Pico Della Mirandola On Christian Humanism

This quote shows that Renaissance men were not soul searching or looking for God’s meaning, they were digging into their own personalities. They cared more about being individuals. Developing their personalities was a very important aspect of the Renaissance man's life. That also reflects on humanism, which is the emphasis on the value of human beings and critical thinking. Renaissance men were valuing themselves higher than those from the Middle Ages.

Desiderius Erasmus, a priest of Dutch origin, is often claimed to be the first and most influential Christian humanist, whose works sought to reform the then-corrupt Church of Rome (Erasmus 21). In particular, his In Praise of Folly and The Militant Christian were extremely persuasive works that sought to reform the views of Christians in regards to their faith and the means by which they practiced their religion. Erasmus took on a sarcastic tone in his Praise of Folly, as he claimed that folly, which is the natural and innocuous foolishness of human nature that was generally looked down upon during the Middle Ages, was crucial to the human spirit and man’s faith in God. In fact, Erasmus claims that Jesus himself was a fool in sacrificing

This scene causes him to question man’s desire for superiority against nature as it reflects upon himself. In this passage,

The event he mentioned was the part in his life when a woman taught him how to read and write. This was very important to him because this was the one thing he loved to do and inspired him. he favored this because he had learned how to interpret

And because a soul does not have these characteristics, there is doubt on how it can be considered a person. Rowe also brings up the issue with “something being the same person”, where he points out that there is no evidence to prove this. Philosophers have no way of accepting this until it is proven

He confuses us in a way. Further into his intellectual essay, his tone changes. For he believes that our views of nature change depending on how we perceive it. Our feelings towards these natural

“He told me all this very much later, but I’ve put it down here with the idea of exploding those first wild rumors about his antecedents, which weren’t even faintly true. Moreover he told it to me at a time of confusion, when I had reached the point of believing everything and nothing about him. So I take advantage of this short halt, while

On Mirandola’s “Oration on the Dignity of Man”, he stated that God gave humans the power to choose what we want to do. Philosophies like humanism, secularism, and individualism inspired

He said “the life of the instinctive man is shut up within the circle of his private interests. But, if our life is to be great and free, we must escape this prison. The main way of doing so is through knowledge, because all acquisition of knowledge is an enlargement of the Self. Through knowledge our mind becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good. Knowledge makes us citizens of the universe, and in this citizenship of the universe consist man’s true freedom, and his liberation from the thraldom of narrow hopes and fears.”

The quote above is the opening statement of this book. It is saying that in all that man does, he/she seeks some good as ends or means.

What he meant was that literature is emotions and experiences that tell what it means to be human, and as people evolve over time so does literature. In both there is a history to keep drawing from that impacts what happens from there on out. It now has more substance after he explained how he sees it. I also found it interesting how much interpretations can vary. Obviously a person’s beliefs, opinions, experiences, and just about everything else can influence how they understand what they read, but seeing it in action is different.

In his quote, there is depth to his view on life around him that one can interpret by reading between the lines. He

He writes, “There are no ordinary people. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations---these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit---immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. ”(2) By using what a famous academic’s words to make the article become more persuasive, and make the reader to believe his claim.

The quote and your discussion go hand in hand and indicates his excitement to creating a new species and how he would be owed by nature for his

How I interpret his message is: a smart man is knowledgeable of all