Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy (26 page)

Sophie stood for several minutes without speaking and took everything in.

"What a lot of old junk you've collected," she said.

"Now then! Just think of how many centuries of history I have preserved in this room. I wouldn't exactly call it junk."

"Do you manage an antique shop or something?"

Alberto looked almost pained.

"We can't all let ourselves be washed away by the tide of history, Sophie. Some of us must tarry in order to gather up what has been left along the river banks." "What an odd thing to say."

"Yes, but none the less true, child. We do not live in our own time alone; we carry our history within us. Don't forget that everything you see in this room was once brand new. That old sixteenth-century wooden doll might have been made for a five-year-old girl's birthday. By her old grandfather, maybe... then she became a teenager, then an adult, and then she married. Maybe she had a daughter of her own and gave the doll to her. She grew old, and one day she died. Although she had lived for a very long time, one day she was dead and gone. And she will never return. Actually she was only here for a short visit. But her doll--well, there it is on the shelf."

"Everything sounds so sad and solemn when you talk like that."

"Life is both sad and solemn. We are let into a wonderful world, we meet one another here, greet each other--and wander together for a brief moment. Then we lose each other and disappear as suddenly and unreasonably as we arrived."

"May I ask you something?"

"We're not playing hide-and-seek any more."

"Why did you move into the major's cabin?"

"So that we would not be so far from each other, when we were only talking by letter. I knew the old cabin would be empty."

"So you just moved in?"

"That's right. I moved in."

"Then maybe you can also explain how Hilde's father knew you were there."

"If I am right, he knows practically everything."

"But I still can't understand at all how you get a mailman to deliver mail in the middle of the woods!" Alberto smiled archly.

"Even things like that are a pure bagatelle for Hilde's father. Cheap hocus-pocus, simple sleight of hand. We are living under what is possibly the world's closest surveillance."

Sophie could feel herself getting angry.

"If I ever meet him, I'll scratch his eyes out!"

Alberto walked over and sat down on the sofa. Sophie followed and sank into a deep armchair.

"Only philosophy can bring us closer to Hilde's father," Alberto said at last. "Today I shall tell you about the Renaissance."

"Shoot."

"Not very long after St. Thomas Aquinas, cracks began to appear in the unifying culture of Christianity. Philosophy and science broke away more and more from the theology of the Church, thus enabling religious life to attain a freer relationship to reasoning. More people now emphasized that we cannot reach God through rationalism because God is in all ways unknowable. The important thing for a man was not to understand the divine mystery but to submit to God's will.

"As religion and science could now relate more freely to each other, the way was open both to new scientific methods and a new religious fervor. Thus the basis was created for two powerful upheavals in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, namely, the Renaissance and the Reformation."

"Can we take them one at a time?"

"By the Renaissance we mean the rich cultural development that began in the late fourteenth century. It started in Northern Italy and spread rapidly northward during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries."

"Didn't you tell me that the word 'renaissance' meant rebirth?" "I did indeed, and that which was to be reborn was the art and culture of antiquity. We also speak of Renaissance humanism, since now, after the long Dark Ages in which every aspect of life was seen through divine light, everything once again revolved around man. 'Go to the source' was the motto, and that meant the humanism of antiquity first and foremost.

"It almost became a popular pastime to dig up ancient sculptures and scrolls, just as it became fashionable to learn Greek. The study of Greek humanism also had a pedagogical aim. Reading humanistic subjects provided a 'classical education' and developed what may be called human qualities. 'Horses are born,' it was said, 'but human beings are not born--they are formed.' "

"Do we have to be educated to be human beings?"

"Yes, that was the thought. But before we take a closer look at the ideas of Renaissance humanism, we must say a little about the political and cultural background of the Renaissance."

Alberto rose from the sofa and began to wander about the room. After a while he paused and pointed to an antique instrument on one of the shelves.

"What is that?" he asked.

"It looks like an old compass."

"Quite right."

He then pointed to an ancient firearm hanging on the wall above the sofa.

"And that?"

"An old-fashioned rifle."

"Exactly--and this?"

Alberto pulled a large book off one of the bookshelves. "It's an old book."

"To be absolutely precise, it is an incunabulum."

"An incunabulum?"

"Actually, it means 'cradle.' The word is used about books printed in the cradle days of printing. That is, before 1500."

"Is it really that old?"

"That old, yes. And these three discoveries--the compass, firearms, and the printing press--were essential preconditions for this new period we call the Renaissance."

"You'll have to explain that a bit more clearly."

"The compass made it easier to navigate. In other words, it was the basis for the great voyages of discovery. So were firearms in a way. The new weapons gave the Europeans military superiority over American and Asiatic cultures, although firearms were also an important factor in Europe. Printing played an important part in spreading the Renaissance humanists' new ideas. And the art of printing was, not least, one of the factors that forced the Church to relinquish its former position as sole disseminator of knowledge. New inventions and instruments began to follow thick and fast. One important instrument, for example, was the telescope, which resulted in a completely new basis for astronomy." "And finally came rockets and space probes." "Now you're going too fast. But you could say that a process started in the Renaissance finally brought people to the moon. Or for that matter to Hiroshima and Chernobyl. However, it all began with changes on the cultural and economic front. An important condition was the transition from a subsistence economy to a monetary economy. Toward the end of the Middle Ages, cities had developed, with effective trades and a lively commerce of new goods, a monetary economy and banking. A middle class arose which developed a certain freedom with regard to the basic conditions of life. Necessities became something that could be bought for money. This state of affairs rewarded people's diligence, imagination, and ingenuity. New demands were made on the individual."

"It's a bit like the way Greek cities developed two thousand years earlier." "Not altogether untrue. I told you how Greek philosophy broke away from the mythological world picture that was linked to peasant culture. In the same way, the Renaissance middle class began to break away from the feudal lords and the power of the church. As this was happening, Greek culture was being rediscovered through a closer contact with the Arabs in Spain and the Byzantine culture in the east."

"The three diverging streams from antiquity joined into one great river."

"You are an attentive pupil. That gives you some background on the Renaissance. I shall now tell you about the new ideas."

"Okay, but I'll have to go home and eat."

Alberto sat down on the sofa again. He looked at Sophie.

"Above all else, the Renaissance resulted in a new view of mankind. The humanism of the Renaissance brought a new belief in man and his worth, in striking contrast to the biased medieval emphasis on the sinful nature of man. Man was now considered infinitely great and valuable. One of the central figures of the Renaissance was Marsilio Ficino, who exclaimed: 'Know thyself, O divine lineage in mortal guise!' Another central figure, Pica della Mirandola, wrote the Oration on the Dignity of Man, something that would have been unthinkable in the Middle Ages.

"Throughout the whole medieval period, the point of departure had always been God. The humanists of the Renaissance took as their point of departure man himself."

"But so did the Greek philosophers."

"That is precisely why we speak of a 'rebirth' of antiquity's humanism. But Renaissance humanism was to an even greater extent characterized by individualism. We are not only human beings, we are unique individuals. This idea could then lead to an almost unrestrained worship of genius. The ideal became what we call the Renaissance man, a man of universal genius embracing all aspects of life, art, and science. The new view of man also manifested itself in an interest in the human anatomy. As in ancient times, people once again began to dissect the dead to discover how the body was constructed. It was imperative both for medical science and for art. Once again it became usual for works of art to depict the nude. High time, after a thousand years of prudery. Man was bold enough to be himself again. There was no longer anything to be ashamed of."

"It sounds intoxicating," said Sophie, leaning her arms on the little table that stood between her and the philosopher.

"Undeniably. The new view of mankind led to a whole new outlook. Man did not exist purely for God's sake. Man could therefore delight in life here and now. And with this new freedom to develop, the possibilities were limitless. The aim was now to exceed all boundaries. This was also a new idea, seen from the Greek humanistic point of view; the humanists of antiquity had emphasized the importance of tranquility, moderation, and restraint."

"And the Renaissance humanists lost their restraint?"

"They were certainly not especially moderate. They behaved as if the whole world had been reawakened.

They became intensely conscious of their epoch, which is what led them to introduce the term 'Middle Ages' to cover the centuries between antiquity and their own time. There was an unrivaled development in all spheres of life. Art and architecture, literature, music, philosophy, and science flourished as never before. I will mention one concrete example. We have spoken of Ancient Rome, which gloried in titles such as the 'city of cities' and the 'hub of the universe.' During the Middle Ages the city declined, and by 1417 the old metropolis had only 17,000 inhabitants."

"Not much more than Lillesand, where Hilde lives."

"The Renaissance humanists saw it as their cultural duty to restore Rome: first and foremost, to begin the construction of the great St. Peter's Church over the grave of Peter the Apostle. And St. Peter's Church can boast neither of moderation nor restraint. Many great artists of the Renaissance took part in this building project, the greatest in the world. It began in 1506 and lasted for a hundred and twenty years, and it took another fifty before the huge St. Peter's Square was completed."

"It must be a gigantic church!"

"It is over 200 meters long and 130 meters high, and it covers an area of more than 16,000 square meters. But enough about the boldness of Renaissance man. It was also significant that the Renaissance brought with it a new view of nature. The fact that man felt at home in the world and did not consider life solely as a preparation for the hereafter, created a whole new approach to the physical world. Nature was now regarded as a positive thing. Many held the view that God was also present in his creation. If he is indeed infinite, he must be present in everything. This idea is called pantheism. The medieval philosophers had insisted that there is an insurmountable barrier between God and the Creation. It could now be said that nature is divine--and even that it is 'God's blossoming.' Ideas of this kind were not always looked kindly on by the church. The fate of Gior-dano Bruno was a dramatic example of this. Not only did he claim that God was present in nature, he also believed that the universe was infinite in scope. He was punished very severely for his ideas."

"How?"

"He was burned at the stake in Rome's Flower Market in the year 1600."

"How horrible ... and stupid. And you call that humanism?"

"No, not at all. Bruno was the humanist, not his executioners. During the Renaissance, what we call anti-humanism flourished as well. By this I mean the authoritarian power of State and Church. During the Renaissance there was a tremendous thirst for trying witches, burning heretics, magic and superstition, bloody religious wars--and not least, the brutal conquest of America. But humanism has always had a shadow side. No epoch is either purely good or purely evil. Good and evil are twin threads that run through the history of mankind. And often they intertwine. This is not least true of our next key phrase, a new scientific method, another Renaissance innovation which I will tell you about."

"Was that when they built the first factories?"

"No, not yet. But a precondition for all the technical development that took place after the Renaissance was the new scientific method. By that I mean the completely new approach to what science was. The technical fruits of this method only became apparent later on."

"What was this new method?"

"Mainly it was a process of investigating nature with our own senses. Since the fourteenth century there had been an increasing number of thinkers who warned against blind faith in old authority, be it religious doctrine or the natural philosophy of Aristotle. There were also warnings against the belief that problems can be solved purely by thinking. An exaggerated belief in the importance of reason had been valid all through the Middle Ages. Now it was said that every investigation of natural phenomena must be based on observation, experience, and experiment. We call this the empirical method."

"Which means?"

"It only means that one bases one's knowledge of things on one's own experience--and not on dusty parchments or figments of the imagination. Empirical science was known in antiquity, but systematic experiments were something quite new."