Natural philosophy of the Renaissance as a continuation of ancient traditions

Philosophers have long tried to explain nature logically - the causes of processes occurring in it, the connection between its phenomena, to find in it the meaning and the main or primary basis. This philosophical direction was called natural philosophy. The first stage in the development of this direction was the natural philosophy of antiquity, the most typical representatives of which are the Miletus school and the followers of Pythagoras (pre-Socratic period, VII-VI centuries BC).

The philosophers of the Milesian school were distinguished by pragmatism and the search for a single beginning of nature was combined with practical inventions, such as astronomical instruments, maps, sundials. Thus, Thales considered matter live, and the main principle - water. Anaximander called the original matter "apeiron", believing that as a result of the contradictions existing in it (heat and cold), the world emerged. He, too, was a gilozoist, that is, he believed in the animation of matter. Anaximenes represented the beginning as air, and Heraclitus as fire. Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans saw in the numbers the mystical basis of all things and their ciphered essence. All of them were united by the conviction that everything in space is interconnected, animated, everything - to people, gods, animals - has its place and purpose.

It is interesting that a philosophy attempting to explain nature in a similar way and even to some extent restoring the cosmocentrism of antiquity reappeared in the Renaissance. The natural philosophy of the Renaissance is characterized by an attempt not only to explain nature, but also to combine Christian philosophy with cosmocentrism and even with pantheism. The theoretical and gnosiological prerequisites for this way of thinking are rightly owned by Nikolai Kuzansky, a descendant of a peasant family who has become a cardinal. He tried to explain philosophy and theology with mathematical symbols, like the Pythagoreans, and also justified a kind of identity of Nature and God. God, from the point of view of Nicholas of Cusa, is the Absolute being, where the minimum and maximum coincide, but this Absolute is in a "collapsed" form, accessible to faith. He "unfolds" in Nature, and then the mind can comprehend it. He expressed several ideas, anticipating both the theory of Copernicus, and elements of the dialectic of Hegel.

Natural philosophy of the Renaissance, founded by Nicholas of Cusa, was developed and in fact founded by the Neapolitan Bernardino Telezio. God, of course, created the world, being the first-primary, pouring out into the world, but He is transcendental to the world, and therefore the material principle prevails in the latter. All things are material, although the principle of materiality itself is invisible. Reason and science are called upon to know nature, which is independent and is the only source of knowledge. When you study nature, you can go up to God. He revived the ancient Hylozoism, believing that all matter is capable of sensing, and put forward the theory that the whole movement in nature is engendered by the presence of opposites.

Bernardino Telesio created in his hometown society of researchers of nature (Academia Telesiana). We can say that the natural philosophy of the Renaissance is represented by naturalists of this time, for example, Leonardo da Vinci, who proposed a methodology for studying nature and anticipated the experimental and mathematical method of studying Francis Bacon. This method was developed by Galileo Galilei, who, like Telesio, believed that God created the world, but he begins to develop according to his laws, and their study is possible only through experiments.

Astronomers Nikolai Copernicus, Johannes Kepler and Tiho de Brahe, like many Renaissance figures, also contributed to the philosophy of nature. The natural philosophy of the Renaissance owes Copernicus to the fact that, by his work "On the Appeals of Celestial Bodies," he actually removed the Earth from the astronomical, and human from the "ideological" center of the universe, putting the Cosmos there, in defiance of the scientific paradigm of his time. It's not for nothing that his grave says: "I stopped the Sun and pushed the Earth". Kepler and Tiho de Brahe mathematically proved Copernicus' doctrine of the inversion of the planets and calculated the patterns of their motion.

Natural philosophy of the Renaissance is represented by two more interesting figures: Giordano Bruno and Paracelsus (Theophrastus Bombast of Gogegheim). Bruno, too, did not deny that God is dissolved in Nature, and therefore Nature must be infinite in both its states (modes) - that is, in spirit and in space. Therefore, not only the Earth, but many worlds should exist, and the Sun is one of the stars. Like most natural philosophers, Bruno also regarded nature as both material and animated, bearing in itself the unity of both principles. Paracelsus was at the same time a doctor, an astronomer and an alchemist. He, too, was convinced that there is a universal connection in nature and that it is animated, but believed that this connection is "magical-mystical", and therefore one key is possible to "discover nature". The natural philosopher was popular not only among his contemporaries - he was legendary, and he is one of the prototypes of Dr. Faust in European literature.