Magic and the Dignity of Man

Magic and the Dignity of Man
Author :
Publisher : Belknap Press
Total Pages : 705
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780674238268
ISBN-13 : 0674238265
Rating : 4/5 (265 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Magic and the Dignity of Man by : Brian P. Copenhaver

Download or read book Magic and the Dignity of Man written by Brian P. Copenhaver and published by Belknap Press. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 705 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This book is nothing less than the definitive study of a text long considered central to understanding the Renaissance and its place in Western culture.” —James Hankins, Harvard University Pico della Mirandola died in 1494 at the age of thirty-one. During his brief and extraordinary life, he invented Christian Kabbalah in a book that was banned by the Catholic Church after he offered to debate his ideas on religion and philosophy with anyone who challenged him. Today he is best known for a short speech, the Oration on the Dignity of Man, written in 1486 but never delivered. Sometimes called a “Manifesto of the Renaissance,” this text has been regarded as the foundation of humanism and a triumph of secular rationality over medieval mysticism. Brian Copenhaver upends our understanding of Pico’s masterwork by re-examining this key document of modernity. An eminent historian of philosophy, Copenhaver shows that the Oration is not about human dignity. In fact, Pico never wrote an Oration on the Dignity of Man and never heard of that title. Instead he promoted ascetic mysticism, insisting that Christians need help from Jews to find the path to heaven—a journey whose final stages are magic and Kabbalah. Through a rigorous philological reading of this much-studied text, Copenhaver transforms the history of the idea of dignity and reveals how Pico came to be misunderstood over the course of five centuries. Magic and the Dignity of Man is a seismic shift in the study of one of the most remarkable thinkers of the Renaissance.

Magic and the Dignity of Man Related Books

Oration on the Dignity of Man
Language: en
Pages: 95
Authors: Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2012-03-27 - Publisher: Simon and Schuster

GET EBOOK

An ardent treatise for the Dignity of Man, which elevates Humanism to a truly Christian level. This translation of Pico della Mirandola's famed "Oration," hithe
Magic and the Dignity of Man
Language: en
Pages: 705
Authors: Brian P. Copenhaver
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2019-11-19 - Publisher: Belknap Press

GET EBOOK

“This book is nothing less than the definitive study of a text long considered central to understanding the Renaissance and its place in Western culture.” �
Philosophies of the Afterlife in the Early Italian Renaissance
Language: en
Pages: 273
Authors: Joanna Papiernik
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2024-03-21 - Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

GET EBOOK

The immortality of the soul is one of the oldest tropes in the history of philosophy and one that gained significant momentum in 16th-century Europe. But what c
Placing the Plays of Christopher Marlowe
Language: en
Pages: 276
Authors: Professor Robert A Logan
Categories: Drama
Type: BOOK - Published: 2013-04-28 - Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

GET EBOOK

Focusing upon Marlowe the playwright as opposed to Marlowe the man, the essays in this collection position the dramatist's plays within the dramaturgical, ethic
Scala Christus est
Language: en
Pages: 402
Authors: Giovanni Tortoriello
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 2023-05-09 - Publisher: Mohr Siebeck

GET EBOOK

Since the nineteenth century, scholars have debated the controversial relationships between humanism, the Renaissance and the Reformation. Challenging the domin