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Human Subjectivity and Foundations of Modern History

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Throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth century in Europe, the Italian Renaissance was the cornerstone to the blossoming of human capacity, intellect, and expectations towards the welfare of knowledge. Influenced by the birth of the philosophy of humanism, which emphasized the importance of individual achievement and the human perspective in relation to the divine, thinkers of this time were inspired by the works of the ancient Greeks and Romans, interconnecting the philosophies of Plato and other ancient thinkers with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church .Such philosophies were of extreme importance to the intellectual and sociological changes throughout and after the renaissance. The acknowledgment that the most important duty and achievement of human kind, lies on our capacity to perceive and assess reality. Such capacity is reflected by distinct ways of assessing one`s own truth, which are natural and unique to every human being. The writings of Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola, Martin Luther and René Descartes sparked a grand enlightenment in society by highlighting how distinct assessments of reality are essential to personal truth, and poses responsibilities towards the welfare of human knowledge. The dignity of human existence is rooted on the individual potential of reasoning by the capacity of acquiring knowledge and poses responsibilities towards the human perspective. Pico’s Oration on the Dignity of Man attempts to remap the human landscape by centering all attention on human capacity and human perspective. In the Oration, Pico attempts to justify the importance of the human quest for knowledge, and the placement of humans in relation to the divine. He addresses the concept of free will as a common denominator towards the welfare of human capacity. As Pico states, “To you is granted the power of degrading yourself into the lower forms of life, the beasts, and to you is granted the power, contained in your intellect and judgment, to be reborn into the highest forms, the divine.” Thus, we can assert that the perspective of human capacity is counterbalanced by its own nature of judgment and free will. The idea that men could ascend on the chain of being through intellectual stimulus illustrates a profound endorsement and ultimate duty on the dignity of human existence. The root of this dignity rests upon Pico`s assertion that only human beings could change themselves through their works. Such assertion, naturally frames a condition of i

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