دانلود کتاب فلسفه در دوران اصلاح دینی؛ تاریخ فلسفه بدون هیچ‌گونه شکاف، جلد هشتم

The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are an unloved period of the history of philosophy. They sit awkwardly between “Medieval Philosophy” on one side and “Early Modern Philosophy” on the other. These two periods are covered in most university curricula and overviews of European thought. They boast some of its most famous names, with Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham leaping to mind for the medieval period and any number of heavy hitters (Descartes, Spinoza, Hume, Kant, etc.) representing early modernity. So one might be tempted to skip straight from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. This would be a terrible mistake, and not just for someone who has the temerity to claim that their book series covers the history of philosophy “without any gaps.” In explaining why, one might give in to another temptation. Given that the seventeenth century has some claim to be the most exciting period for European philosophy since the time of Plato and Aristotle, one could easily approach these centuries solely as a pre-history for what followed. There’s something to be said for this, because a wide array of ideas that we associate with the Enlightenment were indeed also discussed already in the sixteenth century. A short list would include atomism, geocentrism, skepticism, religious toleration, international law, and the separation of church and state. But as the philosopher of science Alexandre Koyré once remarked, “no one has ever regarded himself as the ‘forerunner’ of someone else…To regard anyone in this light is the best way of preventing oneself from understanding him.”1 In that spirit, I want to convince you in what follows that this age on the cusp of modernity was in its own right a distinctive and pivotal time in the history of philosophy. There are two main, interwoven stories to be told: how the history of philosophy was affected by the rise of humanism, and how it was affected by the Reformation. We already began to consider humanism in a previous volume of this series, which surveyed the Italian Renaissance and drew attention to the fact that it continued traditions of thought developed originally in Byzantine culture. Much as the Greeks inspired the Italians, so the Italians inspired the rest of Europe, triggering what is sometimes called the “Northern Renaissance.” The leading figure of this movement was Erasmus, the first philosopher to become famous around Europe during his own lifetime. He will appear in the first part of the book, which examines currents of thought in Germany and the Low Countries. The remaining three parts are also defined geographically, as we look at France, England and Scotland, and then the regions where the Reformation never gained much of a foothold. This principally means Spain and Portugal, though we will also return to Italy to finish things off. As for the Reformation, it is so important in this book that I have used it for the title (even though, as noted in the preface of the previous volume, “Philosophy in the Northern Renaissance, Reformation, and Counter- Reformation” would have been more accurate). If you were going to point to just one event that is more significant than any other in shaping the course of European philosophy from antiquity to the present day, it would have to be the Reformation; the only plausible alternative would be the fall of the Western Roman empire. Along with two other momentous developments that came around the same time, namely the invention of the printing press and the Europeans’ encounter with the Americas, the Reformation completely reshaped European culture. As Brian Cummings has remarked, “without reference to religion, the study of early-modern writing is incomprehensible.”2 And as we’ll see, the movement initiated by Luther had consequences that went far beyond the changes to religious belief and institutions he intended. The Reformation had a major impact on political philosophy and ethics, and subtler effects can also be perceived in less obvious areas like metaphysics, epistemology, and scientific methodology. Because humanism and the Reformation are so crucial, each section of this book begins with chapters devoted to them (or in the case of the last section, to humanism and the Counter-Reformation). Since humanism emerged in explicit opposition to scholasticism, it also makes sense to track the ideas of university-based Aristotelians in each region. Notwithstanding the complaints of opponents that scholasticism was hidebound and unoriginal, in fact it shows continued vibrancy and dynamism in our period. A particular highlight comes with thinkers of Spain and Portugal like Molina, Suárez, and more generally the members of the Dominican and Jesuit orders who were the most sophisticated thinkers of the CounterReformation. Scholasticism remained a significant force elsewhere too, even as it responded to and absorbed ideas from the humanists and from critics within university culture, notably Peter Ramus. Beyond these broad themes, which run throughout the whole book, the issues covered in each section are more varied. Still, two further subjects do appear with some regularity. First, the new scientific theories that began to appear well before the Enlightenment. The most prominent example is of course Copernicanism, which posed another threat to Aristotelian orthodoxy, raised profound questions about scientific method, and ultimately became a test case for the Catholic Church’s ability to enforce its will. A number of other scientific debates will also come up, for instance those concerning chemistry, magnetism, and medicine. Second, the works that made this period a glorious one for the history of literature. There is of course Shakespeare, who I’ll be using as a platform for discussion of wider cultural and intellectual trends in no fewer than four chapters. Rabelais and Cervantes will also be featured in chapters of their own. The point of this is not, of course, to wrest these figures away from historians of literature and claim them for philosophy instead. Rather, I’ll be calling attention to the philosophical themes that arise in their works and showing how they responded to the ideas swirling around in this turbulent time. Less famous, but no less worth our attention, is Marguerite of Navarre, whose oeuvre paradoxically includes such works of pious spirituality as her Mirror of the Simple Soul and the ribald Heptameron. She is something of a one-woman demonstration of the variety of contributions made by female authors in our period. Indeed, this book will be able to cover more women than any previous installment of the series, simply because there are many more surviving texts. A selective list would include Margery Kempe, Anne Lock, Oliva Sabuco, Camilla Erculani, Marguerite of Navarre, Marie Le Jars de Gournay, and Teresa of Ávila. If these names are familiar to you, then you’ll already know that the list includes mystics, ethicists, feminists, and scientists, which indicates a range of ambition matching that of male contemporaries. More likely, at least some of the names are not yet familiar. But that applies to the men too. The book does treat such famous figures as Cusanus, Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, Montaigne, Copernicus, Kepler, Ramus, Bodin, Suárez, and Galileo. Other names will almost certainly be new to you. (Bartholomew Keckermann, anyone? How about Nathaniel Torperley?) If so, you’ll be in good company with me, since before tackling the subject I had never heard of them either. If you learn half as much as I did, and get half as much enjoyment from reading the book as I did from writing it, then you’re in for a real treat.