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The Renaissance and the Sources of the Modern Social Sciences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Waldemar Voisé
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The possibility of the development of comparative thought made the Renaissance an era particularly favorable to the awakening of the scientific understanding of social phenomena. Isolated elements of such an attitude had already appeared, but now their accumulation became of decisive importance.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 6 , Issue 23 , September 1958 , pp. 41 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © 1958 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

1. Henri Busson, Les Sources et le développement du rationalisme dans la littérature française de la Renaissance (1533-1601) (Paris: Letouzy & Ané, 1922), p. xi.

2. Alfred von Martin, "Von der florentinischer Bürgerrepublik zu dem Principat Loren zos," in Soziologie der Renaissance (Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke Verlag, 1932), p. 85. English ed., Sociology of the Renaissance (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1944).

3. R. Hooykaas, "Science and Reformation"; R. H. Bainton, "Critical Comment"; R. Hooykaas, "Answer to Dr. Bainton's Comment on Science and Reformation"; F. Russo, "Rôle respectif du Catholicisme et du Protestantisme dans le d'veloppement des sciences aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles," Cahiers d'histoire mondiale (Paris), No. I (1956) and Nos. 3 and 4 (1957).

4. Filippo Villani, Le Vite d'uomini illustri fiorentini (Firenze: S. Coen, 1847), p. 45; same comparison made about Coluccio (p. 20), Giotto (p. 47), etc.

5. Numerous examples may be found in E. Garin's anthology Il Rinascimento italiano (Milan, 1941).

6. Quoted in E. Cassirer's Individuum und Kosmos in der Philosophie der Renaissance (Leipzig and Berlin: B. G. Teubner, 1927).

7. Experientia ipsa rerum magistra—De Republica, liber de schola, chap. iv. The first edition appeared in Cracow in 1551, the next two at Basel in 1554 and 1559 (German translation, Basel, 1557). The latest edition was published in Warsaw by the Państwewy Institut Wyo awniczy in 1953 (Vol. I of the Opera omnia).

8. On the development of historical thought consult H. Baron, "Das Erwachen des his torischen Denkens in Humanismus des Quattrocento," Historische Zeitschrift, CXLVII (1932/ 1933), 5 ff.

9. Op. cit., p. 54.

10. D. Cantimori, Eretici italiani del Cinquecento (Firenze: G. C. Sansoni, 1939), p. 40. The "Polish brethren," on their side, regard religion as an ensemble of principles which undergo perpetual evolution. Georges Schomann, in his will, told his children that they must be faithful to their paternal religion but that, if after his death a more perfect religion were to arise, they should not hesitate to recognize it (Bibliotheca antitrinitariorum sive catalogus scriptorum Christo phori Sandii [Freistadt, 1684], pp. 196-97).

In his Sylvae (1590), Fricius wrote that Luther had eliminated part of the errors, that after him it was Zwingli who had eliminated another part, but that in the future what remained would also be considered as erroneous.

11. Op. cit., p. 54.

12. J. W. Thompson, A History of Historical Writing (New York: Macmillan Co., 1942), and W. K. Ferguson, The Renaissance in Historical Thought (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1948).

13. L'Historia di Milano volgarmente scritta (Vinegia, 1554) (Ist ed.; Milan, 1503).

14. P. O. Kristeller, The Classics and Renaissance Thought (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1955), p. 19.

15. E. Santini's Introduction in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores (Città di Castello: S. Lapi, 1914), XIX, iii.

16. Opere istoriche e politiche di Nicolò Machiavelli, I, ix, 146, and 161.

17. André Otetea, François Guichardin, sa vie publique et sa pensée politique (Paris: Picart, 1926), p. 63. Also Paslo Treves, Il Realismo politico di Francesco Guicciardini (Florence: "La Nuovo Italia," 1931).

18. Otetea, op. cit., p. 326. Several years after the death of Guicciardini appeared the book Della Repubblica di Genova (1559) by Umberto Foglietta. The author presents in support of his thesis—the superiority of the new patrician class in comparison to the old—some very interesting arguments: he compares the properties of representative members of these two groups with the aid of abundant lists of names. Occasionally, he makes fun of the supposed virtues of the old patriciate. It is not surprising that upon the publication of this book the author was obliged to leave his native city (cf. C. Curcio, Utopisti e riformatori sociali del cinquecento (Bologna, 1941], pp. xii and 19 ff.).

19. Della Istoria d'Italia …, Libri XX (Venezia: G. Pasquali, 1738), I, 98 ff., 101 ff., 477 ff.; II, 1020 ff.

20. Virorum illustrium CIII qui extiterunt vitae auctore caevo Vespasiano Florentino, Spicilegium Romanum (Rome, 1839), Vol. I.For example: "Volendo Donato Acciajuoli] oltre alla dottrina ed eloquenza acquistare della pratica delle cose del mondo …," etc., (p. 438).

21. Johannes Turmair genannt Aventinus, Sämtliche Werke (Munich, 1883), IV, 7-8.

22. Herman Dalton, Lasciana (Berlin: Reuter & Reichard, 1898), pp. 115-16.

23. Tractatus de duabus Sarmatiis, first edition published at Cracow in 1517; then dozens of editions and translations into German, Dutch, Italian, etc.

24. Jean Bodin: La Méthode de l'histoire, translation and edition by Pierre Mesnard (Paris-Algiers : "Les Belles Lettres," 1941), p. 299. English ed.: Method for Easy Comprehension of History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1945).

25. K. Dobrowolski, "Le Problème de la méthodologie de la science polonaise à l'époque de la Renaissance" (in Polish); "La Renaissance en Pologne" ("Odrodzenie w Polsce") (War saw, 1956), II, i, 217 ff. The author analyzes the works of Fricius and of other Polish writers from the point of view of the historian of the social sciences.

26. Jean Moreau-Reibel, Jean Bodin et le droit public comparé (Paris: Vrin, 1933), p. 46.

27. Les six Livres de la République (Paris, 1576) II, 2, p. 272; quotations and pagination of the Lyons edition of 1593. English ed.: Six Books of the Commonwealth, abridged and translated by M. J. Tooley (Oxford: Blackwell, 1955).

28. Op. cit., V, 6, p. 829. He notes, for example, the accounts of contemporary English, French, Polish ambassadors, etc. (I, 8, p. 139; IV, 6, p. 623; V, I, p. 669; VI, 5, p. 976, etc.), and refers to the practice of the Parisian parlement (e.g., II, 5, p. 439; III, 6, p. 470).

29. Thomas More und seine Utopie (1887). English ed.: Thomas More and His Utopia (New York: International Publishers, 1927).

30. C. Curcio, Utopisti e riformatori…. The book contains texts and a critical intro duction.

31. Ibid., p. 9.

32. Most recently, G. Duveau, "La Résurrection de l'Utopie," Cahiers internationaux de la sociologie (Paris), XXIII (1957), 3 ff. The author has already published several studies on the sociology of Utopia.

33. P. H. Kocher, "Francis Bacon on the Science of Jurisprudence," Journal of the History of Ideas, XVIII (1957), 3 ff.

Robert Lenoble writes: "Inventor of the experimental method [Bacon] scarcely had time to experiment" and adds that "the ‘Bacon case' has not yet been cleared up." Declaring that "every great doctrine surpasses its system by its method," he says that, through his inventions, Bacon "was a man of genius who was precursor of true science" ("Origines de la pensée scien tifique moderne," in Histoire de la science, published under the direction of Maurice Daumas [Paris, 1957], pp. 421 ff.).

34. Lenoble, op. cit., p. 523.

35. Elementa philosophiae, sectio tertia: De cive, III, I, I, 2. First edition published in Paris, 1642.

36. Œuvres, Assérat ed. (Paris: Garnier, 1875-77), XV, 124 (also III, 466).

37. Lenoble, op. cit., pp. 526-27.