Perhaps one of the most famous and vivid in every sense of the Renaissance thinkers was Bruno Giordano, whose philosophy was distinguished by pantheism and inspired scholars of the Enlightenment to develop these innovative ideas.
Short biography
He was born in Italy, near Naples, in the small provincial town of Nola, for which he gave himself the nickname Nolander and sometimes signed his works to them. Childhood and young years of the future philosopher passed in a favorable environment of contemplation and study of nature.
At ten years old, Bruno moved to Naples with his relatives, who contained a boarding school, and continued his education, already relying on the knowledge of teachers. Then, having reached the age of fifteen, he becomes a novice of the Dominican monastery in the hope of further expanding the boundaries of his education. At the same time, he tries himself in literature, writing the comedies “The Lamp” and “Noah's Ark”, which make fun of the morals of the modern writer of Neapolitan society.
Because of his views on Catholicism and somewhat greater freedom of action than anticipated for the Dominican monk, Bruno was persecuted by the Inquisition and forced to leave Naples. After long wanderings in the cities of Italy, he reached Geneva. But he could not find work for himself, although he was warmly received by the Calvinists, so he went to Toulouse to teach philosophy and astronomy at the university. Due to radical views on Aristotle’s teachings, criticism and open attacks on the ancient thinker, he was ostracized among his colleagues and held leading positions in the ranking of love among students who liked the unusual approach to learning.
In the end, he has to leave for Paris. There Giordano Bruno is engaged in scientific and literary activities, which attracts the attention of King Henry III. The latter, for exceptional merit, appoints the philosopher an extraordinary professor and encourages him to continue scientific research. Despite all the cordiality shown by the monarch, the radical views and the difficult position of the heretic in the eyes of the Catholic Church forced Bruno to leave France and leave for England. But there he is also pursued by the Inquisition, although not to the same extent as on the mainland. In the end, he still returns to Italy, lives quietly for a while, publishing his scientific and literary works.
However, in 1600 the church "police" arrested Bruno, charged him and sentenced him to burning. The philosopher took the decision on the execution stoically and on February 17 was publicly executed on the Square of Flowers in Rome.
Fundamentals of knowledge of matter and nature
Relying on pre-Socratic philosophers and hermetists, Bruno Giordano, whose philosophy was aimed at changing the idea of a single divine principle and structure of the cosmos, begins to form his own idea of building the world, the solar system and the place of man in it. He believed that the Sun was not the center of the Universe, as Aristotle and his scientific school put forward this idea, but a star around which planets are located. And that there are many similar stars with their own planetary systems and intelligent life inside them. The main idea, from which the whole chain of Bruno's theses is logically traced, was that the world around us, spirit and matter, being, the beginning of everything, is not an act of divine creation, but its living embodiment, present everywhere.
From metaphysics to natural philosophy
The starting point, the beginning of all things, the reason for the formation of the universe is impossible to understand - argued Giordano Bruno. His philosophy did not deny the existence of God, but rather led away from his personification and identification with a particular person. Truth can be known only by the consequence of her stay in the world around her, by the traces that she leaves in matter and spirit. Therefore, in order to know God, it is necessary to study nature in the very essence of it, as far as this is possible based on the capabilities of the human mind.
Dualism of cause or beginning
God was the beginning of everything - as the philosophy of the Renaissance claimed. Giordano Bruno amended this thesis: the root cause and the beginning are one in the image of God, but they are different in nature, since the root cause is pure mind, or the universal mind, which embodies its ideas in nature, and the beginning is matter, which is influenced by reason takes various forms. But at the time of the birth of the Universe, for the very first embodied idea, the world mind took matter not from the outside, but from the inside, thus giving rise to animate matter, which is able to take forms on its own, without the participation of intelligence.
Understanding how difficult the philosophy of nature is to perceive, Giordano Bruno briefly (or not so much) outlined its essence in his work On the Cause, the Beginning and the One. This book impressed both the educated public, hungry for new ideas, and the Inquisition, who saw heretical thoughts in it.
The cyclicity and completeness of nature
The philosophy of nature of Giordano Bruno during the Renaissance was distinguished by the integrity of the concept that there is a universal intellect present in every matter, which is already determined and subordinates the transformation and movement of this matter. Therefore, in nature, everything is logical and complete, everything has its own cycle of existence, at the end of which it again turns into a single matter.
Unity of concepts
The life path of Bruno Giordano is interesting, philosophy, science and religious verbal battles defined his views on the divine principle as the unity of being and form, matter and intellect, since, according to him, they are identical to each other in God. Without this, it would be impossible to define the world as a whole, obeying general laws and representing constantly changing matter.
Natural resemblance
Pure reason, as Hegel later called it, is "obsessed" with the idea of creation, animated by it. And in this he is similar to a divine essence, although it is not personified, and is defined as something accessible to knowledge. Giordano Bruno, whose summary of philosophical ideas is a denial of classical religious dogmas, was the first to put forward a similar thesis. For this he was condemned by scientists who adhered to a scholastic theory and did not want to think otherwise.
Constancy and variability
The contradiction with the established views of Bruno Giordano, the philosophy of nature, which he adhered to, and the very definite mood of society determined the future for these ideas. The philosopher argued that the universal mind is simultaneously one in the whole Universe and different in the forms that matter takes, it is everywhere and at the same time nowhere. And, in order to comprehend this idea, it is necessary to learn to think in a contradictory way. Already after the death of Giordano Bruno, this philosophy will be transformed into a stage of cognition, one of which will be the search for a common in opposites to achieve harmony and the birth of a new pair of opposites. And so in the recursive infinity of the study of matter.
