Oration on the Dignity of Man
Author | Giovanni Pico della Mirandola |
---|---|
Language | Latin |
Genre | Public discourse |
Publication date | 1486 |
Publication place | Duchy of Mirandola |
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The Oration on the Dignity of Man (De hominis dignitate in
Pico, who belonged to the family that had long dwelt in the
Content
The potential of human achievement
Pico's Oration attempted to remap the human landscape to center all attention on human capacity and human perspective. Arriving in a place near Florence, he taught the amazing capacity of human achievement. "Pico himself had a massive intellect and studied everything there was to be studied in the university curriculum of the Renaissance; the Oration in part is meant to be a preface to a massive compendium of all the intellectual achievements of humanity, a compendium that never appeared because of Pico's early death."[citation needed]
Dignity of the liberal arts
Pico intended to speak in front of an invited audience of scholars and clerics of the dignity of the liberal arts about the glory of angels. Of these angels, he spoke of three divisions in particular: the
Importance of human quest for knowledge
In the Oration, Pico justified the importance of the human quest for knowledge within a Neoplatonic framework. He writes that after God had created all creatures, He conceived of the desire for another sentient being who would appreciate all His works, but there was no longer any room in the
The idea that men could ascend the chain of being through the exercise of their intellectual capacities was a profound endorsement of the dignity of human existence in this earthly life. The root of this dignity lay in his assertion that only human beings could change themselves through their own free will, whereas all other changes in nature were the result of some outside force acting on whatever it is that undergoes change. He observed from history that philosophies and institutions were always in change, making man's capacity for self-transformation the only constant. Coupled with his belief that all of creation constitutes a symbolic reflection of the divinity of God, Pico's philosophies had a profound influence on the arts, helping to elevate writers and painters from their medieval role as mere artisans to the Renaissance ideal of the artist as creative genius.
Introduction to Pico's 900 theses
The Oration also served as an introduction to Pico's 900 theses,[6] which he believed would provide a complete and sufficient basis for the discovery of all knowledge, and hence a model for mankind's ascent of the chain of being. The 900 Theses are a good example of humanist syncretism, because Pico combined Platonism, Neoplatonism, Aristotelianism, Hermeticism and Kabbalah. They also included 72 theses describing what Pico believed to be a complete system of physics. Pico also argued in this oration that his youth should not discredit any of the content of his 900 theses (he was in his twenties).
Pico had "cosmic ambitions": in his letters and early texts, he hinted that debate of the 900 theses (the first printed book ever universally banned by the Church) might trigger Christ's Second Coming and the end of the world.[7][8] Innocent VIII condemned the theses in general but declared the author to be free from censure. This was written on August 5, 1487, but it was not issued until the following December. In a letter to Lorenzo dated August 27, 1489, Pico affirms among other things some of his theses refer purely to profane matters and were never intended for general reading, but instead for private debate among the learned.[9]
Mystical vocation of humanity
In the Oration, Pico argues, in the words of Pier Cesare Bori, that "human vocation is a mystical vocation that has to be realized following a three-stage approach, which comprehends necessarily moral transformation, intellectual research and final perfection in identity with the absolute reality. This paradigm is universal because it can be retraced in every tradition."[10]
Delivery
Pico was prevented from holding his Oration. It was penned as the opening speech for a public disputation of his 900 theses, planned for early 1487, but Pope Innocent VIII suspended the event and instead set up a commission to examine the theses for heresy. A presentation of the full text in English in front of a live audience read by Sebastian Michael took place at TU Wien (University of Technology Vienna) as part of the opening event of the first Sophistication Conference organised by the Department for Architecture Theory and Philosophy of Technics on 7 December 2017.[11]
References
- ^ "Giovanni Pico della Mirandola". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. 2020.
- ^ "Introduction in English". www.brown.edu. Retrieved 2017-12-04.
- ^ Brians, Paul. "Pico Della Mirandola: Oration On the Dignity Of Man (15th C. CE)". Retrieved 7 December 2017.
- ^ "Cronologia". www.brown.edu. Retrieved 2017-12-04.
- ^ "Oration on the Dignity of Man".
- ^ "Pico's 900 Theses". calameo.com. Retrieved 2018-07-09.
- ISBN 0866982094.
- ^ Copenhaver, Brian (2016), "Giovanni Pico della Mirandola", in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2016 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 2018-07-09
- ^ "An Early Humanist". The Atlantic Monthly. 51. Houghton, Mifflin and company - The Riverside Press: 500–501. 1883.
- ^ Prof. Pier Cesare Bori. "The Italian Renaissance: An Unfinished Dawn?: Pico della Mirandola Archived 2007-12-29 at the Wayback Machine". Accessed December 5, 2007.
- ^ "Conference: Sophistication: Rhetorical, Geometrical, and Computational "Articulation"". ATTP TU Wien. Retrieved 12 November 2018.