Lecture One - History & Renaissance

Lecture one began with a look at Rafaels famous work, 'The School of Athens' which was painted it is thought between 1510 and 1511 and is a great celebration of the periods most celebrated philosophers and then 'modern thinkers'- although the painting itself was part of a commission to decorate the Stanze di Raffaello in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican.

Personally I find it slightly ironic (from a modern perspective) that the leading figure in Christianty, the Pope, would want to have such a paintaing- a presentation of the leading me of maths and science, which as we know has not always gone hand in hand with religion, but it is worth thinking about the context of the period, as philosophies and education were impacted by religion fairly heavily thus- the Bible was a book people lived by and there was not even a thought of going against the Church or its opinions as the Church was still the single most powerful organisation of the time.

We then began going through the key players of the time. Aristotle for example, though taught by Plato and regarded to believe essentially in the same teachings, that of the universal, Aristotle began to take a different approach. He believe the universal existed in particular things, like an 'essence' which Plato believed the universal existed apart from particular things. In the picture it is interesting to note that the figures in the middle, Plato (left) and Aristotle (right) are painted to portray their differing views. Plato has his hand towards the heavens, representing his belief in the forms, whilst Aristotle holds firmly his book Nicomachean Ethics, and is gesturing outward to the ground and earth, representing his belief in knowledge through empirical observation and experience.

Plato and Aristotle in Rafael's "The School of Athens"

It was Plato of course who introduced his 'Allegory of the Cave' or simply 'Cave Analogy' which was described to Illustrate in his work The Republic "our nature in its education and want of education".
It basically describes prisoners chained to, and facing a wall in a cave where they have no vision of the outside world. All they can see is shadows on the wall which they begin to ascribe forms to. Plato then makes the allegory that we are chained to a wall until we allow our minds to open as philosophers and understand that the shadows on the wall are not constitutive of reality at all, as we can percieve the true form rather than the simple shadow the prisoner sees.

All that has been mentioned above is just a short set of examples of writing from the period, other works such as Ptolomey and his outspoken idea of the Earth being the centre of the Universe for example, Pythagorus and his use of numbers as a center of understanding the sphere of science, and Socrates and the beginning of philosophy are all much celebrated and important works which the Greeks re-readand eventually began to use and develop to show unchalleneable law and fact, lifting the dogma from the Church after so much time.

The lecture then steered towards Art in the Renaissance period juxtaposed with Dark Age art, how for example Rafael's version of the Madonna and Child painting shows Madonna looking human and sensual, a celebration of beauty and the human form, as oppsed to more classical portrayals which show her to be not true to human form or being but more a baron symbol, and it is these which were generally adapted for use by the Church.

We then moved on to talk about Protagoras and his idea of "man is the measure of all things" which has been much mirrored by writers and idealists, and the lecture began to swing around to Italy and Renaissance starting of course with Machiavelli who I had studied laboriously during AS History and so remain unfortunately rather turned off to his history! Personal feelings aside, it is important to take note of him as a key figure in the development of new politics and a turning away from the Church and religious advisers when it came to his involvement in the hierarchical system in Italy and the Florentine system and his highly criticised and revered book 'The Prince' which portrayed some startling views about power based on his philosophies and his reaction to Church pressure, and was essentially a 'how to' guide on getting power fast and staying there, an almost insult to Church teachings of prosperous behaviour and love for the fellow man and God.

Caesar Borgia was among the first to put Machiavelli's musings into practice, adopting his 'slogan' if you will, of "It is better to be feared than loved, for love is fickle but fear is constant".
He wasted no time in hiring a governor whose sole job it was to crush powerful individuals, making sure that Borgia was the only person possible of holding and keeping his power, but this was a smart move for the people began to hate not Borgia but the governor, so when Borgia felt that the job was done, he had the governor cut in half and left him in the street for the people to do as they please to him, and the people loved it. We summed this up by talking about his approach to property in relation to killing in the respect that it wasnt as noticed when someone was killed but if someones property was taken unlawfully then it could cause much more than anger- "for men forget the death of their fathers quicker than they forget their inheritance"

Moving on on to the 17th Century saw the age of Reason and the birth of what is considered modern philosophy, and no longer claiming authority from the ancients thus giving way to new ways of thinking and bringing forth a new era of modern thinkers such as Descarte who we looked at in detail.
We followed his story of formal education, and how he felt that he had learned nothing by the time he left education, only a recognition of his ignorance and the idea that what we learn is useless- an idea I find particularly interesting when you think about contemporary university; it astounds me to think what knowledge one could learn from academic institutions but there is a set sort of difference in learning academia and applying this to a lifetime of hardship and skills in contemporary living for example.
So Descartes went about deconstructing everything he had ever learned in his quest to question the unquestioned and unquestionable! He clearly wanted to gain a sense of surety about himself and the world around him and after breaking down everything in his head to the most base possible form he left himself with this, his most famous axiom and the bedrock of everything about a being- "I think, therefore I am"


This idea then puts the individual as the centre of all things, although it should be recognised that Descartes was not of the anti-God sect. He believed in the existence of a supreme being because he knew that something had had to have given him the power to think and rationale- which gave God the status of a perfect being amongst us, the imperfect beings. This in turn led to the idea of 'Cartesian Doubt', something I find myself struggling with as I doubt the simple world around me! But that is a whole other story which gets so philosophical I lose track of the thought process myself after a while...