. So, cpraise Cardinal Wolsey to finish all the books related to the Protestant Reformation. Anyone who participated in its sale, edition or transport, as well as anyone who had any of these works in their possession, would be arrested.

It is said, of Moro, that when he went Justice ministerhe, he tortured heretics during interrogations, and even locked them in his own home. The Spanish philosopher denied such accusations.

“I think that we are not mistaken in suspecting that a time is coming again when the Son of man, Christ, will be delivered into the hands of sinners, when we observe an imminent danger that the mystical Body of Christ, the Church of Christ, that is, the Christian people, is drawn to ruin at the hands of wicked men and ungodly.”

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Reale, G. Antiseri, D. History of The philosophy. Ed. Herder. 2010