home · Tool · Features of the philosophy of the Renaissance, humanism, reformation. Distinctive features of philosophical thought of the Renaissance. Reformation. Counter-Reformation. Stages of Renaissance philosophy

Features of the philosophy of the Renaissance, humanism, reformation. Distinctive features of philosophical thought of the Renaissance. Reformation. Counter-Reformation. Stages of Renaissance philosophy

The Renaissance dates back, according to some sources, to the 14th - 17th centuries. according to others - to the XV - XVIII centuries. The term Renaissance (Renaissance) was introduced to show that in this era the best values ​​and ideals of antiquity were revived - architecture, sculpture, painting, philosophy, literature. But this term was interpreted very conditionally, since it is impossible to restore the entire past. This is not a revival of the past in its pure form - it is the creation of a new one using many of the spiritual and material values ​​of antiquity.

The last period of the Renaissance is the era of the Reformation, completing this greatest progressive revolution in the development of European culture.

Beginning in Germany, the Reformation swept a number of European countries and led to the falling away from the Catholic Church in England, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Finland, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and partly Germany. It is a broad religious and socio-political movement that began in the early 16th century in Germany and aimed at reforming the Christian religion.

The spiritual life of that time was determined by religion. But the church was unable to resist the challenge of the time. The Catholic Church had power over Western Europe and untold wealth, but found itself in a sad situation. Having emerged as a movement of the humiliated and enslaved, the poor and persecuted, Christianity became dominant in the Middle Ages. The undivided dominance of the Catholic Church in all spheres of life ultimately led to its internal degeneration and decay. Denunciations, intrigues, burning at the stake, etc. were carried out in the name of the teacher of love and mercy - Christ! By preaching humility and abstinence, the church grew obscenely rich. She profited from everything. The highest ranks of the Catholic Church lived in unheard of luxury, indulged in the revelry of a noisy social life, very far from the Christian ideal.

Germany became the birthplace of the Reformation. Its beginning is considered to be the events of 1517, when the doctor of theology Martin Luther (1483 - 1546) spoke with his 95 theses against the sale of indulgences. From that moment on, his long battle with the Catholic Church began. The Reformation quickly spread to Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, England, and Italy. In Germany, the Reformation was accompanied by the Peasants' War, which took place on such a scale that no social movement of the Middle Ages could compare with it. The Reformation found its new theorists in Switzerland, where its second largest center arose after Germany. There, the Reformation thought was finally formalized by John Calvin (1509 - 1564), who was nicknamed the "Pope of Geneva." Ultimately, the Reformation gave birth to a new direction in Christianity, which became the spiritual basis of Western civilization - Protestantism. Protestantism freed people from the pressure of religion in practical life. Religion became personal matter of a person. Religious consciousness was replaced by a secular worldview. Religious rituals were simplified. But the main achievement of the Reformation was the special role given to the individual in his individual communication with God. Deprived of the mediation of the church, man now had to be responsible for his actions, i.e. . much greater responsibility was assigned to him. Different historians resolve the issue of the relationship between the Renaissance and the Reformation in different ways. Both the Reformation and the Renaissance placed at the center the human personality, energetic, striving to transform the world, with a pronounced strong-willed principle. But the Reformation at the same time had a more disciplinary impact: it encouraged individualism, but placed it within the strict framework of morality based on religious values.

The Renaissance contributed to the emergence of an independent person with freedom of moral choice, independent and responsible in his judgments and actions. The bearers of Protestant ideas expressed a new type of personality with a new culture and attitude to the world.

The Reformation simplified, cheapened and democratized the church, placed inner personal faith above external manifestations of religiosity, and gave divine sanction to the norms of bourgeois morality.

The Church gradually lost its position as a “state within a state”; its influence on domestic and foreign policy decreased significantly, and later completely disappeared.

The teachings of Jan Hus influenced Martin Luther, who in the general understanding was not a philosopher or thinker. But he became a German reformer, moreover, the founder of German Protestantism.

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This understanding of Christianity as primarily a system of morality implemented in everyday life turned out to be in conflict not only with the medieval view of the insignificance of human nature, but also with the idea of ​​​​human sinfulness, defended by the Reformation. Therefore, the “Christian humanism” of Erasmus from Rotterdam evoked condemnation not only from the guardians of the old medieval asceticism, the guardians of the dogmatic purity of traditional Catholicism, but also even more from the followers of Luther and Calvin.

The question of human nature was essentially at the center of the polemic between Erasmus and Luther on the theological question of free will and divine predestination. In theological form, the question of freedom and necessity, the determinism of human behavior and human responsibility was raised here. If Erasmus proceeded from the humanistic idea of ​​man as “a noble living being, for whose sake alone this delightful mechanism of the world was built by God,” as he wrote in 1501 in the treatise “Manual of the Christian Warrior,” then Luther’s starting premise is that the human race is doomed to destruction because of original sin, man himself cannot be saved by his own efforts, by himself he cannot turn to good, but is inclined only to evil. Erasmus, recognizing, in accordance with Christian teaching, that the source and outcome of eternal salvation depend on God, believed, however, that the course of affairs in earthly human existence depends on man and on his free choice in given conditions, which is a prerequisite for moral responsibility. It is important that Luther limited the problem only to salvation after the grave, while Erasmus raised the question more broadly about human morality in general. The Lutheran (as well as even more rigid Calvinist) doctrine of absolute divine predestination, according to which a person only by divine grace can be predestined to eternal salvation, regardless of his own will, deeds and actions, about the impossibility of a person achieving salvation on his own, served as the main the reason for the divergence of Erasmian humanists from the reform movement. In polemics with reformers, humanists defended the doctrine of freedom and human dignity. They contrasted religious fanaticism with the idea of ​​a “broad” understanding of Christianity, allowing for the salvation of all virtuously living people, regardless of religious differences. This, as well as a free attitude towards the biblical tradition, polemics against some of the most important dogmas of Christianity, caused a deep conflict between humanists and the new churches of the victorious Reformation, which in many respects turned out to be hostile to humanistic ideals.

The impact of Christian humanism of Erasmus of Rotterdam on European culture in the 16th century. was extremely great: his like-minded people and followers can be found throughout Catholic and Protestant Europe from England to Italy, from Spain to Poland.

Its goal was the reform of Catholicism, the democratization of the Church, and the establishment of relations between the Church, God and believers. The prerequisites for the emergence of this direction were:

  • · crisis of feudalism;
  • · strengthening the class of commercial and industrial bourgeoisie;
  • · weakening of feudal fragmentation, the formation of European states;
  • · disinterest of the leaders of these states and the political elite in the excessive, supranational, pan-European power of the Pope and the Catholic Church;
  • · crisis, moral decay of the Catholic Church, its isolation from the people, lag behind life;
  • · dissemination of the ideas of humanism in Europe;
  • · growth of personal self-awareness, individualism;
  • · the growing influence of anti-Catholic religious and philosophical teachings, heresies, mysticism, and Husism.

There are two main movements in the Reformation: burgher-evangelical (Luther, Zwingli, Calvin) And folk (Münzer, Anabaptists, Diggers etc.).

Martin Luther advocated direct communication between God and believers, believing that there should be no Church between God and believers. The Church itself, according to the reformer, should become democratic, its rituals should be simplified and they should be understandable to people. He believed that it was necessary to reduce the influence of the Pope and the Catholic clergy on the policies of states. The work of serving God is not only a profession that has been monopolized by the clergy, but also a function of the entire life of Christian believers. The thinker believed that it was necessary to prohibit indulgences. He believed that the authority of state institutions should be restored, culture and education should be freed from the dominance of Catholic dogmas.

John Calvin(1509 - 1564) believed that the key idea of ​​Protestantism is the idea of ​​predestination: people were initially predestined by God either to be saved or to perish. All people should hope that they are the ones predestined for salvation. The reformer believed that expressing the meaning of human life on Earth is a profession that is not only a means of making money, but also a place of serving God. A conscientious attitude to work is the path to salvation, success in work is a sign of God's chosenness. Outside of work, a person needs to be modest and ascetic. Calvin put the ideas of Protestantism into practice, leading the reformation movement in Geneva. He achieved recognition of the reformed Church as official, abolished the Catholic Church and the power of the Pope, and carried out reforms both within the Church and in the city. Thanks Calvin. The Reformation became an international phenomenon.

Thomas Munzer(1490 - 1525) led the popular direction of the Reformation. He believed that it was necessary to reform not only the Church, but also society as a whole. The goal of changing society is to achieve universal justice, the “kingdom of God” on Earth. The main cause of all evil, according to the thinker, is inequality, class division (private property and private interest), which must be destroyed; everything must be common. God wants that human life and activity should be completely subordinated to the interests of society. Power and property, according to the reformer, should belong to the common people - “artisans and plowmen.” In 1524 - 1525 Münzer led the anti-Catholic and revolutionary Peasant War and died.

Erasmus of Rotterdam(1469-1536) - Among the works, the famous “Praise of Stupidity” stands out, where Erasmus in a sarcastic form gives praise to Lady Stupidity, who reigns supreme over the world and whom all people worship. Here he allows himself to mock both illiterate peasants and highbrow theologians - clergy, cardinals and even popes.

It is worth noting the so-called “Enchiridion, or Weapons of the Christian Warrior” and “Diatribe, or Discourse on Free Will.” The first work is devoted to the philosophy of Christ.

Erasmus himself considered himself a true Christian and defended the ideals of the Catholic Church, although, of course, he did not like many things - laxity of morals, lawlessness, abuse of various kinds of Catholic dogmas, in particular the dogma of indulgences, etc. However, Erasmus did not share many of the provisions that were taken for granted in the Middle Ages. Thus, he was an enlightener in spirit, believing that all people were created by God equal and identical, and their nobility depends not on their belonging by birth to a noble or royal family, but on their upbringing, morality, and education.

Philosophy must be moral; only such a philosophy can be called the true philosophy of Christ. Philosophy must solve the problems of human life, the problems of man, but scholastic philosophy did not notice this. Philosophy must be present in a person’s entire life, leading him through life - it is to this topic that Erasmus’s main work, “Weapons of the Christian Warrior” (1501), is devoted.

The meaning of the philosophy of the Reformation in that it served as an ideological justification for the political and armed struggle for the reform of the Church and against Catholicism, which continued throughout the 16th century. and subsequently in almost all European countries. The result of this struggle was the fall of Catholicism in a number of states and religious division in Europe: the triumph of various directions of Protestantism (Lutheranism, Calvinism, etc.) in Northern and Central Europe - Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway; preservation of Catholicism in the countries of Southern and Eastern Europe - Spain, France, Italy, Croatia, Poland, Czech Republic, etc.

In the clerical journalism of the Renaissance we will not find any enthusiasm for rebirth (spiritual uplift and recovery). Its honest and thoughtful representatives are filled with deep anxiety; they talk about the corruption of the sacred class, the widespread decline of morals, the disastrous state of the church and faith. From this anxiety, which found an echo among the broad mass of the laity, a passionate and creative movement for the renewal of faith was born, which turned against the papacy and already in the first third of the 16th century acquired a truly democratic scope. This movement is a religious reformation. It begins with Luther's energetic preaching and moves through such dramatic events as the formation of the Lutheran Church in the German principalities, the rise of Anabaptism and the Peasants' War of 1524-1525; establishment of Calvinism in Switzerland; the spread of Protestantism in the Netherlands, Scandinavia, England and France; the Dutch struggle for independence (1568-1572); the monstrous religious wars of the first half of the 17th century, which led to the establishment of the ideas of religious tolerance and separation of church and state; the emergence of the “second generation” of Protestant denominations (Socinians, Pietists, Herrnhuters, Quakers, Mormons, etc.); English revolution 1645-1648 The recognized leaders of the Reformation were Martin Luther (1483-1546), Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531) and John Calvin (1509-1564).

There is no doubt that the early Reformation inherited the main initiative of the Renaissance - its personalistic spirit. The Reformation inherited the main initiative of the Renaissance - its personalistic spirit. Continuing the main - personalistic - effort of the humanists of the 14th-15th centuries, the first reformers made an attempt “to create a new teaching about God, the world and man […] on the basis of free cognitive evidence.” The humanists of the Renaissance and representatives of early Reformation thought were united by the pathos of a free conscience, the idea of ​​a return to origins (in one case - to the ancient and evangelical, in the other - to the evangelical and patristic); the desire for a moral interpretation of Scripture; deep hostility to scholasticism, dogmatics and frozen formulas of church tradition. These coincidences are so obvious that they have more than once given rise to the temptation to combine the Renaissance and the Reformation into one sociocultural and spiritual era. But the other side of the problem is no less significant. The Reformation is not only a continuation of the Renaissance, but also a protest against it - a decisive, passionate protest, sometimes poured into fanatical formulas of anti-humanism and even misanthropy. To take these formulas under protection would mean abandoning a civilized, humane way of thinking. And at the same time, one cannot help but see that the disagreement of the Reformation with the Renaissance was quite justified and that the civilized way of thinking itself owes much to this disagreement. Solidarizing with the Renaissance recognition of the individual human Self, the early reformers categorically rejected, however, the Renaissance generic exaltation of man, the exaltation of him as a category, as a special kind of being (or - in theological language - as a special kind of creature). In the Renaissance's praises of human perfection (especially expressive ones, for example, by Marsilio Ficino), they were able to hear a tendency towards the deification of man.

Renaissance (Renaissance)- an era in the history of culture and philosophy, characterized by the restoration of interest in ancient culture and philosophy. In the Middle Ages, antiquity was generally assessed negatively, despite the borrowing of some philosophical ideas. L. Valla called the Middle Ages “dark ages”, i.e. a time of religious fanaticism, dogmatism and obscurantism. Renaissance geographically and chronologically it is divided into southern (primarily Italy 14-16 centuries) and northern (France, Germany, the Netherlands, 15-16 centuries).

Features of Renaissance philosophy:

- anthropocentrism– the idea of ​​the special “dignity” (place) of a person in the world;

- humanism– in a broad sense: a system of views that recognizes the value of a person as an individual, his right to freedom, happiness, development and realization of creative abilities;

- secularization– culture and philosophy acquire a secular character, freed from the influence of theology, but this process did not reach the emergence of atheism;

- rationalism– confidence in the power of reason as a means of knowledge and a “legislator” of human actions increases;

- anti-scholastic orientation– you need to study not words, but natural phenomena;

- pantheism– a philosophical doctrine that identifies God and the world;

- interaction with science;

- interaction with artistic culture.

Humanism as a cultural movement of the Renaissance, primarily in Italy, Florence, is divided into “early” (“civil”) humanism, 14 – 1st half. 15th century (C. Salutati, L. Valla, L. B. Alberti, D. Manetti, P. della Mirandola) and "late", 2nd floor 15th – 16th centuries (Neoplatonism by M. Ficino, neo-Aristotelianism by P. Pomponazzi). From the end of the 15th century. The humanistic movement moved to the Netherlands (E. Rotterdam), Germany (I. Reuchlin), France (M. Montaigne), England (T. More). Humanism was divided into “secular,” which distanced itself from religion, and “Christian” (E. Rotterdam); his ethics synthesized the humanistic understanding of man with the ideals of early Christianity. Natural philosophers of the Renaissance: N. Cusansky, N. Copernicus, D. Bruno, G. Galileo. Social thinkers: N. Machiavelli, T. Campanella, T. More.

Cosmology and ontology:

- heliocentrism – the doctrine that it is not the Earth, but the Sun that is the center of the world;

- pantheism;

- the idea of ​​the unity of the universe and its laws;

- idea of ​​the infinity of the universe And multiplicity of worlds.

Epistemology:

- strengthening the position of reason, developing scientific methods of knowledge of nature;

- skepticism– in the philosophy of M. Montaigne: critical examination based on reason, doubts regarding any ideas, no matter how true they may seem;

- experiment– by G. Galileo: the main method of cognition of the laws of nature;


- mathematics plays a special role in the knowledge of nature (N. Kuzansky, G. Galileo).

Philosophical anthropology:

- principles of humanism;

- rehabilitation of the physical principle in a person;

- similarity between microcosm and macrocosm– a principle indicating the special status of man in the world, his ability to know God and the world he created (N. Kuzansky, Mirandola);

- cult of a creative, comprehensively developed personality.

Ethics:

- secularization of morality– releasing her from religious sanction;

- civic humanism– the doctrine according to which participation in public and state affairs is the duty of every citizen;

- civic virtues, ensuring the reasonable subordination of personal interests to public interests in the interests of the common good;

- work– the main factor in human development, a way to realize creative abilities;

- hedonism– obtaining pleasure as the main goal of human life;

- nobility– a concept that characterizes a person’s dignity not by origin, but by personal qualities and merits;

- idea of ​​fortune- luck comes only to an active, hardworking person.

Social philosophy:

- Machiavellianism– a concept characterizing the socio-political doctrine of N. Machiavelli, set out in the treatise “The Prince”, that politics and morality are incompatible and any means can be used to achieve political goals;

- Utopia– in a broad sense: an unrealizable project of an ideal society; in the narrow sense: the name of the work of T. More, in which such a project was proposed, along with the work “City of the Sun” by T. Campanella.

Philosophy of history:

- idea of ​​laws of historical development, which are developed in the course of the collective historical activity of people, the non-participation of God in the historical process;

- historical cycle theory– the doctrine according to which all peoples go through approximately the same, repeating stages of development;

- concept of the role of an outstanding personality in history in connection with the idea Fortune.

Reformation – V in a broad sense: socio-political, religious and ideological movement in the countries of Central and Western Europe, directed against the Catholic Church as a political and spiritual force, against its “secularization”, the abuses of the Catholic clergy; V in the narrow sense: a revision of the basic tenets of Catholicism, which led to the emergence of a new branch of Christianity - Protestantism. Reformation was divided into burgher-bourgeois, substantiated in the teachings of M. Luther (Germany), W. Zwingli (Switzerland), J. Calvin (France - Switzerland), and folk, substantiated by T. Münzer (Germany).

Ideologists Reformation They opposed the “damage to the church”, for a return to “true Christianity of apostolic times”, “cleaning” the faith of historical layers. To achieve this, it is necessary to verify the Holy Tradition with the authority of the Holy Scriptures (the Bible), to contrast the authority of the Bible with the Catholic Church, to preserve the sacraments, dogmas and rituals that are based on the Bible. Protestantism recognized two of the seven church sacraments, abolished the worship of saints, obligatory fasts and most church holidays. Principles:

- "justification by faith"- the principle of M. Luther’s teaching: sincere faith is the only condition for the salvation of the soul, and "good deeds"- only a manifestation of faith, and not a self-sufficient path to salvation;

- "universal priesthood"- the principle of M. Luther’s teaching: salvation does not require the clergy and the church, any layman is his own priest, and worldly life is priestly service;

- “freedom of belief” (conscience)- the principle of M. Luther’s teaching: the believer has internal freedom, the right to independently interpret the Bible, and not only the Pope;

- predestination- the principle of M. Luther’s teaching: man has no free will, the will of God predetermines the life of every person;

- "absolute predestination"- the principle of the teachings of J. Calvin: God, even before the creation of the world, predestined some people to salvation, and others to destruction, and no human effort can change this, but everyone must be sure that he is “God’s chosen one”;

- professional activity– in the teachings of J. Calvin: success in it is a sign of God’s chosenness, a profession is a calling, a place of serving God, professional success is valuable in itself, and is not a means of achieving worldly goods;

- worldly asceticism– the principle of the teachings of J. Calvin: a person in everyday life should be content only with what is necessary for life.