Philosophy of The Renaissance and Reformation

The Development of Natural Philosophy during the Renaissance

In the evolution of worldview and philosophical ideas during the European Renaissance, one can observe a trend transitioning from the concepts of Renaissance humanism (14th century) to the ideas of natural philosophy (mid-16th to early 17th century). Natural philosophy seeks to comprehend the essence of nature and the universe.

Renaissance philosophy critically reevaluates the medieval perspective on nature, rejecting its interpretation as a mere subordinate principle. However, this does not signify a return to the cosmic centrism of ancient thought; rather, nature is understood through a pantheistic lens—God is seen as an impersonal essence, pervading nature and synonymous with its substance, resulting in the deification of nature itself. The Christian God is grounded, no longer perceived as something beyond nature.

Significant attention is devoted to humanity, particularly the perfection of the human body, which is believed to be ideally suited for human activity—this activity is viewed as the primary purpose of human existence. To express the beauty and perfection of human nature, it became essential to revive the ancient cultural tradition founded on the so-called principle of "golden proportion." This relationship began to be referred to as the Divine Proportion, or the Golden Section—a harmonious division wherein any part of the body relates to another in such a manner that the larger part relates to the smaller as the whole relates to the larger. The monk Luca Pacioli, in his book "Divine Proportion," emphasizes the "divine essence" of this proportion as an expression of divine trinity: the smaller segment embodies the Son, the larger represents the Father, and the entire segment signifies the Holy Spirit.

The Golden Section of segment AB is denoted by point C. The ratio AC

= AB

; 5/3 or 8/5.

The golden proportions in the human body became a cult of the new era. A long-standing belief holds that five-fold symmetry manifests in the structure of the human body, where the head, arms, and legs serve as rays. Consequently, many mathematicians inscribed the human body within a pentagram, as illustrated in Leonardo da Vinci’s famous drawing.

The Golden Section represents a universal principle in the structure of the body. The division of the body at the navel serves as a significant indicator of the golden proportion. The proportions of the male body lie within the average ratio of 13:8 = 1.625, which aligns more closely with the golden section than the proportions of the female body, which stand at 8:5 = 1.6. By the age of 21, the proportions of the female body approach those of the male. The golden ratio is also evident in the relationships among other body parts: the lengths of the shoulder, forearm, and hand, as well as the hand and fingers.

It is known that the span of a person’s outstretched arms is approximately equal to their height, thus the human figure can be inscribed within a square and a circle. A primary law of body structure asserts that the legs, arms, and fingers comprise three distinct parts. Both legs and arms have five fingers, while the hand, including the fingers, consists of eight parts. The human body possesses twelve pairs of ribs, one of which is atrophied.

The distinctive structure of the human palm is noteworthy. The palm is composed of three sections: the wrist, the palm itself, and the fingers. The wrist contains eight bones, which connect to five bones of the palm. Each finger consists of three phalanges. The human spine comprises 34 vertebrae.

The golden proportion is also observed in the composition of blood, which contains erythrocytes, leukocytes, and platelets.

The Fibonacci sequence has been verified against Greek sculptures, particularly in the proportions of the Apollo Belvedere. Moreover, it has been studied in Greek vases and various architectural constructions throughout history. Humanity has long sought to decipher the mystery of the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza. Today, it is widely accepted that the structure of the pyramids is a unique riddle of numerical combinations, as the pyramid's construction is based on the ratio φ = 1.618. Contemporary scholars suggest that the Egyptians built it to encode knowledge for future generations.

Fibonacci proportions are found in nature: the spiral arrangement of leaves on branches, sunflower seeds, pine cones, flower petals, pineapple cores, and cacti.

This is not merely a play with numbers, but a significant mathematical expression of natural phenomena of all kinds. An example of this mathematical sequence is a shell spiraling outward; a small ten-centimeter shell may have a spiral length of 35 centimeters. Spirals are ubiquitous in nature. In antiquity, Archimedes was intrigued by the spiral shape of a shell, studying it and deriving the equation of the spiral, which now bears his name. The increase in its pitch is consistently uniform, and today, the Archimedean spiral is widely used in technology.

Ralph Nelson Elliott's Wave Principle posits that the progress of humanity—represented in accessible form by the stock market as an astonishingly precise record of humanity's developmental structure—does not occur in a straight line, nor is it random, and certainly not cyclical. Rather, its development takes the form of "three steps forward, two steps back."

Thus, waves represent models of directed movement (three steps forward), while "retracements" (two steps back) are an integral part of the overall directed motion. The "five-wave" (3+2) model is foundational, as asserted by Elliott in his seminal work "The Wave Principle" (1938).

Anthropocentrism, as a new philosophical paradigm, was best represented in painting as mute poetry and in poetry as blind painting, according to Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). An architect, fortification expert, mathematician, engineer (the creator of designs for bridges, woodworking, printing, excavation machines, a submarine, a tank, a parachute, a helicopter), painter, and thinker—he truly embodied the "universal" man, becoming a symbol of his era for subsequent generations. Leonardo believed that art, like science, should serve the understanding of the real world, perceiving the meaning of scientific endeavor in its practical application for the benefit of humanity. He argued for the necessity of combining practical experience with its scientific interpretation as the primary path to discovering new truths. He regarded mathematics and geometry as the most reliable sciences applicable to the understanding of all things and to the interpretation and generalization of experience.

This was an epoch where "Copernican revolutions" occurred not only in astronomy. The painting of the Renaissance asserts a new symbolism: the idea of infinite space and historical perspective, embodied in the image of the Madonna holding the infant. In contrast to classical sculpture, which represents only the harmonious, stable Euclidean body of the entire pantheon of pagan gods, oil painting reveals the dynamics of the human soul. Open eyes, as symbols of the soul, speak to us of a transition from the external to the internal, from the ahistorical to the historical, from Euclidean statics to the infinity of the Universe, from Ptolemy’s geocentric theory to Copernicus’s heliocentric theory.

It is from the era of humanism that the concept of creativity originates (previously a prerogative of God) and has since been applied to human activity. This transference of one of the divine attributes onto humanity inevitably led to its deification. Both humanity and the world are equally beautiful creations of God. Thus arises the pantheistic worldview articulated by Giordano Bruno (1548-1600). The thinker posits that God is identical to nature, representing the totality of the laws of the Universe, and nature itself is God in things; God is the inner foundation of existence.

Renaissance painting outlines only the contours of the body, whereas oil painting combines foreground and distant perspective through light and shadow. In the "memory" of the ancient individual, there are no past or future; everything is filled solely with the "present," vividly captured by ancient plastic arts, especially the Doric column, which effectively symbolizes the denial of time and its direction. An ancient statue (Venus, Apollo, etc.) gazes nowhere; it merely represents the perfect and harmonious body in an eternally present time. This is why ancient sculpture typically does not depict either children or the elderly—neither those who possess and carry within them perspective, nor those who complete their lives. It is inconceivable to imagine Venus at the age of 5-7 years, or 70-80 years old.

According to his teachings, the purpose of the mind is to penetrate the depths of phenomena, to know the laws of nature, that is, its "divinity." Hence arises the idea of the interconnectedness of all natural phenomena and the idea of the coincidence of opposites. In his treatises "On Cause, Principle, and One," "On Infinity, the Universe, and Worlds," Bruno explored the problems of the infinity of the Universe, its dynamic unity, and eternity. Central to the thinker’s focus is the relationship between humanity (as a unique microcosm) and the Universe (as a macrocosm), seeking harmony between humanity and the Cosmos.

He proposed the idea of the Universe's infinity and the multiplicity of worlds within it. The Universe is singular, infinite; it is neither created nor destroyed, cannot be diminished or increased. In its entirety, the Universe is motionless, yet within its space, bodies move, constituting the Universe. The Earth revolves around its axis and around the Sun, existing as a speck of dust in the boundless expanse. The Earth cannot be the center of the Cosmos because, in the Universe, there is neither center nor boundary; it is homogeneous in composition and structure.

In humanity, Bruno emphasized the soul, which is not separate from the body but utilizes it. Regarding the afterlife—if it exists—it differs from earthly life, and our existence is singular and unrepeatable, thus worthy of appreciation. One must bravely overcome all adversities and sorrows in pursuit of a higher understanding of the world. For his views, Bruno was brutally punished by the Inquisition—publicly burned at the stake.

The principle of the coincidence of opposites is associated with the teachings of the late medieval dialectician and mystic Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464). The philosophy of Cusa—founder of Italian natural philosophy during the Renaissance—is a unique phenomenon of the 15th century. This marked the beginning of the collapse of millennia-old feudal relations, thus the problem of contradictions became central to his work. His principal philosophical treatises—"On Learned Ignorance," "On the Hidden God," "On Being as Possibility," "On the Summit of Contemplation," and "On Assumption"—were written as an alternative to scholastic "knowledge."

He examines the idea of the interconnectedness of all natural phenomena and the idea of the coincidence of opposites, forming a doctrine on the infinity of the Universe and regarding humanity as a microcosm. God is central to his focus, appearing as the ultimate goal of knowledge. Simultaneously, he understands that knowledge of God is a unique pursuit, achieved beyond any conceptualization. He acknowledges the impossibility of comprehending the Creator because God is "infinity." However, for the believer, God is always the Creator; yet "infinity" in itself neither generates anything nor is itself generated. Absolute infinity is unproductive; fruitful "infinity" manifests as "Eternity."

"Eternity" also reflects the divine, that is, absolute infinity, yet "Eternity" affirms and asserts "Unity" or maximum presence, which in turn symbolizes "the Father." "Eternity," as an expression of infinity, confirms "constancy," that is, "equality to itself." This equality posits "its other" the Father, namely the "Son." Thus, the symbol of divine "equality" is the Son. The "Connection," which fixes the relation of "equality" in "unity," symbolizes the Holy Spirit. "Unity," "Equality," "Connection" form the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Nicholas of Cusa explores God as a dialectician—transitioning from "infinity" to "Eternity," interpreting "unity" as "equality," and "unity and equality" through "connection," thereby unveiling new levels of divine understanding. In this way, the human mind transitions from designating God as transcendent and unfathomable to realizing God as Creator, whose being permeates the existence of the world. Therefore, firstly, "unity is nothing other than trinity"; secondly, God is the absolute maximum and maximal unity, and maximal unity is nothing other than Indivisibility, Distinction, and Connection. The divine Trinity is one, and its trinitarian nature is eternal.

The philosophical unfolding by Nicholas of Cusa regarding the connection between apophatic and cataphatic thought (from the Greek apofatikos—negative and katafatikos—positive) marked the dawn of a new mode of thinking, elevating the notion of the finite world to that of infinite being. This connection underpins the awareness of beauty as the embodiment of the Divine within the realm of things. Apophatic infinity transforms into the productivity of the Divine Trinity. As a symbol of "eternity-equality-connection," the Trinity represents, firstly, Being, where oppositions lose their significance and the maximum coincides with the minimum; and secondly, the condition for the being of all that exists as a form (idea) of material existence. Herein lies the answer to how the world is drawn into being. To clarify this thought, Cusa proposes two principles: 1 — the limitation of the "absolute maximum"; 2 — the unfolding of God into the world and the folding back, or return of all things into the Divine embrace.

The realization of the first principle manifests as the emergence of the Universe. God is the absolute maximum, the unity that precedes all distinctions and oppositions, uniting them. He is the absolute first cause, the ultimate goal, and the being of all things and the world as a whole. The Universe is also a universality, that is, the unity of the multiple; it is also a first cause, yet specifically defined. The Universe is the concrete maximum that emanates from God, yet does not precede the created world in time; it arises together with it.

The operation of the second principle—God's unfolding into the world—marks the beginning of the differentiation between maximum and minimum, which have lost their meaning in the Absolute but gain it in the finite world. Thus, "unity" unfolds into quantity; "rest" into movement; "eternity" into time; "identity" into difference; "equality" into inequality, and so forth. Hence, God is not multiplicity but unfolds it from Himself through the Universe (the Universum), which is the "perfect fullness" or the fullness of first principles. Each thing is potentially everything, yet actually is only itself. Therefore, the potentials of the world and God are incomparable; God does not create but "unfolds" into the world with necessity.

The higher world, for the philosopher, is filled with light, yet devoid of darkness; in contrast, the lower world is dominated by darkness, though not entirely without light. Nicholas of Cusa contemplates one of the fundamental questions in his works: Is the world created by God, or does it exist eternally? Here, the idea of the world is posited, and the center of the Universe disappears. His famous proposition serves as evidence: The Universe is a sphere, the center of which is everywhere, while the circumference is nowhere.

According to Cusa, humanity is a microcosm, akin to the macrocosm; the unity of the divine and the natural. The unfolding of divine potentials inherent in humanity occurs through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God, equal to all being, the divine Son, in whom the eternal Father and the Holy Spirit dwell; in Him, as the Word, exists all that can exist in the Universe. Thus, He embodies God in humanity, representing the unity of the oppositions of the divine and the material. Jesus is the path for humanity. Nature has attained immortality in Christ, and therefore resurrection awaits all—both the good and the bad; however, not all will transform into rays of glory, nor will all be made sons of God. Thus, communion with God awaits only those who belong to Christ through faith, hope, and love.

The philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa is a hymn to humanity and the strength of human reason, as reason is the source from which the limit and measure of all things arise, according to the philosopher.

A somewhat contrary viewpoint is expressed by another representative of the Renaissance, Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), known primarily as the author of "Essays." This work, published in 1580 and to which Montaigne dedicated nearly twenty years of his life, exerted significant influence on the thoughts and creations of European thinkers for centuries.

Michel Montaigne—a philosopher and writer—stands as a renowned and vivid exponent of skeptical thought during the Renaissance, directing his critique against dogmatism, fideism, and the intolerance of medieval modes of thought: "immortality is promised to us only by God and religion; neither nature nor our reason tells us this." Montaigne, a staunch opponent of scholasticism, rejected the vacuous academicism of contemporary university philosophy, which depended entirely on authorities, firmly emphasizing the value of independent judgments, the model for which could be found in ancient discourse, that is, the dialogue of argumentation. Hence, he eschewed pedantic adherence to specific topics, favoring a free and unconstrained exploration of philosophical, aesthetic, social, and moral issues. Only personal experience became the true subject of philosophical reflection, which he articulated in the form of essays.

The author of "Essays" did not seek fame; he wrote the book not for publication, but rather as a self-portrait addressed to a select few for a brief time. The philosopher directed it to his family and friends, who could, after his death, restore his likeness, revealing his character and style of thought. "The content of my book," Montaigne wrote, "is myself." "People usually look at one another, but I direct my gaze inward... anyone stares at what is before them, I gaze into myself. I deal solely with myself: I continuously behold myself, scrutinize, and test... I turn within myself."

Thus, the philosophy of the Renaissance is a return to that ancient mode of thinking, aligned with the Socratic maxim to "know thyself." Montaigne emerged with a critique of scholasticism, dogmatism, and authoritarianism. The core of his "Essays" revolves around the question: "What do I know?"

The issues that Montaigne engaged with coalesce around the theme of human self-knowledge, the discovery of oneself, which leads to an awareness of life's meaning. This should be the focus of education, aimed at teaching individuals to know themselves and to live and die accordingly. The author posits that philosophy is the art of living with dignity. Philosophizing is an adventure of consciousness, which, through the effort of thought, ascends to essence, simultaneously transforming the investigator. Hence, a person must be prepared not only for the alteration of certain judgments but also for an internal transformation. The ultimate goal of philosophizing is the attainment of virtue.

By making his own thoughts the subject of contemplation, Michel de Montaigne proclaims one of the fundamental principles of a new philosophy: the natural right of humanity to doubt. For him, general consensus is not proof; rather, "to philosophize is to doubt." This doubt extends to everything, to any given worldview, acknowledging its incompleteness and imperfection.

Thus, ignorance is not a rejection of rational knowledge, but its precondition: only by acknowledging our ignorance can we truly know anything. Furthermore, Montaigne asserts that ignorance is, in fact, a product of our understanding of the world. He often echoed the ancient Greeks, stating that the beginning of any philosophy is wonder, its development is inquiry (or doubt), and its pinnacle is the disillusionment of ignorance. Hence, knowledge is a process that never concludes. By declaring his own experience as the foundation of human knowledge, Montaigne influenced the development of the empirical method in the philosophy of Francis Bacon.

In Montaigne's anthropology, humanity is removed from the established hierarchy of values ordained by God that prevailed during the age of theocentrism:

God
Humanity
Nature

The principle of anthropocentrism in Montaigne’s thought represents a return of humanity to Mother Nature: humanity is neither above nor below; it is part of nature. Consequently, the crux of Montaigne's ethics lies in defining the self-sufficiency of human life, the aim of which is not external but intrinsic. However, he viewed humanity with stark realism, perceiving in it a remarkable convergence of two elements, two opposites, which he expressed with the formula: "thought is above the heavens, morality is below the level of the earth."

The "Essays" encompass a vast array of material revolving around the fundamental philosophical and moral issues that preoccupied people during this transformative period. Two aspects of contemporary reality shaped the main features of Montaigne's philosophical outlook. First, the civil wars ravaging France compelled him to seek moral support in the teachings of the Stoics. Second, the destruction of religious dogmas sanctified for centuries, coupled with new scientific discoveries and the accumulation of diverse and conflicting knowledge about the world, formed the basis for Montaigne's skepticism. Both Stoicism and skepticism are hallmarks of Montaigne's worldview.

Montaigne's Stoicism draws from the teachings of ancient philosophers. He refers to the works of Seneca and Epictetus, frequently quoting them and sharing their views. For instance, Montaigne aligns with their stance on death and the human right to suicide under certain life circumstances, even contrary to Christian ideology.

However, the philosopher does not always uphold the rigidity of ancient thinkers' principles. Montaigne advocates for a harmonious balance between the soul and body, moral strength and physical preferences. These elements dominate his reflections on good and evil, pleasure and suffering, life and death. Simultaneously, his skeptical mind questions the steadfastness of these concepts. Montaigne denies the abstract content of the notions of good and evil, shifting their criteria into individual human consciousness.

The diversity of the world is amplified by the multitude of possible individual reactions and evaluations. Yet skepticism does not lead Montaigne to nihilism, which denies the possibility of knowing truth. In Chapter XII, "Apology of Raymond Sebond," Montaigne carefully delineates his method, presenting skepticism as a means of monitoring the process of knowledge so that it always recognizes the relativity of its achievements and perceptions. In this understanding, skepticism transforms into a principle of doubt.