ABSTRACT
Considering such witnesses of the time as Shakespeare, Dante, Petrarch, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Montaigne, More and Bacon, Agnes Heller looks at both the concept and the image of a Renaissance man. The concept was generalised and accepted by all; its characteristic features were man as a dynamic being, creating and re-creating himself throughout his life. The images of man, however, were very different, having been formed through the ideas and imagination of artists, politicians, philosophers, scientists and theologians and viewed from the different aspects of work, love, fate, death, friendship, devotion and the concepts of space and time. Renaissance Man thus stood as both as a leading protagonist of his time, one who led and formulated the substantial attitudes of his time, and as one who stood as a witness on the sidelines of the discussion. This book, first published in English in 1978, is based on the diverse but equally important sources of autobiographies, works of art and literature, and the writings of philosophers. Although she uses Florence as a starting point, Agnes Heller points out that the Renaissance was a social and cultural phenomenon common to all of Western Europe; her Renaissance Man is thus a figure to be found throughout Europe.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |30 pages
Uneven development
part |89 pages
Antiquity and the Judaeo-Christian tradition
chapter |25 pages
Secularization
chapter |11 pages
A glance at the past
chapter |38 pages
Stoicism and epicureanism
part |224 pages
Ethics and life: man's practical possibilities
chapter |22 pages
Everyday life
chapter |27 pages
Time and space: past-orientedness and future-orientedness
chapter |49 pages
Individuality, knowledge of men, self-knowledge, autobiography
chapter |34 pages
Measure and beauty—emotional ties
chapter |49 pages
Values and ethics
chapter |34 pages
Social philosophy, politics, Utopia
chapter |8 pages
Fate, destiny, fortune
part |83 pages
Philosophical anthropology