Renaissance and

alienated religious outlook, however, in a wholly banking wealth of Florence was insured by the wholly
different sense "than employed by empiricists, mystical abstract authority of the Pope. Thus, the
Precisely because he rejects human knowledge as Florentines consistently defended the Papacy at the
determining the laws of the universe, Fieino stops same time that they struggled to transform it into an
short of correctly identifying the interrelationship, extension oftheirownurban, Humanist outlook.
between knowledge and existence. Instead, he con- The vicious paradox in this situation was that
ceives of the practical side of knowledge as expressed Humanism could only develop by destroying the
in insuring the soul's immortality after death. Ficino's alienated ties to the universe mediated by the Pope.
view of the universe can be described as a place of Only then would it be possible to free the mind to
fixed and predetermined perfection within which man recognize in universal labor the power to change
develops his powers. The reign of real perfection is existence. It was the more backward German
achieved onlyafter all motion has been stilled, when burghers who recognized in Humanism the very
the soulisateternalrest, authority to overthrow the claims of the Papal
It is perfectly obvious from whence he derives these revenue collectors. From them there rapidly spread
ideas. Ficino concedes to theology the metaphysical an embryonic Humanism of technology, as reflected
rights to the universe as a whole, and only retains for most explicitly by the English Tudors, which directly
man the claims upon the time and place of his ira- sought to identify the practical power of science to
mediate existence. But, more significantly, Ficino's change existence.
uncritical acceptance of this dichotomy is consistent The origins of this scientific Humanism is found in
with the ideology of mercantile capitalism. For the work of such German Renaissance figures as
mercantile capitalism, as distinct from real Albrecht Dfirer. In his work on perspective, Dfirer
cap:italism, considers society's productive power as introduces the artist and geometrician as active
incidental to the accumulation of tithes and the participants in speculative research. He thereby
collection of debt. Only to the extent that the makes a fundamental advance over Brunelleschi's
bankruptcies of the mid-14th century required men to formulation, changing the emphasis from conception
consider how such accumulation could be insured was of the fixed law to the act of formulating the laws.
any thought given to expanding productive activity, The culmination of this process is Descartes' two
and particularly to the expansion of trade. Humanism
theorems whereby knowledge, cognition, is identified
identified the qualities of mind that made possible with the activity of changing knowledge, rather than
such expansion, but mercantile capitalism identified the fixed and specific predicate of knowledge.
the results exclusively with fictitious value. The
Locating mental activity in theprocess of continually
Florentine historian Guicciardini correctly described improving knowledge, Descartes wipes out the fundathe
empirical expression of this situation:
mentally intransigent feature of Ficino's
epistemology, the fixed state of perfection. Instead of
...to cloak with a fine word the ugliness of the act, the being faced with God's perfection, unattainable within
loan of a sum of money for a fixed time at a certain existence, men are faced with the ponderable nature
price and interest....Such transactions would be useful
if people would be content with reasonable interest, of real existence and the necessity of constantly
This however is not the case, ,and the (credit) business changing it.
has assumed an arbitrary and unbearable shape. (27) Although Ficino's philosophy is alienated from the
advanced standpoint of Descartes, it is nonetheless
Ficino's view of cognition reflects the more coherent withit. The practical base of Ficino'soutlook
essential alienation of mercantile capitalism than is illustrated by the artists and architects around
Guicciardini's description. For him the continuity of Brunelleschi. The very purpose of their work was to
existence is only:reflected in human knowledge, and change the cognitive powers of their audience, to
God remains the primum, the ultimate cause. Like- illustrate the motion of the mind. While the dome of
wise, in the ideology of mercantile capitalism, the Florence was raised to the glory of God, it practically
"miracle" of expanded wealth is identified with the celebrated the creative power of its creator --
mystique of the bankers' juridical privileges Brunelleschi; not only Brunelleschi, but Grasso and
vouchsafed to him by "higher authorities," feudal the entire process of social labor that had to be
lords. In the particular case of Florence, the most produced to successfully execute the plans for the
important feudal authority was the Pope himself, and dome. It was this real practical activity that Ficino
Ficino's acceptance of the hierarchical rights of used to abstract his notion of the movement of the
theology had a very practical application indeed. The mind.
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