During the Renaissance period, which represented the rebirth between 1400-1600, there were great innovations in the fields of art, science, literature, and the rediscovery of ancient Greek and Roman cultures. We call the period from the Renaissance, which began with the rise of universities and the invention of the printing press, gunpowder, compass, and telescope, to the beginning of the 20th century as the era of modern philosophy.
EARLY PERIOD HUMANISTS
DANTE (1265-1321)
Italian poet and philosopher Dante Alighieri pioneered the trend of writing in the mother tongue. He was closely interested in logic, natural philosophy, theology, and classical literature. He reflected his spiritual journey, moral, theological, and social thoughts in his book The Divine Comedy, and examined church-state relations in his book Monarchy.
PETRARCA (1304-1374)
Francesco Petrarca is considered one of the most important Italian poets of the pre-Renaissance period and is especially known for his book of poems called "Canzoniere". He emphasized the importance of the re-evaluation of ancient Greek and Roman cultures, human reason and emotions. He is often referred to as the father of humanism and the father of the Renaissance. His books are about songs, victories, and lonely life, and he describes the Middle Ages as the dark ages.
BOCCACCIO (1313-1371)
Giovanni Boccaccio is one of the important figures of Italian literature. He argues that the truths of religions are relative. In his most famous work, Decameron, he tells the stories of a group of young people gathered in a mansion during the plague epidemic, examining various aspects of love, luck and human nature.
LATE PERIOD HUMANISTS
MIRANDOLA (1463-1494)
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola is an Italian philosopher. He tried to synthesize the teachings of Platinos, Aristotle, Hermeticism and Kabbalah. His writing titled Prophecy on the Value of Man, which was the preface to the 900 Theses written in 1486, is known as the Manifesto of the Renaissance.
ERASMUS (1466-1536)
Desiderius Erasmus was a Dutch thinker and humanist. He is especially known for his critical thoughts and reformist views. He translated many classical works into his own language. He prepared a New Testament version based on the original texts in the Greek language. This work made significant contributions to the development of the Protestant Reformation. He is known as the Prince of the Humanists. In his well-known work In Praise of Folly, he criticizes the practices of the clergy and explains that true religion is a matter of the heart, not the head.
LUTHER (1483-1546)
Born in Germany, Martin Luther was a priest and theologian who pioneered Protestantism and its extension in France, Calvinism. He was known for the reforms he initiated against the Catholic Church. He translated the Holy Bible into German and thus laid the foundations of the written German language. Now everyone could read the Holy Bible and in a sense become his own priest. He left the church out of the picture, finding it sufficient to live by faith and turning to God. He emphasized faith over reason. He said that evil and sin stem from a weakness of will and that the will must be strengthened through faith. According to him, obeying the state in political life corresponds to faith.
MONTAIGNE (1533-1592)
Michel de Montaigne was a French philosopher. His book Essays, in which he presented in-depth personal observations on topics such as human nature, knowledge, and experience, was the pioneer of the essay genre. According to Montaigne, man should maintain a productive state of doubt and inquiry. Montaigne, thought that there was no undebatable opinion, and his skepticism appears to be an individual al life principle raher than being revolutionary.
POLITICAL THINKING IN THE RENAISSANCE
MACHIAVELLI (1469-1527)
Niccolò Machiavelli is known as an Italian diplomat, historian and philosopher. In his book The Prince, he defends absolute monarchy and the idea that all means leading to the goal of establishing order in the state are legitimate. In his book Discourses on Livius, he defends the republic.
BODIN (1530-1596)
Jean Bodin is a French philosopher, jurist and political scientist. In his work The Six Books of the Republic, he discusses how an ideal state should be and the functioning of the government. He defends a secular and legal absolute monarchy. Bodin's most important contribution is the concept of sovereignty. According to him, sovereignty belongs to the King. Sovereignty is indivisible, inalienable and the King is responsible only to God. He thinks that there is no need for dogmas of religions and that all religions come from a single source. His natural religion includes the belief in the unity of God, morality, freedom, the afterlife and immortality.
HOOKER (1553-1600)
Richard Hooker is an English theologian and philosopher. He reveals the theological and legal foundations of the Anglican Church. Hooker, by addressing the relationships between natural law, human reason and divine will, has placed the reasons for church reforms on a philosophical basis.
GROTIUS (1583-1645)
Hugo Grotius is known as a Dutch jurist and philosopher. He is one of the first names to use the concept of natural law and is considered one of the fathers of international law. Living in society is a natural tendency. Natural laws based on human reason and nature are superior to laws established later. Fundamental rights and freedoms must be protected. Sovereignty belonging to the people can be transferred to a ruling class. He emphasized the importance of the concept of justice in international relations.
JOHANNES ALTHUSIUS (1557-1638)
Johannes Althusius was a German jurist and Calvinist philosopher. He is known for his work called Politics. This work forms the basis of his social and political thoughts and played an important role in the development of modern political theory. Althusius is especially known for his understanding of social contract and federalism. Sovereignty belongs to the people and cannot be transferred to anyone else. The law binds even the head of state. He advocates a federal order in states with large territories and is a pioneer in this regard.
OTHER PHILOSOPHERS IN THE RENAISSANCE AGE
FICINUS (1433-1499)
Marsilius Ficinus was an Italian philosopher and theologian. He tried to reconcile Platonism with Christianity and Aristotelianism. Since the soul in man is derived from God, it will return to him. Man has the power to know the entire universe.
CUSANUS (1401-1464)
According to the neo-Platonist Nicolaus Cusanus, God, who represents absolute unity, is not reached through reason, but through a kind of intuition, mystical enlightenment. The world that exists as a result of the transformation of unity into multiplicity is an expansion of God. Since the beings in the universe are finite, they cannot fully realize divine ideas, and therefore God and nature are not identical.
POMPONATIUS (1462-1525)
Pietro Pomponazzi, also known as Petrus Pomponatius, is known for his re-evaluation of natural philosophy and Aristotelian thought. In his work On the Immortality of the Soul, he argues that the belief in the immortality of souls is contrary to Aristotle. If the body is not alive, there is no soul. Virtue should not be for reward in the afterlife, but for self-interest, and man should realize his moral perfection in this world. There is a natural order of things that denies miracles. He argues that the doctrines of moral freedom are contradictory to God's foreknowledge of everything. When his book On the Immortality of the Soul caused polemics, he published the Apologia (Defense) and stated that his work only revealed Aristotle's thoughts and that he himself believed in the immortality of the soul.
CALVIN (1509-1564)
John Calvin was a French theologian and reformer. He was the founder of the theological system known as Calvinism. He explains his theological thoughts in his book Theories of the Christian Religion. Emphasizes the concepts of God's sovereignty, election, and salvation. Predestination: God has predetermined all events and human salvation depends on God's will. Sola Scriptura: The Bible is the sole source of Christian belief and practice and church traditions and man-made rules run counter to this principle.
SCIENCE IN THE RENAISSANCE
PARACELSUS (1493-1541)
His real name was Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheime and is known as a Swiss physician, chemist and philosopher. In the field of medicine, the Grand Book of Surgery and a book on syphilis are among his works. According to him, nature is alive, every being has its own soul, and there is a general power focus in the universe called vulcanus. Archeus is the life force found in humans, a unique soul, and is related to the health and disease of humans. He stresses the indivuality of the patients and thinks that the patient should be considered as a whole.
TELESIUS (1509-1588)
Bernardinus Telesius is an Italian philosopher and natural scientist. His well-known work, ‘’On the Nature of Nature’’, is a comprehensive study on natural philosophy. He explains natural events with a materialist approach based on observation. Telesius' thoughts contributed to the development of scientific methods. According to Telesius, the source of our knowledge is our senses. Nature consists of matter and power. Hot and cold power shapes matter. According to Telesius, if there were no soul, all thoughts would be limited to material things and God could not be thought of. This is not the case, because observation proves that people think about God.
COPERNICUS (1473-1543)
Nicolaus Copernicus was an astronomer born in Poland. In his masterpiece titled On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres, he described the solar system and replaced the geocentric (earth-centered) universe with a sun-centered universe. According to Copernicus, nature is governed by a small number of natural laws and from now on, the discovery of nature must be based on a method of observation that works with solid mathematical data.
BRUNO (1548-1600)
Giordano Bruno was an Italian philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. He defended Copernicus' heliocentric astronomy, expanding his heliocentric model to suggest that the universe is infinite and that other stars may have their own planetary systems. Bruno says that everything is composed of an infinite number of monads, that the monads function as parts of a universal whole, and that everything in the universe is interconnected. The infinite size of the universe reflects the infinity of God. Bruno, with his pantheistic views that equate God with the universe, was burned by the church and is known as a scientific martyr.
KEPLER (1571-1630)
Johannes Kepler was a German astronomer and mathematician. He adopted Copernicus' heliocentric theory, but instead of his circular orbital approach, he developed three fundamental laws that determined that the planets revolve around the sun in elliptical orbits. The orbits of the planets are elliptical, that a planet …… the same length in the same time in its orbit, and that the square of the planets' rotation time is proportional to the cube of their average distance from the sun. According to him, nature can be explained by quantitative ratios and proportions.
GALILEO (1564-1642)
Galileo Galilei was an Italian physicist, mathematician and astronomer. Galileo developed and used the telescope to observe the planets, the surface of the Moon and the moons of Jupiter, providing evidence supporting Copernicus' heliocentric model. He also discovered the laws of free fall, free oscillation and the pendulum with his studies on motion and dynamics. His scientific findings showed that the relationships between natural phenomena could be measured and expressed with mathematical ratios and proportions.
GASSENDI (1592-1655)
Pierre Gassendi was a French philosopher, Catholic priest and scientist. He revived the theory of atomism, especially adapted Epicurus' atomism to modern science, defended experimental scientific methods and opposed Aristotelian scholastic thought and Descartes, and made important contributions to fields such as mathematics and astronomy. According to Gassendi, God organized the universe in the first stage of creation, then natural laws and atoms worked on their own, this view reflects a kind of deism. The human soul is a structure composed of atoms, conscious and intellectual abilities, mental processes and physical processes are interrelated. There is also an immortal part of the human soul that comes from God.
NEWTON (1643-1727)
Isaac Newton was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer and writer. He is a figure of the period known as the Scientific Revolution, which began in the 16th and 17th centuries and was characterized by the development of scientific methods. Newton's contributions to the world of science are very wide-ranging; the law of universal gravitation, the three laws of motion that form the basis of classical mechanics (the principle of inertia, the principle of force and acceleration, the principle of action-reaction). His book, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, is considered a fundamental text that explains physical events mathematically. According to Newton, nature is an order created by God, the laws of nature are a reflection of God's mind.
SOCIAL UTOPIA
THOMAS MORE (1478-1535)
English statesman, philosopher and writer Thomas More is known for his book Utopia, which means no place. This work describes a perfect society established on an imaginary island. In the work, which focuses on concepts such as social justice, equality and social welfare, the ideal society model is introduced as well as social and political criticism. A state where private property, money and luxury consumption are banned, wealth is distributed fairly, the ideal of social justice and equality is realized, wise elected administrators and a representative democracy are recommended. There is tolerance for all beliefs.
CAMPANELLA (1568-1639)
Tommaso Campanella, born in Italy, is a philosopher, theologian and utopian thinker. He describes an ideal society in his book Land of the Sun. He describes a society where social, political and economic justice prevails, where there is no private property, luxury consumption and profit, a classless society and legal equality. The wisest person in society becomes the ruler, and he has three assistants. They represent and establish power, reason and love in the state. Compulsory education is based on mathematics and natural sciences. The basis of knowledge is sensation and belief is a form of knowledge. Nature is a reflection of God.
BACON (1561-1626)
Francis Bacon was an English statesman and philosopher, a pioneer of the scientific method. In his book New Atlantis, he emphasized the importance of experimentation and observation in scientific research, and in his work Novum Organum, he developed the inductive method.
Bacon's New Atlantis is a work that examines the relationship between science and social order, glorifies scientific progress and offers a utopian vision of society. He describes how an ideal society functions in the island state of Ben Salem. This island in the work is a depiction of an advanced society that attaches great importance to science and knowledge. The state is governed by a Scientific Board. The task of the board working in the House of Solomon is to ensure that man dominates nature.
Bacon called prejudices the idols of the mind; they are divided into four groups: idols of the race (originating from human nature), idols of the cave (originating from mental attitudes and habits), idols of the marketplace (originating from language), and idols of the theatre (dogmas of philosophy).
He introduces the inductive method in four stages; making a list of things that the fact is in (positive examples), making a list of things that the fact is not in (negative examples), making a list of things that the fact is in increments, excluding things that the fact is not in. While in modern science, facts are considered in the context of cause and effect and the language of modern science is a mathematical formulaic language, Bacon's inductive method is a unique method.