Renaissance Humanism and the History of Philosophy

• In Event: Identifying Renaissance Philosophy I

Abstract

Renaissance humanism is one of the formative traditions of modern Western civilization, but it is conspicuously absent from the philosophical canon. Histories of philosophy often jump from the scholastics of the Middle Ages to Descartes at the beginning of the modern era. In this lecture I will discuss the reasons for this neglect. One of the reasons has to do with a shift in the institutional context in which philosophical thinking was conducted: while medieval philosophers and theologians were university teachers, writing in technical prose, Renaissance humanists had to speak to broader audiences, including the prince’s court or the city council, using the newly rediscovered classical Latin of the ancients. The institutional context thus shaped to some extent the direction humanists thinking took – their style, genres, and themes. In this paper I will discuss some of these developments, aiming at bringing Renaissance humanism back into the narrative of Western philosophy.

Author

• Lodi Nauta, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen