We now have to make the transition from the middle ages to the early modern period. In this episode, I'll give an over view of humanism, one of the major cultural movements at the end of the middle ages.


Quotes from the episode:

Aquinas quoting Augustine: “God has proved to us how high a place human nature holds amongst creatures, inasmuch as He appeared to men as a true man.”

First quote from Oration on the Dignity of Man: “But what is the purpose of all this? That we may understand — since we have been born into this condition of being what we choose to be — that we ought to be sure above all else that it may never be said against us that, born to a high position, we failed to appreciate it, but fell instead to the estate of brutes and uncomprehending beasts of burden; and that the saying of Asaph the Prophet, “You are all Gods and sons of the Most High,” might rather be true; and finally that we may not, through abuse of the generosity of a most indulgent Father, pervert the free option which he has given us from a saving to a damning gift. Let a certain saving ambition invade our souls so that, impatient of mediocrity, we pant after the highest things and (since, if we will, we can) bend all our efforts to their attainment. Let us disdain things of earth, hold as little worth even the astral orders and, putting behind us all the things of this world, hasten to that court beyond the world, closest to the most exalted Godhead. There, as the sacred mysteries tell us, the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones occupy the first places; but, unable to yield to them, and impatient of any second place, let us emulate their dignity and glory. And, if we will it, we shall be inferior to them in nothing.”

From Erasmus's The Praise of Folly: “Let him buy, or sell, or in short go about any of those things without there is no living in this world, and you'll say this piece of wisdom were rather a stock than a man, of so little use is he to himself, country, or friends; and all because he is wholly ignorant of common things and lives a course of life quite different from the people; by which means it is impossible but that he contract a popular odium, to wit, by reason of the great diversity of their life and souls. For what is there at all done among men that is not full of folly, and that too from fools and to fools?"

Second quote from Oration on the Dignity of Man: “All those who attach themselves to one or another of the philosophers, to Thomas, for instance or Scotus, who at present enjoy the widest following, can indeed test their doctrine in a discussion of a few questions. By contrast, I have so trained myself that, committed to the teachings of no one man, I have ranged through all the masters of philosophy, examined all their works, become acquainted with all schools. As a consequence, I have had to introduce all of them into the discussion lest, defending a doctrine peculiar to one, I might seem committed to it and thus to deprecate the rest.”

Episode references:

-Desiderius Erasmus, The Praise of Folly, Kindle Edition.
-Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man, The University of Adelaide Library, Kindle Edition.
-Johan Huizinga. Erasmus and the Age of Reformation, Kindle Edition.
- Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, Q.75, Arts.1-4.
-Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, III, Q.1, Art.2.
-Samuel Enoch Stump and James Fieser, Socrates to Sartre and Beyond, Seventh Edition, 2003.


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