This is a nice comment someone made that is worth repeating: “Dr. Sellars is as thoughtful and balanced in person as he is in his writings. A lovely human. It takes quite a bit of self control to walk that middle path-he lives his philosophy, methinks.”
Renaissance Humanism as opposed to Medieval Scholasticism was a shift of focus from God to Man. I don't know of any Renaissance text that argues against God. This was part of a general trend to make learning available to everyone and not just Scholars and Philosophers. The discovery of China and the Americas had shaken up belief in a Eurocentric world. Also part of this was the Reformation, For Example, Luther's Short Catechism which tried to get away from the elaborate Scholastic formulation of Religion. The Stoics and Epicureans were much more important for this focus on man than Aristotle's Logic and Metaphysics. Does that make any sense?
Yes it does, John. One of the ways this is often expressed is that the medieval focus was on God and the afterlife. While the early Renaissance humanists didn't reject their religious beliefs, they came to focus on the human realm, the "dignity of man," the world of nature, and how they could enhance human life in society. And they did this by recovering the knowledge of the Romans and the Greeks, including ancient philosophy.
This is a nice comment someone made that is worth repeating:
“Dr. Sellars is as thoughtful and balanced in person as he is in his writings. A lovely human. It takes quite a bit of self control to walk that middle path-he lives his philosophy, methinks.”
Thks buts Compassionate Empiricism Rules ;)
Renaissance Humanism as opposed to Medieval Scholasticism was a shift of focus from God to Man. I don't know of any Renaissance text that argues against God. This was part of a general trend to make learning available to everyone and not just Scholars and Philosophers. The discovery of China and the Americas had shaken up belief in a Eurocentric world. Also part of this was the Reformation, For Example, Luther's Short Catechism which tried to get away from the elaborate Scholastic formulation of Religion. The Stoics and Epicureans were much more important for this focus on man than Aristotle's Logic and Metaphysics. Does that make any sense?
Yes it does, John. One of the ways this is often expressed is that the medieval focus was on God and the afterlife. While the early Renaissance humanists didn't reject their religious beliefs, they came to focus on the human realm, the "dignity of man," the world of nature, and how they could enhance human life in society. And they did this by recovering the knowledge of the Romans and the Greeks, including ancient philosophy.