Cristoforo Landino and Coluccio Salutati on the Best Life

1994 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 747-769 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce G. McNair
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
World View ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Civic Humanism ◽  
Vita Activa ◽  
Contemplative Life

An Important Issue in the study of fifteenth-century Florentine humanism is whether or not later Quattrocento humanists advocate a withdrawal from public life and abandon the “civic” humanism of Salutati, Bruni, and the early Quattrocento humanists. There is no lack of studies on this question using the categories of vita activa and vita contemplativa. In broad terms, the early fifteenthcentury Florentine humanists, reacting against the medieval scholastic world view, are seen as advocating the supremacy of the vita activa though still valuing the vita contemplativa, while the midfifteenth- century humanists, under the influence of the Medici and Marsilio Ficino's Platonic studies, are considered to have reversed the earlier emphasis on the “civic” outlook for the supremacy of the contemplative life and a withdrawal from public affairs.

The Iberian Atlantic to 1650

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart B. Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
World View ◽  
Demographic Factors ◽  
Social Organisation ◽  
Political Control ◽  
Ethical Problems ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Late Fifteenth ◽  
Two Kingdoms

The Castilians and Portuguese were the first Europeans to create systems of continual communication, trade, and political control spanning the Atlantic. Following medieval precedents and moved by similar economic and demographic factors, these two kingdoms embarked in the late fifteenth century on a course of expansion that led to the creation of overseas empires and contact with other societies and peoples. This process produced a series of political, religious, social, and ethical problems that would confront other nations pursuing empire. Portugal and Castile were sometimes rivals, sometimes allies, and for sixty years (1580–1640) parts of a composite monarchy under the same rulers. Their answers to the challenges of creating empires varied according to circumstances and resources, but they were not unaware of each others' efforts, failures, and successes nor of their common Catholic heritage and world-view that set the framework of their imperial vision, their rule, and their social organisation. This article focuses on the history of the Iberian Atlantic to 1650, the Atlantic origins and Caribbean beginnings, conquest and settlement to 1570, and imperial spaces and trade.

scholarly journals The Literary Heritage of Jesuits of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 421-440
Author(s):  
Barbara Milewska-Waźbińska
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Active Participation ◽  
Considerable Effect ◽  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Literary Heritage ◽  
Vita Activa

Since 1565, the Society of Jesus promoted education in the humanities. The vast majority of the Polish nobility received their education in Jesuit colleges. Jesuit preachers, writers, poets, authors of heraldic and emblem works—derived mostly from the nobility—were understandably deeply involved in politics. The legacy of the most outstanding Jesuit authors testifies to their active participation in public life. In keeping with the specifics of the Polish case, their literary production emphasizes not only the vita activa, but also animus civilis. Political and historical themes, as well as religious motifs, played a significant role in Jesuit works. The Society’s activities in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth produced important works in various genres of literature, a significant portion of which was in Latin. Their poetry and prose is characterized by involvement in socio-political issues: the stormy political events and wars of the seventeenth century had a considerable effect on the compositions of the leading Jesuit authors.

Is the Common Good Obsolete?

2018 ◽  
Vol 92 ◽  
pp. 261-270
Author(s):  
V. Bradley Lewis ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Catholic Social Teaching ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
Intermediate Goods ◽  
The West ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Common ◽  
Christian Society

The idea of the common good has been a signature feature of Catholic social teaching and so of modern Catholic engagement in public affairs. It has recently been suggested that the notion is now obsolete due to changes in the culture and politics of the West. In keeping with this suggestion, some argue that Catholics should abandon it in favor of an appeal based on lower intermediate goods in a manner more related to Augustine’s engagement with the largely pagan culture of his time than to Aquinas’s categories tailored to an integrally Christian society. I argue that such a solution misreads aspects of the tradition and of the present political and cultural situation and I suggest some alternative grounds on which Catholic engagement with contemporary public life should proceed and that thinking again about the common good is a necessary part of such engagement.

Self-proclaimed ignorance about public affairs

1996 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hélène Joffe ◽  
Robert Farr
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Market Economy ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Public Lives ◽  
Depth Interviews

This paper explores the consequences of the socio-historical exclusion of women, and of young people, from public life. It is based upon an empirical study in which depth-interviews were conducted with 96 Britons, male and female, and of a younger and an older generation, concerning their private and public lives. Self-proclaimed ignorance is significantly more likely to be found in the interviews of the women rather than the men, and in those of the younger rather than the older generation. Qualitative analysis reveals that self-proclaimed ignorance is associated with a sense of distance from public affairs. The various manifestations of distance are discussed in terms of exposure to knowledge, the individualistic society's expectations concerning the knowing “I”, the privatized market economy and the effects of modernity itself.

scholarly journals Religious Organizations and Social Transformations in Ukraine: New Vectors of Mutual Influences

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (19) ◽  
pp. 96-98
Author(s):  
Yaroslav Yuvsechko
Keyword(s):  
World View ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Religious Organizations ◽  
Direct Part ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Social Transformations ◽  
Political Consolidation ◽  
Role Of Religion

The modern role of religion in society proves that, in a world-view and institutional manifestation, it is capable of performing and successfully fulfilling the functions of social and political consolidation. Church institutions have long been not only present in public life, but often have a direct influence on the activity of power structures. Religious organizations take a direct part in political life, through their influence, widely involve various secular organizations, and sometimes even create them, for the fulfillment of socio-political tasks.

scholarly journals The Legal-Theoretical Terms of Citizen Participation in the Administration of Public Affairs in the Slovak Republic

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 153-175
Author(s):  
Eleonóra Kováčová
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Slovak Republic ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
The State ◽  
Theoretical Terms ◽  
The Eu

Abstract The level of development of every country is reflected in constitutional regulation and consequent laws that regulate citizens’ rights to participate in the administration of public affairs. The Constitution of the Slovak Republic and related constitutional laws establish the democratic and constitutional basis of the legal state of the Slovak Republic. The establishment of the Slovak Republic in 1993 required reformulating and enacting all rights and symbols of the state. The principle “the state’s power derives from the citizens” is embedded in the Constitution. However, doubts are currently being raised as to whether the citizens participate in the administration of public affairs in the estimated range and in the appropriate manner as it is embedded in the Constitution of the Slovak Republic. The scope of the article is extensive, due to the character of the selected problems. This also affected the main goal of the article. Since the aim is considerably large, it was necessary to define several partial objectives. At the same time, it was desirable to examine other indicators that contributed to the main aim. The aim of the article was to summarize, analyze and categorize the available facts about the legal-theoretical terms for the participation of citizens in public life in the conditions of the Slovak Republic, as well as within the EU.

The View of Empire in Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pope Pius II)

Traditio ◽  
1968 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 471-487 ◽  
Author(s):  
John B. Toews
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Abrupt Change ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Political Values ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Renaissance Man

Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (1405–64), the man who succeeded Calixtus III to the apostolic chair in 1458, was destined to become one of the best known pontiffs of the later Middle Ages. His popularity not only rests upon his own extensive literary and historical production, but upon the extensive historical literature subsequently devoted to this fifteenth-century figure. Multiple interpretations and assessments of his character and contributions abound. Caught up in the severe conceptualization of nineteenth-century renaissance scholarship, Aeneas Sylvius emerged as a slightly tarnished dilettante who only partially exemplified the typical Renaissance man with his clear-cut and self-reliant aesthetic and moral characteristics. In this spirit Georg Voigt raised grave suspicions as to Aeneas' integrity in both his private and public life. Jacob Burckhardt, who could only appreciate the pope's multiplicity from the standpoint of the representative artistic types exemplifying Italian humanism, failed to find the ‘whole man’ in the versatile Italian. As historiography moved towards a more diffuse view of the Renaissance and saw it as a shift of balance and change in emphasis rather than an abrupt change, the image of Aeneas Sylvius was gradually freed from such narrow interpretations. The struggle was long and intense for the scholarly tyranny of Voigt, though not always verified by a re-examination of the documents, was argumentatively infectious. Today, a half century of detailed research has added many additional perspectives to our knowledge of Aeneas Sylvius and has clarified many particular problems related to both his earlier life and later pontificate. Future studies will not differ too substantially from this pattern. The inconsistency accompanying the maturation of human character; the conflict between the theological-political values of any one man and the current aspirations of domestic and international ambition; the transitory character of the age—all these factors will continue to hamper assessments of Aeneas Sylvius.

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