UNIT THREE STUDY GUIDE
I THE RENAISSANCE 11375-1527
A. The word means A revival or rebirth, in this case
of classical learning.
B. Characteristics.
1. Urbanization.
2. Secularization (philosophy divorced from
theology).
3. Humanism.
4. Individualism (Renaissance Man).
C. Expansion and Exploration (Christopher Columbus
1451-1506, et. al.)
D. Renaissance Literature: Humanists.
1. Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) Father of
Renaissance Humanism.
2. Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375).
3. Lorenzo Valla (1506-1457).
4. Literary criticism and the development of a
critical spirit.
E. Renaissance Art.
1. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519).
2. Michelangelo (1475-1564).
F. Protestant Reformation.
1. The Renaissance was secular-autonomous man.
2. The Reformation was religious-personal God.
3. Both stressed individualism.
4. Both looked to the past: Renaissance to classical
past, Reformation to Jesus and the Apostles.
5. Desiderius Erasmus (1467-1536). A forerunner of
the Reformation, Prince of the Christian Humanists.
6. Martin
Luther (1484-1536). Justification on by Faith. The Reformation began with him.
7. Diet of Speyer 1529 Protestant.
8. John Calvin (1509-1564) Sovereignty of God.
9. Anglicanism 1534 (Church of England).
10. Anabaptists, Radical reformers.
G. Niccolo Machavelli 1469-1527.
1. Shifted political thought to a secular basis.
2. The Prince: How to be a ruthless and amoral ruler.
H. Michel DeMontaigue 1533-1592 "What do I
Know?"
1. A skeptical approach gives peace of mind and
contentment.
2. Give attention to matters at hand, not nature of
reality and the like.
3. Write so people can understand it.
4. Don't be in a hurry to make drastic changes.
II THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION.
A. Medieval science was based on Aristotle (384-322
B.C.)
B Astronomy.
1. Ptoleny (2nd cent. A. D. geocentric universe.
2. Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543) heliocentric
universe, Copernican Revolution.
3. Johannes Kepler (1571-1630).
3. Calileo Newton (1642-1727).
C. Chemistry: Robert Boyle (1627-1681).
D. Biology.
E. Effect of Philosophy.
1. The universe came to be thought of a great machine
operating according to natural law.
2. The earth was no longer the center of the
universe, and man was no longer the apex of creation.
3. Some decided that God was no longer needed to
explain the universe; this was a closed system with no outside input.
F. Francis Bacon 1561-1626.
1. A believer in progress, wanted to scrap all
previous philosophy and science and start over.
2. Inductive method: reasoning from the particular to
the general.
3. Novum Organum, 1620 an attempt to establish an
inductive logic.
4. The New Atlantis, 1624, how a society would
operate according to his principles.
5. He separated philosophy from religion:
distinguished between NATURAL RELIGION- what can be learned about God from
nature; and REVEALED RELIGION-religion from the bible.
6. He has been called The Major Prophet of the
Scientific Revolution.
7. Some, however, say he did not understand the
scientific method.
G. Thomas Hobbes 1588-1679.
1. All philosophy is concerned with the cause and
characteristic of bodies, (Physical, Human, Political).
2. All bodies have one thing in common motion,
(Vital, Voluntary)>
3. All behavior is determined by Appetites and
Aversions.
4. This makes pleasure the highest good and chief
motivating factor (HEDONISM), "If it feels good do it>'
5. Appetites and aversions are caused by bodies in
motion; there is no such thing as freewill.
6. Hobbe's political philosophy: Leviathan (state of
nature which was bad, contract theory of government, absolute power whether of
a king or a parliament; there can be bad laws but not unjust ones.
7. Hobbes is called the most original political
philosopher of the 17th century, mainly because of his secular basis for
government.
III MODERN PHILOSOPHY: RATIONALISM.
A. Rene Descartes 1596-1650.
1. He did not accept anything he did not know for
certain to be true.
2. This led him to doubt everything even his own
existence.
3. He decided he must exist because he could think
("I think, therefore, I am>")
4. From there he reasoned to God's existence; he had
his own versions of the Ontological Argument.
5. God is self-caused, eternal, all knowing, all
powerful, perfect goodness and truth, the creator of all things.
6. The universe has two substances, thought (mind)
and extension (body).
7. His views led to a separation of science from
theology and philosophy.
8. They deal with different areas and can be explored
in isolation from one another.
9. This is called the Cartesian Compromise, some
critics call it the Cartesian Heresy.
B. Baruch Spinoza 1632-1677.
1. A dutch Jew who was excommuncaited from the Jewish
community of Amsterdam.
2. He was influenced by Descartes.
3. He had a string emphasis on mathematics,
especially geometry.
4. Spinoza's god was the entire universe--PANTHEISM.
6. We learn by imagination, reason, intuition:
Intuition is the highest form of knowledge because it comes solely from the
mind and enables us to know God.
7. In humans mind and body are the same. (MONISM).
8. Ethics: behavior can be explained by cause and
effect; there is no free will.
9. All ideas of good and evil relate to pleasure and
pain.
10. Morality consists of improving knowledge in order
to accept events and achieve happiness.
11. Politics: People must surrender their rights to
the state; government should have power, but its purpose is liberty. (Why have
liberty if there is no free will?)
C. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 1646-1716.
1. A German philosopher who worked for several German
rulers.
2. He was Roman Catholic, but sought to unite the
Protestants and Catholics in Germany.
3. He also worked to unify the major German
Protestant groups.
4. He was instrumental in the development of
calculus.
5. In philosophy he is known for his theory that is
the best of all possible worlds, (if a better world were possible God would
create it.).
6. He also said the universe was made up of basis
units known as monads.
7. Monads are not influenced by anything outside of
themselves, but are "windowless."
8. They are, however, uniform, like clocks all set to
keep the same time.
9. So there are a number of ultimate substances in
the universe (PLURALISM) as compared to just one (MONISM) or two (DUALISM).
D. The Enlightenment a.k.a The Age of Reason.
1. This was an 18th century movement that sought to
apply rationalism to more of life.
2. Its motto was, "Have the courage to use your
reason."
3. The philosophes were popularizes of ideas; their
specialty was ridiculing customs, traditions, and institutions as being
unreasonable.
4. The philosphes were elitist, believing that only
an intellectual customs, the gift of reason.
5. The best know of the philospohes was Voltaire
(1694-1778).
E. Jean Jacques Rousseau 1712-1778).
1. He was contemporary with the philosophes and
shared some of their ideas but was antirational (emotional).
2. He talked about getting back to nature and is
known for the concept of the NOBLE SAVAGE.
3. His views on education were set forth in EMILE:
they were permissive and emotional.
4. His political views stated in The Social Contact:
he too saw a state of nature which was wonderful.
5. Government was a contact and was ruled by the
General Will; this sounds like democracy, but the General Will was absolute, so
it is like dictatorship too.
6. He said that when people are forced to obey the
General Will they are being compelled to be free.
IV. EMPIRICISM: All knowledge, preferences, and
prejudices are acquired by experience.
A. John Locke 1632-1704.
1. Each person is a blank slate at birth (Tabula
Rasa).
2. There are no inate ideas, everything is gained by
experience.
3. Locke;s political theories were formed as part of
his experiences in England's Glorious Revolution, 1608.
4. He also believed in a sentence in a contact theory
of government.
5. He believed in natural rights, (life, liberty, and
property), and governments were formed to secure these rights.
6. If government violate these rights the people have
to change the government (Right of Revolution).
7. His ideas influenced the American Revolution 1776.
B. George Berkley 1685-1753/
1. If experience is the source of all knowledge then
the only things that exist are what we experience.
2. To exist is to perceived; if something isn't
perceived it doesn't exist, this includes material objects.
3. Berkley was a bishop in the Church of England and
wanted people to put less confidence in material things.
4. To Berkley, however, objects were always perceived
in the mind of God so they always existed.
C. David Hume 1711-1776.
1. Hume took Empiricism to its logical conclusions.
2. There is no mind, only a series of experiences
called perceptions.
3. These make impressions on us and cause ideas, but
there is no connection between the experiences, and no cause and effect.
4. He also denied the existence of self and
substance.
5. There was no substance either physical or
spiritual.
6. When no one is around to perceive items they cease
to exist.
7. According to Hume we cannot think of things that
are beyond our experience, (This meant the Ontological Argument was false.)
8. His denial of cause and effect destroyed the
arguments from cause.
9. The denial of cause and effect would also destroy
science.
10. His ethics were based on felling and sentiment.
11. That which gives a pleasing sentiment when you
see it is good, (temperance, patience, consideration).
V. IMMANUEL KANT 1724-1804.
A. German philosopher known as the great system
crusher.
1. He began as a rationalist but scraped his
rationalism as a result of reading Hume's writings.
9. Therefore the traditional arguments for God are
useless.
10. Categorical Imperative: "Act only on that
maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a
universal law." Later refined as, "Act so that you treat
humanity...always as an end and never as a means only."
VI. UTILITARIANISM.
A. Jeremy Bentham 1748-1832.
1. Everything we do either increases or diminishes
happiness, so conduct is based on pain and pleasure.
2. Utilitarianism seeks to balance these out and
achieve the greatest good (happiness) for the greatest number.
3. This could also lead to hedonism (pleasure is the
highest good) in ethics.
4. It also became a rationale for laissez-faire
government.
B. John Stuart Mill 1806-1878.
1. Mill said happiness must not be the direct aim of
life but a by product of successful endeavor toward some definite goal.
2. The rightness and wrongness of acts are to be
judges by their consequences.
3. Mill also wrote an early argument for women's
rights called The Subjection of Women.
4. He is best known for his essay Liberty which
advocated free thought, discussion, and action.
ADDENDUM> TEXTBOOK CHAPTER 7 pp. 251-255 GIORDANO
BRUNO 1548-1600
Bruno was a Dominican Frair who forsook his order and
became a wandering teacher around Europe. He also was particularly taken with
Copernicus's theory and carried it further than Copernicus or anyone else
wanted to. His views of science led to a denial of Christianity and eventually
to execution as a heretic. Engal makes much more of his importance than most
other philosophy textbooks do.
