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GIOVANNI PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA

Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494) was an Italian philosopher of the Renaissance and an influential voice of Humanism. He was born to the Lord of Mirandola, which was an autonomous region at that time. He had an exceptional memory, and in his youth studied many branches of knowledge and several languages. He later studied at the University of Padua and the University of Paris. At the age of 23 he composed a list of 900 theses on religion, philosophy and science, and he planned to invite scholars from all over Europe to discuss them. This, however, was prohibited by the Pope. Overall, his vision was of integrating different philosophical and spiritual approaches, because he saw them as different sides of the same wisdom. At the age of 31 he died of unclear causes, possibly poisoning.

Pico Della Mirandola is perhaps most known for his short book Oration on the Dignity of Man, which was a major expression of Humanism (the movement that believed in the power of the human spirit, its creativity and thinking). In the following text, adapted from this book, he praises the unique powers of man. Unlike animals who are governed by their inborn nature, and angels who have a fixed pure nature, a human being has the freedom to determine his own nature. He therefore can rise to great heights just as he can sink to shameful or evil existence. He is like the chameleon (see below), the small animal that can change its color. Man, in short, is the creature who determines who he will be.

For Pico, this unique capacity is a gift from God. As in all other philosophies of the Middle Ages, God is central to his worldview. Nevertheless, his praise of man’s self-determination and creativity expresses a major shift from the earlier classical medieval worldview. Man now occupies a central place in Creation, and is gifted with the greatness of the human spirit. Indeed, the book is sometimes regarded as a manifesto of the Renaissance.

At last, the Supreme Maker […] set man in the middle of the world and thus spoke to him:

”I have given you, Oh Adam, no nature that is specifically yours, and no gift that is specifically your own, so that whatever place, form, gifts you thoughtfully select, you will possess them through your own judgement and decision. The nature of all other creatures is defined and restricted within laws which I have determined. You, in contrast, who are not limited by such restrictions, will be able to draw for yourself the shape of your own nature, with your own free will which I have given you. I have placed you at the very center of the world, so that from this perspective you may look around you and see everything that the world contains. I have made you a creature neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, in order that you may, as the free and proud shaper of your own being, fashion yourself in whatever form you prefer. It will be in your power to descend to the lower and most brutish forms of life, and you will also be able to rise, through your own decision, to the highest levels of divine life.''

Oh supreme generosity of God the Father, Oh wondrous and unsurpassable happiness of man, who is allowed to have what he chooses, to be what he wills to be! The animals, from the moment of their birth (“from their mother's womb'” as Lucilius says) bring with them everything they will ever possess. The highest spiritual beings [=angels] have, from the very moment of creation or soon afterwards, a fixed mode of being which they will always have forever. But to man, at the moment of his creation, God gave seeds pregnant with all possibilities, the germs of every form of life. Whichever seed a man will cultivate, this is what will mature and give fruit in him. If vegetative – he will become a plant; if sensual – he will become a brute; if rational – he will reveal himself a heavenly being; if intellectual – he will be an angel and the son of God. And if, dissatisfied with the fate of all creatures, he will recollect himself into the center of his own unity, he will unite with God in the solitary darkness of the Father who is above all things, and will transcend all creatures.

Who, then, will not look with awe upon this chameleon, or with greater admiration than upon any other being? […] If you see a man dedicated to his stomach and crawling on the ground, you see a plant and not a man. Or, if you see a man who adores the empty forms of the imagination, like the tricks of Calypso, and through their temptations becomes a slave to his own senses, then you see a beast and not a man. If, however, you see a philosopher, who judges and distinguishes all things according to the rule of reason, you will venerate him, because he is a creature of heaven and not of earth. If, finally, you will regard a pure contemplator who does not care about the body, and who is completely withdrawn into the inner chambers of the mind, here indeed is neither a creature of earth nor a heavenly creature, but some higher divinity, clothed in a human body.

[…]

But what is the purpose of all this? That we may understand – since we have the inborn ability to be what we choose to be – that we should be above everything else, so that nobody could blame us that we failed to appreciate our high position, and that we fell to the level of animals and uncomprehending beasts of burden; […] and finally, that we may not abuse the generosity of the Father, and pervert his gift of free choice by turning it from a saving gift into a damning gift. Let a certain saving ambition invade our souls so that, impatient of mediocrity, we would yearn to the highest things and focus all our efforts to attain them.

Pico della Mirandola’s philosophy was syncretistic: He believed that different traditions and schools of thought are aspects of the same wisdom. For him, they do not contradict each other, but can be merged and blended together. This was also his approach to the disagreements between Platonic and Aristotelian philosophies, both of which were central to the philosophy of this time.

This is the topic of Pico’s short essay On Being and the One (also translated as “Of Being and Unity”) presented here below. Written in 1486, the essay begins with a preface addressed to his friend, in which Pico expresses his syncretistic intentions:

To Angelo Poliziano:

You told me recently about the dispute which you had on Being and the One with Lorenzo de' Medici, who […] supporting the Platonists, argued against Aristotle, whose Ethics you explained publicly this year. And since those who distance Aristotle from Plato also distance themselves from my own point of view – because I believe that the two systems agree with each other – you are asking me to explain how I defend my position […]

After this preface, most of the essay is standard medieval thinking. It focuses on the accepted principle that there are different degrees of being (or reality). For example, in Platonic thinking an image of a horse has less being than a physical horse, which has less being than the general idea of a horse, which has less being than the “higher” concept of Good. Of course, God is the ONE who is at the top of the pyramid of being.

The essay deals with the issue: Is Being higher than the One, or vice versa? It might seem that Platonic and Aristotelian thinking disagree here. However, Pico argues that the clash is only apparent. Both of them would agree that Being and the One, as well as Truth and Goodness, are intimately connected. They are equally high. And then, after this technical scholastic discussion, in the last section of the essay, Pico makes an interesting move: Human beings too can have more or less being (reality)! You have less reality if you are farther away from truth, goodness, and unity!

The following is adapted from this last section of Pico’s On Being and the One (1486). Note the strong Neo-Platonic flavor here: The material world is low and evil; the source of the soul is divine; it therefore yearns to transcend the world towards the One (God); the travel upwards requires wisdom and purity, etc.

In order not to continue speaking too much about things outside us, let us make sure that, while we inspect the heights, we do not live too low – this is unworthy of [human] beings who received the divine power to inquire about divine things. We should carefully note that our mind, with its divine abilities, cannot have a mortal origin, and therefore it can find happiness only when it possesses divine things. We should also note that the more the mind elevates itself, by eagerly contemplating the divine and rejecting earthly preoccupations, the more it will approach happiness, even while the mind is still a pilgrim here below on earth. Thus, the best guideline which the discussion can give us seems to be that if we wish to be happy, we should imitate the being who is the most happy and blessed – God. And we should do so by establishing in ourselves unity, truth, and goodness.

What disturbs the peace of unity is ambition, which is the vice that steals any soul that gives itself to it, and tears it to pieces so to speak, and scatters it. Who will not lose the brilliant light of truth in the mud, in the darkness of lust? Greed and possessiveness steal the goodness from us, because goodness has the peculiar property that it gives to others the good things which it has. […] These are the three vices: pride of life, lust of the body, lust of the eyes. These three are of the world and not of God who is unity, goodness, and truth indeed.

Let us therefore escape from the world, which is given to evil. Let us fly up to God in whom there is the peace that unifies, the true light, and the greatest happiness. But what will give us the wings to fly up? The love of the things that are high. And what will take these wings away from us? The desire for the things below, which if we follow them we would lose unity, truth, and goodness.

Because we will not be an integrated one if we do not link together, through virtue, our senses which incline to earth, and our reason which tends to heavenly things. This would mean that we would be controlled by two opposing principles that govern us at different times, so that today we will follow God by the law of the spirit, and tomorrow the law of the body. Our inner realm would be divided and destroyed.

And if we buy our unity by enslaving our reason to the law of the body, this will be a false unity, since in this way we will not be true. Because we are called to be human, in other words beings living according to reason – and yet we will be brutes whose only law is sensual appetite. We will be performing a manipulative trick in front of those who see us, those among whom we live. The image we will present to them will not conform to its exemplar, because we are made in the likeness of God, and God is spirit, while we will not be spirits but animals. If, on the contrary, by the grace of truth, we will not fall beneath our model, we will only need to move towards Him who is our model, through goodness, in order to be united with Him in the afterworld. Finally, since these three attributes – UNITY, TRUTH, and GOODNESS – are united to BEING by an eternal connection, it follows that, if we do not possess them, we will no longer exist, even though we may seem to exist. And although others may believe that we exist, we will in fact be in a state of continuous death rather than life.

In his influential book Oration on the Dignity of Man, Pico della Mirandola asks how we should use our freedom to determine our own nature, to acquire the necessary virtues and rise to the heights of our potentials. To answer this question, he responds, we must look at the great historical sages who achieved wisdom and virtue, and see what they can teach us. He goes on to examine the ideas of various great men, among them St. Paul, the Biblical figures of Jacob, Job, and Moses, the philosophers Plato, Socrates, Ammonius, the Pythagoreans, as well as Zoroaster.

Pico’s conclusion is that all of these great men teach us that the way to happiness and perfection is philosophy, which deals, after all, with the knowledge of high things. All roads to the higher life pass through philosophy. This conclusion is not surprising, since, as you may remember, Pico’s worldview is syncretistic, holding that all wisdom traditions are aspect of the same wisdom.

And now, in the following passage, he discusses the value of studying philosophy.

These are the reasons which not only led me, but even compelled me, to the study of philosophy. And I decided to explain them here only as a reply to those who are inclined to condemn the study of philosophy, especially some men of high rank, but also those of modest station. Because the whole study of philosophy is nowadays a reason for contempt and disdain, rather than honor and glory (this is the unhappy problem of our time). A lethal and monstrous view has invaded practically all minds, that philosophy should not be studied at all, or studied by very few people. It is as if philosophy is not worth having before our eyes and at our finger-tips – including those issues which we have investigated carefully: the causes of things, the ways of nature and the plan of the universe, God's counsels and the mysteries of heaven and earth – unless this knowledge can produce for us some profit or favor.

Thus we have reached the point, it is painful to recognize, where the only persons who are counted wise are those who can reduce the pursuit of wisdom to a profitable commerce […].

I address here all these complaints with the greatest regret and indignation, not against the princes of our times, but against the philosophers who believe and assert that philosophy should not be pursued because it brings no financial gain, and who do not notice that by saying so they are disqualifying themselves as philosophers. Since their whole life is concentrated on gain and greed, they never embrace knowledge of the truth for its own sake.

This much I will say for myself – and on this point I do not blush for praising myself – that I have never philosophized except for the sake of philosophy. Nor have I ever desired or hoped to gain from my studies and my difficult researches any profit or fruit except the cultivation of my mind and the knowledge of the truth, which are things which I esteem more and more with the passage of time. I have also been so eager for this knowledge, and so in love with it, that I have pushed aside all my private and public concerns to devote myself completely to contemplation. And no slander of jealous persons, nor any criticism from enemies of wisdom, has ever managed to detach me from it. Philosophy has taught me to rely on my own convictions rather than on the judgements of others, and to concern myself less with whether people think highly of me than whether what I do or say is evil.