Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Giordano Bruno and Hermetic Tradition' and 'The Tragic Sense of Life'

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4 ideas

1. Philosophy / B. History of Ideas / 4. Early European Thought

9288	The magic of Asclepius enters Renaissance thought mixed into Ficino's neo-platonism [Yates]
	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.
	From: Frances A. Yates (Giordano Bruno and Hermetic Tradition [1964], Ch.4)
	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!

9291	The dating, in 1614, of the Hermetic writings as post-Christian is the end of the Renaissance [Yates]
	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.
	From: Frances A. Yates (Giordano Bruno and Hermetic Tradition [1964], Ch.21)
	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.

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 3. Philosophy Defined

23367	Even pointing a finger should only be done for a reason [Epictetus]
	Full Idea: Philosophy says it is not right even to stretch out a finger without some reason.
	From: Epictetus (fragments/reports [c.57], 15)
	A reaction: The key point here is that philosophy concerns action, an idea on which Epictetus is very keen. He rather despise theory. This idea perfectly sums up the concept of the wholly rational life (which no rational person would actually want to live!).

24. Political Theory / A. Basis of a State / 1. A People / a. Human distinctiveness

20740	Maybe humans are distinguished from other animals by feelings, rather than reason [Unamuno]
	Full Idea: Man is said to be a reasoning animal. I do not know why he has not been defined as an affective or feeling animal. Perhaps that which differentiates him from other animals is feeling rather than reason.
	From: Miguel de Unamuno (The Tragic Sense of Life [1912], p.3), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 2 'Problem'
	A reaction: Perfectly plausible, given that we presume that our feelings are startlingly different from other animals - even if we feel far more community with other mammals than we did in Unamuno's day.