School · 21 thinkers
Renaissance & Humanism
21 thinkers of Renaissance & Humanism on the Agora star map, from George Gemistos Plethon to Hryhorii Skovoroda, in chronological order.
- c. 1355–1452George Gemistos Plethon
Plethon held that Plato, not Aristotle, had grasped the truth: God is the creator of all things, from whom an eternal order of divine Forms proceeds, and individual things depend on universals; this ancient wisdom, which he traced back to Zoroaster, should also guide a reformed state.
- c. 1364–1430Christine de Pizan
Women are as capable of virtue and learning as men, and the contempt of learned authorities for them rests on prejudice, not reason.
- 1401–1464Nicholas of Cusa
The wisest knowledge is knowing the limits of our knowledge – in God all opposites coincide, and the universe has no fixed centre or edge.
- c. 1407–1457Lorenzo Valla
Words must be measured by the usage of good Latin authors, not by the jargon of the schools; so tested, Aristotle’s ten categories shrink to three, and a famous charter of papal power proves a later forgery.
- 1433–1499Marsilio Ficino
The human soul stands at the centre of all being, between the bodily and the divine; Plato and the ancient sages already taught what Christianity reveals, and the love of beauty leads the soul back to God.
- 1462–1525Pietro Pomponazzi
Reason cannot prove that the soul survives death; that is a matter of faith – and virtue should be practised for its own sake anyway.
- 1463–1494Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
Humans have no fixed nature; we are free to make ourselves whatever we choose, sinking to the beasts or rising toward the divine.
- c. 1466–1536Erasmus of Rotterdam
True Christianity is a way of life, not dogma; people have free will, and education and peace matter more than theological quarrels.
- 1469–1527Niccolò Machiavelli
For Machiavelli, politics has its own rules: a ruler who wants to keep the state must be ready to act against morality when necessary.
- 1493–1540Juan Luis Vives
What the soul is matters less than what it does, which can be observed; learning should serve life and the common good, and a city must care for its poor with work and instruction, not alms alone.
- c. 1503–1572Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski
A commonwealth is just only when one law binds all its estates: the life of a peasant weighs as much as that of a noble, schools serve all citizens, and war is waged only in defence.
- 1509–1588Bernardino Telesio
Nature must be explained from its own principles, not from Aristotle’s books: heat and cold, acting on a passive matter, produce all things, and we know them through the senses, on which all reasoning depends.
- 1533–1592Michel de Montaigne
Be honest about how little you know, study yourself closely, and treat your own customs as no more natural than anyone else’s.
- 1547–1606Justus Lipsius
Against the evils of the age – war, persecution, exile – the remedy is not flight but constancy, a firmness of mind grounded in reason, not opinion, that accepts what providence brings; rulers must join virtue with prudence and keep order and a disciplined army.
- 1548–1600Giordano Bruno
The universe is infinite, full of countless worlds like ours, and God is present in all of it rather than outside it.
- 1551–1623Francisco Sanches
Nothing is known perfectly: things are infinite and interconnected, the senses deceive and definitions only explain names; the honest course is to admit our ignorance and seek what knowledge is possible through observation, experience and judgement.
- 1568–1639Tommaso Campanella
Everything that exists has power, knowledge and love and senses in its own way; a just commonwealth would hold goods in common, order life by knowledge and not forbid the free study of nature, even where it overturns theologians’ assumptions.
- 1583–1645Hugo Grotius
For Grotius, humans are by nature sociable, so a law of nature binds all peoples and would hold even if there were no God; war is lawful only to defend or recover rights and remains bound by law and good faith; the open sea belongs to no one.
- 1592–1670John Amos Comenius
All people – rich and poor, girls and boys – should be taught all things in every way, through the senses and in their own language, because universal knowledge (pansophia) can lead humanity to reform and peace.
- 1601–1658Baltasar Gracián
Things pass for what they seem, not for what they are; prudence means knowing oneself and others, keeping reserve and choosing the right moment, and wisdom means seeing through appearances to disillusionment.
- 1722–1794Hryhorii Skovoroda
Happiness is near and open to everyone: whoever comes to know oneself finds the invisible, true human being within, and whoever does the work kindred to one’s own nature lives in peace with God.