Anthropocentrism and humanism of the philosophy of the revival briefly. Humanistic Anthropocentrism in the Philosophy and Culture of the Renaissance

The philosophy of the Renaissance is a set of philosophical trends that arose and developed in Europe in the XIV - XVII centuries, which were united by an anti-church and anti-scholastic orientation, aspiration to man, faith in his great physical and spiritual potential, life-affirming and optimistic character.

The characteristic features of the philosophy of the Renaissance include:

• anthropocentrism and humanism - the predominance of interest in man, faith in his limitless possibilities and dignity;
• opposition to the Church and church ideology (that is, the denial of not religion itself, God, but an organization that has made itself an intermediary between God and believers, as well as a frozen dogmatic philosophy serving the interests of the Church - scholasticism);
• moving the main interest from the form of the idea to its content;
• a fundamentally new, scientific and materialistic understanding of the surrounding world (sphericity, and not the plane of the Earth, the rotation of the Earth around the Sun, and not vice versa, the infinity of the Universe, new anatomical knowledge, etc.);
• great interest in social problems, society and the state;
• the triumph of individualism;
• the widespread dissemination of the idea of ​​social equality.

Humanism (from lat. humanitas - humanity) - a worldview, in the center of which is the idea of ​​man as the highest value.

The growth of city-republics led to an increase in the influence of estates that did not participate in feudal relations: artisans and artisans, merchants, and bankers. All of them were alien to the hierarchical system of values ​​created by medieval, in many respects church culture and its ascetic, humble spirit. This led to the emergence of humanism - a socio-philosophical movement that considered a person, his personality, his freedom, his active, creative activity as the highest value and criterion for evaluating social institutions.

Secular centers of science and art began to appear in the cities, the activities of which were outside the control of the church. The new worldview turned to antiquity, seeing in it an example of humanistic, non-ascetic relations.

Anthropocentrism (from Greek άνθροπος - man and Latin centrum - center) is a philosophical doctrine according to which man is the center of the universe and the goal of all events taking place in the world.

Anthropocentrism prescribes to oppose the phenomenon of man to all other phenomena of life and the universe in general. Underlies the consumer attitude to nature, the justification for the destruction and exploitation of other forms of life.

It is also opposed to the worldview of monotheistic religions (theocentrism), where God is the center of everything, as well as ancient philosophy (cosmocentrism), where space is at the center of everything.

At the same time, the history of the word is much older. The well-known expression of Protagoras "Man is the measure of all things" is called the key phrase of the anthropocentrism of Greek philosophy. In the Middle Ages, Christian anthropocentrism was very common, which meant that man is the pinnacle of creation, his crown, and, accordingly, his obligations are the greatest. In this sense, Christianity is an anthropocentric religion, since built around the person. Today's content of the term is secular, such anthropocentrism is also called secularized anthropocentrism.

All this greatly changed the philosophical problems, in the center of which were the problems of epistemology. It is customary to distinguish 2 directions:

Empiricism, according to which scientific knowledge can be obtained from experience and observation, followed by an inductive generalization of these data. The founders of empiricism were F. Bacon, and his ideas were developed by Locke and T. Hobbes.

Rationalism, according to which scientific knowledge can be obtained by deductive behavior, various consequences from general reliable provisions. The founder was R. Descartes (“I think, therefore I am”), and it was developed by B. Spinoza, Leibniz.

Thus, the philosophy of the new time is the philosophy of rational anthropocentrism, according to which each person is an independent thinking substance - his actions and behavior are determined only by his desires and motives.

There is a tendency to return to the New Testament teaching, which is based on simple and understandable principles and is close to the worldly life of every person. The Reformation resulted in profound changes in the spiritual and religious field, the political landscape of Europe and in the economic and social structures. The emerging Protestantism in the social sphere leads to the formation of a new ethic that justifies labor in any form, entrepreneurship, which becomes morally obligatory and reflects a person's desire to work.

A new stage in the development of philosophy is associated with the era of the European Renaissance, or Renaissance (XIV-XVI centuries). The term "Renaissance" indicates the desire to renew the ancient cultural tradition after a thousand years of oblivion. Of course, we are not talking about the restoration of the old. Revival in fact meant the search for a new one, this is the era of the Transition, a bridge to the culture of the New Age. It was during this era that the foundations of bourgeois social relations were laid, science was developing, the process of secularization began (that is, liberation from the control of religion and the church in all areas of cultural and social life), and the ideology of humanism was formed. The name "humanism" was given to a new secular culture that appeared primarily in Italy in the 14th century. Let us formulate the most characteristic features of this culture.

1) In the center of her attention is a person. The entire culture of the Renaissance is filled with recognition of the value of a person as a person, his right to free development and manifestation of his abilities. If in the Middle Ages only the problems of a person’s religious life were discussed (for example, the problem of “saving the soul”), now his secular life, activity in this earthly world comes to the fore: creativity, knowledge of the world, service to society, and not to God.

2) The humanistic ideal of a person is a comprehensively developed personality, which is characterized by the harmony of soul and body. This ideal is based on the recognition of human nature as moral. Humanists reject the church teaching about the sinfulness of all natural (natural) human inclinations.

3) The humanistic vision of the world received its vivid embodiment in the images of art, which reached an unprecedented flowering during the Renaissance. The central place in art was occupied by man. This found expression in painting, sculpture, literature, especially in the works of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Dante, Petrarch, and others. Artistic creation became the most striking expression of the inexhaustible creative energy of the people of this era.

Humanism becomes the ideological basis of all forms of spiritual culture. It begins with Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), who in the philosophical treatises "Feast" and "Monarchy" exalts the earthly destiny of man, his mortal and immortal nature, civil society and the church.

One of the founders of European humanism was the famous Italian poet Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374). He was one of the first to “overcome” the theocentrism of the Middle Ages. "The celestials should discuss the heavenly, but we - the human." Petrarch proclaimed one of the cardinal humanistic ideas - the need for knowledge of man. “The Lord created many very amazing things, but the most amazing thing of all that He created on earth is man.” Petrarch is interested in the inner world of a person, the main subject of his philosophical reflections is questions of morality, “the art of life”.

In the second half of the XV century. a new stage in the development of Italian humanism begins. This is the stage of his broad philosophical justification. From the problems of man as a person to the problem of the place occupied by man in the Universe - such was the path traversed by humanism in two centuries. It is at this stage that the doctrine of anthropocentrism is formed. Its essence is that man is an absolutely privileged being in the universe, and the universe itself exists solely for the sake of man, for his good.

Pico della Mirandola (1453–1494), one of the most brilliant humanists of the 15th century, was one of the first to draw a new picture of the world. In his treatise On the Dignity of Man, God addresses man with the following words: “I place you in the center of the world, so that from there it will be more convenient for you to survey everything that is in the world.” For Pico, God is only the beginning of all things, and man is the center of the whole world. His freedom is not limited by anything, he is the creator of his own destiny, he is the master of all nature.

So, anthropocentrism is the essence of, one might say, the revolution that the Renaissance brought into the inherited picture of the world.

The expression of changes in culture, scientists who studied the Renaissance, saw, first of all, in a clearly manifested anthropocentrism. In the Middle Ages, as you know, the theological view dominated, according to which a person is fundamentally flawed, totally and initially sinful, from birth to death untenable, because he is led by God's providence, fate, he is pursued by the machinations of the devil. It was believed that a person is not intended for this life, but for the salvation of the soul. Then the ideal person is an ascetic, a monk, a saint who has renounced earthly vanity, earthly joys, and pleasures. After all, the true life and the real life of the soul are beyond the limits of earthly bodily existence.

The humanists of the Renaissance strengthened a different idea of ​​man. They emphasized that man, created by God, is his best creation. Man is therefore divine and is a free being, unlike plants and animals. One of the Italian humanists, J. Pico della Mirandola, argued that man was placed by God at the center of the world. God did not give him a specific place, image, or duties. And a person must create for himself a place and a duty according to his own decision. And the real happiness of a person is to become what he wants to be.

Theologians of the Middle Ages argued that earthly life is a vale of weeping and groaning, an expression of the futility of human efforts and worries, that a person is just a wanderer on the road of life, on the way to the only valuable eternal blessed life. Renaissance humanists began to consider earthly life as an incomparable value, as the only gifted opportunity to manifest, realize oneself, one's originality, uniqueness; as a life in which a person can do what will immortalize him. The Renaissance affirms the importance of a person's personal merits, highly appreciates fame as a consequence of these merits.

Highly valued (again, after antiquity) and human physicality: the bodily health of both men and women. The human mind is declared truly divine. It was also given to man by God. Feelings and passions also began to appear divine. Humanists believed that a person should not be ashamed of natural feelings and aspirations. Moreover, he can be proud of himself. The culture of the Renaissance began to become intimate. It becomes common to keep diaries, personal notes, write letters, biographies, express yourself in love lyrics, humorous short stories.

During this period, the idea appears that knowledge, science can work miracles, change life, its structure, control its processes. Along with knowledge, an expression of a person's ability to sacrifice and improve the world, art, creativity, and skill began to be considered. It was the Renaissance that gave rise to the idea of ​​human progress, including the human spirit. Therefore, the meaning of humanism was revealed not in the philanthropy of the Christian persuasion, but precisely in the widely interpreted anthropocentrism, when everything human suddenly began to be highly valued. The values ​​created by people began to be considered as the highest.

In addition to and along with such anthropocentrism, the Renaissance was characterized by an interest in ancient civilization and culture, an orientation towards antiquity. It was in antiquity that an already developed apology for rationality, a secular worldview, and many others were found. etc. But the Renaissance was not, of course, in any sense a return to antiquity. The use of forms and elements of ancient culture, its various achievements, created opportunities for expressing a meaningful change that took place in European culture, prepared by the Middle Ages.

The main features of the philosophy of the Renaissance - anthropocentrism, humanism. From the 15th century the transitional Renaissance begins in the history of Western Europe, which created its own brilliant culture. In the field of economics, there is a disintegration of feudal relations and the development of the rudiments of capitalist production; the richest city-republics in Italy develop. Major discoveries follow one after another: the first printed books; firearms; Columbus discovers America; Vasco da Gama, rounding Africa, found a sea route to India; Magellan, with his round-the-world trip, proves the sphericity of the Earth; geography and cartography emerge as scientific disciplines; symbolic notation is introduced in mathematics; scientific anatomy and the foundations of physiology appear; “iatrochemistry” or medical chemistry arises, striving for the knowledge of chemical phenomena in the human body and for the study of drugs; astronomy is making great strides.

But most importantly, the dictatorship of the church was broken. This was the most important condition for the flourishing of culture in the Renaissance.

Secular interests, the full-blooded earthly life of a person were opposed to feudal asceticism, the "other world" ghostly world. Petrarch, tirelessly collecting ancient manuscripts, calls for "healing the bloody wounds" of his native Italy, trampled under the boot of foreign soldiers and torn apart by the enmity of feudal tyrants. Boccaccio in his "Decameron" ridicules the depraved clergy and the parasitic nobility, glorifying the inquisitive mind, the desire for pleasure and the seething energy of the townspeople. The satire "Praise of Stupidity" by Erasmus of Rotterdam, the novel "Gargantua and Pantagruel" by Rabelais, witty, full of mockery and ridicule "Letters of dark people" by Ulrich von Hutten express humanism and unacceptability of the old medieval ideology.

The remarkable Italian painters, sculptors and architects Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti had a great influence on the development of the ideas of humanism. Leonardo da Vinci dedicates his creations - works of painting, sculpture and architecture, works on mathematics, biology, geology, anatomy to man, to his greatness. As the author of The Last Supper, La Gioconda and a number of other world-famous masterpieces, he had a powerful influence on the humanistic principles of Renaissance aesthetics.

The entire culture of the Renaissance, its philosophy is filled with recognition of the value of a person as a person, his right to free development and manifestation of his abilities. A new criterion for evaluating social relations is being approved - the human one. At the first stage, the humanism of the Renaissance acted as a secular freethinking, opposing medieval scholasticism and the spiritual dominance of the church.

A new culture and philosophy emerged in Italy. In the future, the Renaissance also embraced a number of European countries: France, Germany, etc. It was the role that ancient culture played in the formation of the culture of a new era that determined the name of this era itself, as the Renaissance, or Renaissance.

What are the main features of the philosophy of the Renaissance? Firstly, this is the denial of "bookish wisdom" and scholastic word disputes based on the study of nature itself, and secondly, the use, first of all, of the materialistic works of the philosophers of antiquity - Democritus, Epicurus; thirdly, close connection with natural science; fourthly, the study of the problem of man. The transformation of philosophy into anthropocentric in its orientation. Researchers distinguish two periods in the development of the philosophy of the Renaissance: 1. Restoration and adaptation of ancient philosophy to the requirements of the new time - the 15th century. 2. The emergence of its own peculiar philosophy, the main course of which was natural philosophy - the 16th century.

The philosophical views of the Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla (1407-1457) attract attention. He created an ethical doctrine, one of the sources of which was the ethics of Epicurus. The basis of all reflections of Lorenzo Valla on the topics of ethics is the idea of ​​the desire of all living things for self-preservation and the exclusion of suffering. Life is the highest value. and therefore the whole process of vital activity should be a striving for pleasures and goodness, as a feeling of joy.

Walla refuses to consider man in the spirit of the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition, according to which man was considered to be involved in God through the dual nature of the soul as unreasonable and rational, mortal and immortal. Valla believes that the soul is something unified, although he singles out such functions as memory, reason, and will. All the faculties of the soul are recognized in the senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. Valla is a sensualist: he considers sensations the only source of knowledge of the world and moral activity.

Sensations are also of primary importance in his ethical teaching. He is trying to comprehend such feelings as gratitude, affection for a person, pleasure, anger, greed, fear, revenge, cruelty, etc. Pleasure is defined by Walla as “the good that is sought everywhere and which consists in the pleasure of the soul and body”, and it is pleasure that is declared the “highest good.”

Lorenzo Valla emphasizes the difference between how he understands the highest good and what Augustine understands by the highest good. For Augustine, the highest good is the bliss associated with the knowledge of the highest absolute truths and God himself. For Valla, the highest good is any pleasure that a person receives in his life, if it is his life goal. In the works of Valla we meet such concepts as "personal benefit", "personal interest". It is on them that the relations of people in society are built.

He contrasts the ascetic virtues with secular virtues: virtue is not only in enduring poverty, but also in using wealth wisely; not only in abstinence, but also in marriage; not only in obedience, but also in ruling wisely. The attempt to derive morality from human nature was very important for the ideology of humanism. Researchers believe that Lorenzo Valla occupies a place between Epicurus and Gassendi in the development of ethical problems.

M. Montaigne is called "the last humanist." If we list the titles of the chapters of his book "Experiences", we will understand that Montaigne writes something like a "textbook of life": "The hour of negotiations is a dangerous hour." “On the Punishment of Cowardice”, “The Benefit of One is the Damage of the Other”, “On Moderation”, “On the Laws Against Luxury”, * On the Thrift of the Ancients”, “On Age”, “One and the Same Can be Achieved by Different Means”, “ On parental love", "On fame", "On cruelty", "On conceit", "On three types of communication", etc. Initially, "Experiments" were conceived as a presentation of instructive examples, anecdotes, aphorisms.However, he soon felt that they needed comments, and quite thorough ones, based on personal experience.

Throughout his life, Montaigne corrected and supplemented the "Experiments", so they contain different points of view of the author, a certain inconsistency, which Montaigne sought to eliminate. He was looking for the truth.

He opposed the theocentric concept that comes from Thomas Aquinas: God is an absolute being, and man, as his creation, is an exceptional being, who is given, using the means of reason, to infinitely approach this being, to penetrate into the "root cause", into the very essence of things. ... Montaigne does not agree with such anthropocentrism; his anthropocentrism is different: he proposes to consider a man “taken by himself, without any outside help, armed only with his own human means and deprived of divine grace and knowledge, which in reality constitute all his glory, his strength, the basis of his being ...”.

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) was one of the first social philosophers of the Renaissance to reject the theocratic concept of the state, according to which the state depends on the church as supposedly the supreme authority on earth. He owns the rationale for the need for a secular state: he argued that the motives for people's activities are selfishness, material interest. People, Machiavelli declared, are more likely to forget the death of their father than the deprivation of property. It is precisely because of the primordial evil of human nature, the desire for enrichment by any means, that it becomes necessary to curb these human instincts with the help of a special force, which is the state. In his works “Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius”, “Prince”, the Florentine philosopher comes to the conclusion that it is the law, the legal worldview of people, which can be brought up only by the state, and not by the church, that will create the necessary order in society.

Machiavelli states that the church shook the foundations of state power, trying to combine spiritual and secular power in its hands, weakened the desire to serve the state in people.

Machiavelli concludes that all means are permitted to achieve political goals, and although the sovereign must be guided by generally accepted moral standards in behavior, he may disregard them in politics if this will help strengthen state power. A prince who has embarked on the path of creating a strong state should be guided by the policy of "carrot and stick", combining the qualities of a lion and a fox. Bribery, murder, poisoning, treachery - all this is permitted in a policy aimed at strengthening state power.

The socio-philosophical thought of the Renaissance was also associated with the names of Thomas Müntzer (1490-1525), a German revolutionary, the leader of the peasant masses in the Reformation and the peasant war of 1524-1526. in Germany; English humanist Thomas More (1478-1535) - the author of the book "Utopia", which made him the first representative of utopian socialism; Italian philosopher Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639), who wrote the famous essay City of the Sun.

From the 15th century begins a transitional era in the history of Western Europe - the Renaissance, which created its own brilliant culture. The most important condition for the flourishing of culture in the Renaissance was the demolition of the dictatorship of the church.

anthropocentrism- the doctrine according to which man is the center of the universe and the goal of all events taking place in the world.

Humanism - a kind of anthropocentrism, views that recognize the value of a person as a person, his right to freedom and happiness.

Secular interests, the full-blooded earthly life of a person were opposed to feudal asceticism:

- petrarch, who collected ancient manuscripts, calls to "heal the bloody wounds" of his native Italy, trampled under the boot of foreign soldiers and torn apart by the enmity of feudal tyrants;

- Boccaccio in his "Decameron" he ridicules the depraved clergy, the parasitic nobility and glorifies the inquisitive mind, the desire for pleasure and the seething energy of the townspeople;

- Erasmus of Rotterdam in the satire "In Praise of Stupidity" and Rabelais in the novel "Gargantua and Pantagruel" they express humanism and the unacceptability of the old medieval ideology.

A huge influence on the development of the ideas of humanism was also exerted by: Leonardo da Vinci(his works of painting, sculpture and architecture, works on mathematics, biology, geology, anatomy are dedicated to man, his greatness); Michelangelo Buonarroti(in his painting "Lamentation of Christ", in the painting of the vault of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, in the statue of "David" the physical and spiritual beauty of man, his unlimited creative possibilities are affirmed).

The philosophy of the Renaissance is filled with recognition of the value of a person as a person, his right to free development and manifestation of his abilities.

Stages of development humanism:

Secular free-thinking, which opposes medieval scholasticism and the spiritual domination of the church;

Value-moral accent of philosophy and literature.

A new culture and philosophy appeared in Italy, then embracing a number of European countries: France, Germany, etc.

The main features of the philosophy of the Renaissance:

Rejection of "bookish wisdom" and scholastic word disputes on the basis of the study of nature itself;

The use of materialistic works of the philosophers of Antiquity (Democritus, Epicurus);

Close connection with natural science;

The study of the problem of man, the transformation of philosophy into anthropocentric in its orientation.

Niccolo Machiavelli(1469–1527) - one of the first Renaissance social philosophers to reject the theocratic concept of the state.

He substantiated the need for a secular state, proving that selfishness and material interest are the motives for people's activities. The evil of human nature, the desire for enrichment by any means reveal the need to curb human instincts with the help of a special force - the state.

The necessary order in society creates legal outlook people who cannot be brought up by the church, but only by the state, this is the main idea of ​​Niccolò Machiavelli.

Questions that Machiavelli considers:

- "Which is better: to inspire love or fear?"

- "How should sovereigns keep their word?"

- "How to avoid hatred and contempt?"

- “How should a sovereign act in order to be honored?”

- "How to avoid flatterers?" and etc.

17. THE SPECIFICITY OF THE RENAISSANCE PHILOSOPHY: NEOPLATONISM, NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, THEOSOPHY, PANTHEISM

Renaissance- the era of the revival of classical antiquity, the emergence of a new sensation, a sense of life, considered as akin to the vital sense of Antiquity and as opposed to the medieval attitude to life with its renunciation of the world, which seemed sinful.

The Renaissance in Europe spans the period from the 14th to the 16th centuries.

Neoplatonism- one of the forms of Greek philosophy, which arose as a result of mixing the teachings of Plato, Aristotle, Stoic, Pythagorean, etc. with Eastern and Christian mysticism and religion.

The main ideas of Neoplatonism:

Mystical-intuitive knowledge of the higher;

The existence of a series of steps in the transition from higher to matter;

The liberation of a materially burdened person for pure spirituality through ecstasy or asceticism.

The Renaissance uses Neoplatonism to develop philosophical thought. From ancient Neoplatonism, he adopted an aesthetic attention to everything bodily, natural, admiration for the human body in particular. The understanding of man as a spiritual person was inherited from medieval Neoplatonism.

Natural philosophy is a set of philosophical attempts to interpret and explain nature.

Goals of natural philosophy:

Generalization and unification of general knowledge about nature;

Clarification of the basic natural science concepts;

Cognition of connections and patterns of natural phenomena.

The natural philosophy of the Renaissance was of a pantheistic nature, that is, without directly denying the existence of God, it identified him with nature.

The natural-philosophical views of the philosophers of the Renaissance are combined with elements of spontaneous dialectics, which largely comes from ancient sources. Noting the constant variability of all things and phenomena, they argued that over the course of many centuries the surface of the Earth changes, the seas turn into continents, and continents into seas. Man, in their opinion, is a part of nature, and his boundless love for the knowledge of the infinite, the power of his mind elevate him above the world.

Theosophy - wisdom from God. Theosophy is called the highest knowledge about God and the divine, which is achieved by direct contemplation and experience, due to which the mystery of divine creation becomes accessible.

A prominent follower of theosophy in the Renaissance is Nicholas of Cusa. He, like other thinkers, believed that knowledge was given to man by God. If we consider that knowledge is from God, and God is unknowable, then God is the limit of knowledge. God is the limit beyond which there is no knowledge, but there is faith, there is awareness of God. God is the truth, and the truth is not known, but is realized by man.

Pantheism - a doctrine that deifies the universe, nature.

Pantheism exists in four forms: 1) theomonistic pantheism endows only God with existence, while depriving the world of independent existence;

2) physio-monistic pantheism claims that there is only the world, nature, which the supporters of this trend call God, thereby depriving God of independent existence;

3) mystical pantheism;

4) immanent-transcendental pantheism, according to which God is realized in things. Supporters of pantheism in the Renaissance exalted the individual through God.