The Reformation & Counter-Reformation

• The Reformation & Counter-Reformation, represent the rebellion of the less civilized nations against the intellectual domination of Italy.
• In the Counter-Reformation there was only revolt against the intellectual & moral freedom of renaissance Italy.
• In the Reformation, the revolt  was political & theological.
• The Reformation was German & the Counter-Reformation was Spanish.
• The three great men of the Reformation & Counter-Reformation are Luther, Calvin & Loyola.
• Luther & Calvin's theology was to diminish the power of the church.
• Loyola created the Jesuit order
• Loyola was a soldier & his order was founded on military models such as: there must be unquestioning obedience to the general, & every Jesuit was to consider himself engaged in warfare against heresy.
• The Jesuit's were disciplined, able, completely devoted to the cause, skillful propagandists & they believed in free will.
• The Jesuit's concentrated on education, & acquired a firm hold on the minds of the young.Whenever theology didn't interfere, the education they gave was the best obtainable. They taught Descartes more Mathematics than he would of learnt elsewhere.

Sir Thomas More

• Sir Thomas More (1478-1535)
• At Oxford he set to learn Greek, The authorities & his father objected, & he was removed from the University.
• His Father was a lawyer & he decided to follow his fathers profession.
• In  1504 he became a member of Parliament. He led the opposition to Henry VII's demand for new taxes. In this he was successful, but the king was furious. He sent More's father to the Tower, however releasing him on a payment of £100.
•  When king Henry VII died in 1509, More returned to his practise of law & won the favour of Henry VIII. He was knighted in 1514. The King also appointed More to be Chancellor in his stead.
• More soon fell into disfavour with the King because the King wanted to divorce Cathrine of Aragon, in  order to marry Anne Boleyn. More opposed the divorce, he therefore resigned in 1532. The King then went on to invite More to his wedding with Anne Boleyn, but More refused the invitation.
• It was proved, however, by very dubious testimony, that More had said Parliament could not make Henry the VIII head of the Church; on this evidence More was convicted of high treason, & beheaded.
• His property was given to Princess Elizabeth, who kept it to the day of her death.
• More is almost Solely remembered on his account of his Utopia (1518).
• Utopia is an island in the southern hemisphere, where everything is done in the best possible way. It was accidentally visited by a sailor named Raphael Hythloday, who spent five years there.
• Before I continue with my notes on Mores Utopia, I would just like to say that at the moment I cant see how some of this philosophy stuff relates to Journalism. I understand that the political side of things could be related to journalism e.g Machiavelli, Sir Thomas More & Hobbes. But as for the others I cant see the relation yet. But nether the less I have to admit that I do find all of what I have read extremely interesting so far. Previous to this Module I have never done Philosophy before, but I am very happy that I have now because I find it very interesting. Which brings me to my next point, I have always heard about Utopia, but  I never new what it was exactly. So when I read chapter 4 I was intrigued by all of the rules & regulations. I will now proceed to write the rules & regulations of Utopia, as it is in the book Just because I personally find it interesting.
• There are 54 towns in Utopia, all on the same plan, except that one is the Capital. All of the streets are twenty feet broad, & all the private houses are exactly alike, with one door onto the street & one onto the garden. There are no locks on the doors, & every one may enter any house. The roofs are flat. Every tenth year people change houses-apparently to prevent any feeling of ownership. In the country, there are farms, each containing not fewer than forty persons, including two bondmen; each farm is under the rule of a Master & Mistress, who are old & wise. The chickens are not hatched by hens, but in incubators (which did not exist in More's time). All are dressed alike, except that there is a difference in dress between men & Women, & married & unmarried. The fashions never change, & no difference is made between Summer & Winter clothes. At work leather or skins are worn; a suit will last seven years. When they stop work, they throw a woolen cloak over their working clothes. All these cloaks are alike & are the natural colour of wool. Each family makes its own clothes. Everybody-men & women alike- works six hours a day, three before dinner & three after. All go to bed at eight, & sleep eight. In the early morning there are lectures, to which multitudes go, although they are not compulsory. After super an hour is dedicated to play. Six hours' work is enough, because there are no idlers & there is no useless work.
• At the head is a prince who is elected for life, but can be deposed for tyranny. Family life is patriachal; married sons live in their fathers house, & are governed by him, unless he is in his dotage. If any family grows to large, the surplus children are moved into another family. If a town grows to large, some of the inhabitants are moved into another town. if all the towns are too large, a new town is built on waste land. All killing of beasts for food is done by bondmen, lest free citizens should learn cruelty. There are hospitals for the sick, which are so excellent that people who are ill prefer them.Eating at home is permitted, but most people eat in common halls. 
• Everything that I have written above in italics, I have extracted from page 478 of chapter 4. I have put this on my blog for the people that may have not read this chapter. If you find it as interesting as I do, please read the rest of the chapter to see the rest of the rules & regulations of More's Utopia.

• My view on More's Utopia is that there is no individualism. everyone is to much the same. I understand that More probably wanted it to be that way because he probably thinks that if everyone is the same, then there is no need for argument or for the communities to be divided for any reason. But in reality the world doesn't work like that. I think that Russell's comment when he writes 'Diversity is essential to happiness, & in More's Utopia there is hardly any', I think this comment really sum's it all up. Lastly I think that how can Utopia be perfect when they feed all children under the age of five, left over scraps at dinner time.

Erasmus

• Erasmus & Sir Thomas More serve as exemplars of the Northern Renaissance.
• Both despised scholastic Philosophy & were both witty, humorous & highly skilled writers.
• Erasmus (1466-1536) was born in Rotterdam & his father was a priest.
• His parents died before he was grown up, so his guardians forced him into becoming Monk at the monastery of Steyr.
• One of his guardians was a schoolmaster.
• In 1493, he became a Secretary to the bishop of Cambrai, who was Chancellor of the Golden Fleece. which gave him the opportunity to leave the Monastery to travel.
• He was an highly accomplished Latinist who admired the work of Lorenzo Valla, because of his book on the elegance of the Latin language.
• For a short time he studied at the University of Paris, but left because he didn't find anything to profit himself.
• Erasmus hated the scholastic, whom he thought to be superannuated & antiquated. He didn't really like any Philosophy, not even Plato or Aristotle.
• In 1499 he made his first visit to England.whilst in England he made friends with Colet & More. He then left England in the beginning of 1500.
•  He then set to work to learn Greek, then in 1506 he went to Italy but found that the Italians had nothing to teach him.
• He tried to learn Hebrew, but eventually gave it up.
• The only book by Erasmus that is still read, is called The praise of folly. He wrote it quickly in London, at the house of Sir Thomas More, to whom the book was dedicated to. In the book Popes, Cardinals & Bishops are fiercely ridiculed. He claims that they are 'brainsick fools', who have very little religion in them, yet are 'highly in love with themselves, & found admires or their own happiness'.
• On his second visit to England, he stayed for five years (1509-1514). Partly in London & partly in Cambridge.
• He wrote a book called Enchiridion Militis Christiani, to give advice to illiterate soldiers: they were to read the bible, but also Plato, Ambrose, Jerome & Augustine.
• He wrote a very successful book called Colloquies, to teach people how to talk in Latin about every-day matters, such as a game of bowls. This was very useful because Latin was the only international language & throughout western Europe, Latin may have been the only language that two students could use to converse.
• After the reformation Erasmus first lived in Louvain, then in Basel.
• In 1518 he published a satire called Julius exclusus, describing the failure of Julius II to go to heaven.

• From 1524 until his death he became increasingly unimportant. He lived to long into an age of new virtues & new vices-heroism & intolerance, neither of which he could acquire.

The Medici Family tree

Machiavelli

• Machiavelli (1467-1527) was a Florentine, whose father was a lawyer.
• Machiavelli obtained a minor post in the Florentine government (1498). He remained in the service of the Florentine government until the restoration of the Medici family in 1512. His role was to carry out important diplomatic missions.
• Once the Medici family took power, Machiavelli was arrested but then released & was allowed to live in retirement in the country near Florence.
• His most famous work was called The prince & was written in 1513. The book was dedicated to Lorenzo the second in an attempted to win over the Medici family, which failed. 
• The prince is concerned to discover how principalities are won, how they are held & how they are lost.  
• Machiavelli admired and had high praise for Caesar Borgia Because of the skillful way he went about things. Caesar Borgia had three main objectives after his father Alexander VI died. Those were as follows: Kill his brother. Conquer by force of arms & in the name of the Pope, territories which should of belonged to himself, not the Papal states, after his father died. Lastly to manipulate the collage of cardinals, so that the next Pope should become his friend. Machiavelli was impressed with the skillful & methodical way Caesar Borgia carried out these objectives & if it wasn't for the misfortune that he was to become ill, he would have most probably successfully completed these objectives. 
• However it must be said, Machiavelli's admiration for Caesar Borgia was only for his skill, not for his purposes.
• My thoughts on Machiavelli are that he comes across as a very smart man, because his time in employment in government made him very wise. He was able to observe what was going on around him & learn how to & how not to go about things, just from observing the people/leaders who were in higher positions than himself. So that's why his works titled The Prince & probably more successfully Discourses where so successful. However if his books were published today, they wouldn't be as successful because the methods used or needed to gain & sustain power in the world of today are completely different to how they were back then. 

Galileo

Notes on chapters 1-2

• The period of history known as 'modern', differs from that of the medival period.
  The two main ones are the diminishing authority of the church and the increasing authority of science.
• The culture is different in 'modern times'
• States replace the church which controls culture.
• The state has less influence on the opinions of philosophers than the church had in the middle ages
• Feudal aristocracy in the 15th century loses its political and economic importance. (replaced by kings)
• In the Renaissance, science played a very small part
• The 1st serious irruption of science was the publication of the Copernican Theory in 1543
  This theory was taken seriously when it was taken up and improved by Kepler and Galileo. (17th century)
• Unlike the body of Catholic dogma, science does not lay down a complete system, covering human morality, human hopes and the past and future history of the universe.
  It pronounces only on whatever, at the time, appears to have been scientifically ascertained.
• The pronouncements of science are made tentatively on the basis of probaility and are liable to modification.
• Theoretical science is and attempt to understand the world and Practical science is an attempt to change it.
• Galileo and Leonardo obtained government employment by their claim to improve artillery and the art of fortification.
• The triumph of science is mainly due to its practical utility.
• Until the 17th century, there was nothing of importance in philosophy.
• Modern philosophy has retained an individualistic and subjective tendancy.
• The five important States in Italy were Milan, Venice, Florence, the Papal Domain and Naples.
• The Medici family became rulers of Florence from around 1389 till 1737.
• During the Renaissance Florence was the most civilized city in the world.
• Alexander VI was the pope from (1492-1503) and was the father to the Duke of Gandia and more favourably Caesar Borgia. Together they conquered Romagna & Ancona. Caesar Borgia was known to have killed his brother but it was never confirmed or know as fact.
• France tried to invade Milan & Naples in 1502 with temporary success, but were ultimatley defeated by Spain. The spanish victory put an end to the Italian Renaissance.
• Cosimo & Lorenzo dei Medici were both addicted to Plato. Cosimo founded the Florentine Academy, which was dedicated to the study of Plato which Lorenzo continued.
Caesar Borgia
My thoughts on chapters 1-2 are that it seems to me that the Italian Renaissance was a breath of fresh air, in many ways for Italy. Because before the Renaissance, Italy was pretty much run by the church, which made people very much narrow minded. But when the Medici family came to power, because of there love for art, philosophy & Plato they incouraged people to think outside the box in a way. Also people like Michaelangelo, Galileo, leonardo & Descartes only helped to influence the movement which was the Renaissance.
Also the corruption of some of the popes in that erra, such as AlexanderVI didnt help the church to regain power. I also think that the increasing popularity of science helped the Renaissance & even though there was nothing of to much importance in Philosophy till the 17th century, the Renaissance was still the beggining of it in many ways & therfore held importance.   

Michaelangelo