The Renaissance

Chapter 5

The Renaissance

• When: 14th, 15th, 16th Centuries

• Where: Europe

• Major Themes:– rebirth of inquiry – rising interest in the individual – some continued philosophical stagnation

The Plague

• “Black Death”• millions died: > 1/3 Europe’s Population• Psychological Reactions

– stoicism– heroism– opportunism,– hedonism– flight

The Plague

• punishment from God

– flagellant orders

– church leaders powerless

– Doubt in organized religion

In 1347, Italian merchant ships returned from the Black Sea

• susceptible to disease

•poor sanitary conditions

•No bathing: open skin pores

•stale or diseased meat

•medicine was primitive

Jews During the Plague

• Jews as scapegoats– Torture– Imprisonment– Massacre – Ghettos– anti-Semitism (persists today)

• Above: A common Christian accusation against Jews - Host Desecration. This entailed sticking knives or sticks into holy Christian food used at Mass as a symbol

of their hatred for Christianity.

Expanding geographical knowledge

• Challenges Church Authority– Shape of earth– Size of earth– Humans in West

Map of New World done by Venetian cartographers during the 1530's and presented to Philip II on his 16th birthday, 1543, as gift from his father Charles V / photo by Fr.

Richard J. Blinn, S.J. / 01253.jpg - 181 kB

The Greek Classics • People reading for themselves

• genuinely speculating

Guterburg Printing Press (1450)

28 page book on Latin (not a bible)

Roman Catholic Church

• Authority Declines– nation-states

• politically

• Financially

– sale of indulgences – Protestant Reformation

• Leaders also conservative

Martin Luther-Proclamation

Empirical Studies

• Anatomy

• Botany

• Zoology

• Interest in quantification – Business– Navigation

Ex:The sextant (1741)• John Harrison

– Clockmaker– Middle Class

Astronomers

• Ptolemy – geocentric – Agrees with church doctrine

• Nicolaus Copernicus – heliocentric – blasphemous

Geocentric

Heliocentric

Heliocentric

• Johannes Kepler – elliptical planetary orbits

• Galileo Galilei – refined the telescope – challenged the assumptions of the church (after

his death)

• Predictable, lawful, and quantifiable causes – Challenge extrinsic teleology

Heliocentric

Psychological Thought

in the Renaissance

Significant Interest inNatural Approaches

• Petrarch – humanism

• Niccolo Machiavelli – naturalistic, objective, and descriptive

methodology– power of social influences – maleable

Juan Luis Vives

• topical selection – described emotions objectively and in bodily

terms – associationism in memory

• methodology – broad and secular approach to education – women

Leonardo da Vinci1452-1519

• Renaissance Man “Person”

• Contributions to Psychology– anatomy of the visual system – understanding of visual perception– emotional facial expressions

Paracelsus

– Phillipus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim

• Born in Switzerland

Paracelsus– Physician

– medical ability – unorthodox views – testy personality (public burning of medical books)

– first modern medical scientist – precursor of microchemistry – Antisepsis– modern wound surgery – homeopathy

• causes, symptoms and treatment of syphilis

– Epileptics: sick, not possessed– Industrial environment and disease

Paracelsus Cont…• World View

– Mystical alchemical tradition• Animistic

– vital force radiating around every person like a luminous sphere

• Invisible forces» furies in sleep, on ghosts appearing after death, on

gnomes in mines and underground, of nymphs, pygmies, and magical salamanders

» Divination and astrology

– Early hypnotism

Julius Caesar Scaliger

• first to study kinesthetic and muscle senses

• role of muscles in habit

Michel De Montaigne(1533-92)

• "essays"

• Catholic with strong Protestant sympathies

• skepticism – Apology for Raimond Sebond – attack on the arrogance of human knowledge

– THERE is no desire more natural than that of knowledge. We try all ways that can lead us to it; where reason is wanting, we thereinemploy experience.

Michel De Montaigne cont…

• psychological topics – thought, emotion, and motivation – Argued against child abuse and cruel

upbringings– experience is not pure

• accurately described much of human behavior – inconsistent in both conduct and opinion

Olivia Sabuco

• physical and psychological consequences of the passions

• emphasized the importance of intellectual processes

• stressed the central role of emotions for humans

Juan Huarte

• studied individual differences in aptitude– Examen de Ingenios para las Ciencias – (Examination of Talents for Sciences )

• effects of the humors and the condition of the brain

• not a renaissance for women (see Chapter 9)

Review

• Describe 5 general characteristics of the Renaissance period.

• How did the plague contribute to the changing climate of opinion in the Renaissance?

• Outline the contributions of Paracelsus.

Mind Map

Box Diagram