Generally speaking, western thoughts are divided into three different modes to look at man and the universe. The first mode is beyond nature, focusing on God, and man is a part of God's creation. The second model is natural, focusing on nature, that is, the scientific model, and man is a part of the natural order; The third mode is the humanistic mode, focusing on people, and taking people's experience as the starting point for people to understand themselves, God and nature.
The most attractive thing about ancient Greek thought is that it is people-centered, not God-centered. Humanism sharply attacks scholasticism, because they are preoccupied with logical categories and metaphysical issues, and their abstract thinking and logical reasoning are divorced from people's daily life. However, humanism in the Renaissance did not want to replace scholasticism with another philosophical thought, but only wanted to revive the neglected role of scholasticism.
The core of humanistic world outlook is "man", not God. It holds that man lives not for the world, not for God, but for the enjoyment of secular life. Man is not the lamb of God, but the master of life. Therefore, we strongly advocate anti-feudalism, anti-theocracy, anti-asceticism, advocating individual freedom, human liberation, facing reality and nature, pursuing science and so on; People with this idea are called humanists.
with the germination of capitalist economy, the emerging bourgeoisie ideologically demanded to get rid of the rule of theology, and humanism came into being. Humanism originated in Italy, especially in Florence and the Republic of China. In the second half of the 14th century, the first humanists, led by Petrarch and Boccaccio, appeared. Humanism has flourished in Italy in the 15th century and spread throughout Germany, France, Britain and western Europe in the 16th century. Humanism mainly opposes the ascetic dogma of religious theology, affirms life, praises human nature and attacks the darkness and ignorance of church rule. Humanists believe that Greek and Roman classical culture is the essence of all secular cultures, so they spare no effort to study and study classical culture, respect it as a mentor and friend, and call the new culture the revival of classicism. However, humanism does not fundamentally oppose religion and church, and its emphasis on human nature has not gone beyond the limitations of bourgeois individualism in some aspects.
The favorite topic in humanistic discussion is which is better, an active life or a meditative life? Meditating life no longer occupies the most important position as it did in the Middle Ages.
The second topic is the impermanence of fate and the spirit of refusing to yield to it. This determination to subdue fate has aroused interest in people's personality and self-awareness, so the number of portraits, self-portraits, biographies and autobiographies is increasing, and they are written in a realistic way, rather than in a symbolic or figurative style.
We can't avoid the conflict between the evil existence in Augustine's novels and the views on people in the Renaissance. Most Renaissance people are not bothered by this conflict and continue to take Christianity for granted.
As for the few who are confused, we can take two paths: Neo-Platonism and Biblical Humanism, which represent the religious factors in Renaissance Humanism in different ways.
Neo-Platonism holds that harmony and symmetry are the fundamental principles of the universe, and people can be consistent with these two principles by meditating on this highest human activity. This belief has great appeal to thinkers in the Renaissance. In the hierarchy of the universe, man is the center of creation, and the link with all things that have been created belongs to the lower level of matter, but he can still improve himself and seek communication with God.
It's easy to move from Neo-Platonism to mysticism, so the Renaissance was also fascinated by magic and astrology, and was interested in Pythagorean digital symbolism, myths and fables, which had a profound impact on European literature and art.
Biblical humanism refers to the application of humanistic research methods to the study of biblical texts and the works of church elders. For them, although the Renaissance was people-centered, its religiosity was not necessarily weak. Biblical humanism is dominated by northern Europe, so northern Europe has become one of the most important fountains of the Reformation. Many Christian humanists began to have the purpose of reforming the church. They thought that mastering classical studies and applying them to the Bible was the key to restoring the true nature of Christian teaching. Moreover, Luther's intermediate role in the priest and his insistence on direct communication between the individual and God can be regarded as the natural development of humanism, just as he insisted on translating the Bible into local languages of various countries.
Within Germanic territory, Luther was attractive to the nascent national feelings, but outside Germanic, other Christian humanists had to remove at least two obstacles to follow him: 1. Luther went to extremes more and more in giving up church traditions and beliefs, and finally broke with the church. 2. Luther and Calvin revived the emphasis on human evil nature; This will be completely incompatible with humanism in the end.
Buckhardt famously said that the Renaissance was about discovering the world and people. Returning to nature and the ancients is an imitator of all visible scenery.
They describe concrete and universal things and combine universal truth with concrete experience.
after Rome was robbed of the city washing in p>1527, Naples and Florence were besieged, followed by famine and plague. Italy's last remaining Republic is Venice, which survived because it is good at adapting to the changes of the times.
When Brezel painted Victory of Death, the confidence of early humanism in human dignity and creativity became a satire on the actual situation. This irony will reappear after the collapse of confidence in progress in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and in the twentieth century. If you want to persist in your faith in this disillusionment, you have to be content with tragedy. This is the reason behind Shakespeare's tragedy. Shakespeare no longer believes that courage and virtue can control fate, and all people can do is face his failure with perseverance.
The failure of the civic spirit of the Republic of China also leads to Machiavelli's On Kings: Do whatever it takes to achieve the goal.
They don't look at people like New Boratu: like gods, or Michelangelo: like heroes. However, despite this, people are still at the center.
During the religious war, no matter Protestant reformation or Catholic counter-reformation, people began to suppress people's spiritual freedom, and they no longer emphasized the life in this life.
Renaissance humanism belongs to individualism by its nature. Therefore, as a historical force, it has obvious weakness, which is even more obvious when some people organize to suppress it as heresy or false fantasy. However, the ideas it represents, its central position in human experience and value, and its insistence on human dignity are too strong. Once they are restored.
Humanism broke through the shackles of the feudal church in the Renaissance, and under the influence of this thought, many brilliant cultural and artistic masterpieces were produced. Humanism also played an important role in educational reform, excavation and collation of ancient books, and laid the foundation for modern European education and humanities research. Because humanism advocates attaching importance to reality and free thinking, it also provides ideological weapons for the two great historical movements in the Renaissance-the religious reform and the rise of natural science.