9288
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The magic of Asclepius enters Renaissance thought mixed into Ficino's neo-platonism [Yates]
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Full Idea:
The magic of Asclepius, reinterpreted through Plotinus, enters with Ficino's De Vita into the neo-platonic philosophy of the Renaissance, and, moreover, into Ficino's Christian Platonism.
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From:
Frances A. Yates (Giordano Bruno and Hermetic Tradition [1964], Ch.4)
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A reaction:
Asclepius is the source of 'Hermetic' philosophy. This move seems to be what gives the Renaissance period its rather quirky and distinctive character. Montaigne was not a typical figure. Most of them wanted to become gods and control the stars!
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9291
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The dating, in 1614, of the Hermetic writings as post-Christian is the end of the Renaissance [Yates]
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Full Idea:
The dating by Isaac Casaubon in 1614 of the Hermetic writings as not the work of a very ancient Egyptian priest but written in post-Christian times, is a watershed separating the Renaissance world from the modern world.
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From:
Frances A. Yates (Giordano Bruno and Hermetic Tradition [1964], Ch.21)
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A reaction:
I tend to place the end of the Renaissance with the arrival of the telescope in 1610, so the two dates coincide. Simply, magic was replaced by science. Religion ran alongside, gasping for breath. Mathematics was freed from numerology.
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20024
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Davidson gave up reductive accounts of intention, and said it was a primitive [Davidson, by Wilson/Schpall]
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Full Idea:
Later Davidson dropped his reductive treatment of intentions (in terms of 'pro-attitudes' and other beliefs), and accepted that intentions are irreducible, and distinct from pro-attitudes.
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From:
report of Donald Davidson (Intending [1978]) by Wilson,G/Schpall,S - Action 2
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A reaction:
Only a philosopher would say that intentions cannot be reduced to something else. Since I have a very physicalist view of the mind, I incline to reduce them to powers and dispositions of physical matter.
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