Renaissance Humanism and Its Discontents

Abstract

The essay explores humanism’s modernity by inquiring into the way the fifteenth-century humanist cultural program posited moral values and, at the same time, contributed to a sense of moral confusion. While Niccolò Niccoli, Pier Paolo Vergerio, and Leonardo Bruni associated ethical enlightenment with learning and even social acclaim, Leon Battista Alberti criticized these assumptions not only for their susceptibility to political manipulation but also for their failure to cultivate the attributes they promised: virtue, and by extension happiness and tranquillity. The tensions in humanist culture between conformity and dissent, rational certainty and sense of mutability, generated the creative energy that we, as moderns, have come to attribute to this culture.     

西欧文艺复兴对神学文化传统的批判继承

从中世纪向近代过渡的社会背景．使得西欧文艺复兴在利用古典文化资源的同时,对基督教神学文化传统也进行了批判继承。人文主义者以“借神颂人”的形式。借助“上帝”的权威来否定教会的“原罪”说,颂扬个人的自由、尊严与世俗欲望,促激起人文主义启蒙思想的诞生．也使得这一思想必然要打上神学传统的烙印。人文主义者还将自由平等的精神贯穿于学术活动之中．对基督教原典《圣经》及其它教会文件进行重新的翻译与考订,由此而产生了著名的“圣经人文主义”学派。促进了反教廷神权的宗教思想的勃发。文艺复兴对神学文化的批判、选择与吸收,有力地显示了文化创新与文化传统关系的客观历史规律。     

阿拉伯哲学对西欧文艺复联的影响

阿拉伯哲学将古希腊亚里士多德的学说、新柏拉图主义和传入的其他哲学思想与自身传统融会贯通,形成富于自身特色的阿拉伯——伊斯兰哲学体系。中世纪晚期,阿拉伯哲学经由西班牙和西西里岛这两个主要途径,通过翻译运动回哺西欧,对西欧文艺复兴运动的兴起和深化产生重要影响。     

汉室复兴的历程及其政治文化背景

新莽末年,饥民群聚,劫掠求生,进而形成大规模农民暴动。春陵宗室趁机发起复汉运动,同绿林诸将一道建立了更始政权,并一度得到天下豪杰的响应。但更始君臣暴虐无能,很快失去民心,葬送了人心思汉的形势,致使天下分崩离析。刘秀此时崛起于河北,并未得到民意的广泛支持。他一面用武力征讨不服,一面用爵禄招降纳叛,形成力量强大但结构松散的军事集团,经过十余年艰苦战争,纔消灭了各地割据势力。刘秀的权威和号召力先天不足,使得东汉的统治缺乏深固的社会基础。刘秀的许多举措,如加强中央集权、大力提倡谶纬等,都是为改善这一状况而推出的。     

The Importance of Context and Comparison in the Study of European Spatial Planning

The European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) was agreed in 1999 at Potsdam, Germany, as a non-binding framework intended to guide spatially significant policy-making at different spatial scales in order to achieve a more balanced and sustainable growth of the EU territory. This paper develops a conceptualization of the nature of transnational planning frameworks such as the ESDP and presents a framework for the investigation of the application of their policy orientations in the spatial planning systems of European states. It is argued that investigations of the application of transnational spatial development frameworks like the ESDP and the ‘Territorial Agenda of the European Union’ document adopted by EU member states in 2007, need to be sensitized to the diversity of territorial contexts in which these apply, and that a contextualized and comparative approach is therefore essential in evaluating their influence in Europe's varied territories.     

The two cultures and Renaissance humanism

Abstract

C. P. Snow's 'two cultures' distinction between scientific and humanistic thought is perennial. It may be said to correspond to empirical and metaphorical bents in human nature. Since antiquity, attempts have been made by some to bridge the gap. The natural bridge of scientific (in the broad sense) scholarship has been largely overlooked, but the development in the West of philological and historical methods by fifteenth and early sixteenth century humanists (in the technical sense) exhibits numerous criteria and examples of a scientific approach to the world around us, as does such scholarship today.