The Philosophy of Giordano Bruno

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I.

II.

Life and Works

Doctrine Concerning the Universe

Background: The New Consideration of Nature

The
Renaissance, as an age of transition, was not conducive to the building of
great philosophical systems. It contained, in germinal form, the directive
ideas of modern times, but under the guise of the past. Thinkers preferred to
write in ancient Latin, and the style of their writing is also archaic. Under
this external aspect, which smacks of antiquity, are hidden the signs of the
next age.

The
greatest representatives of thought, in the order of time, are
Nicholas of Cusa,
Telesio,
Bruno, and Campanella; the most important is Bruno. In the thought
of all these men there is a new view of nature, in which nature is considered
immanently, according to the forces inherent in it, and is accessible to
experience and reason. These forces are considered as living ones, vital
spirits, demons; everything is animate; the physical world has a soul.

It is
necessary to investigate these animate forces, for it is on the basis of their
activity that all events can be explained. It is because of this desire to
bring into subjection the occult forces of nature that during the Renaissance
we find so widely diffused the science of "magic," which professes to
know the good and evil spirits of nature, and to make them allies in good and
evil enterprises.

Also
characteristic are alchemy, with its objective of discovering the philosophical
stone which can change everything into gold; and medicine, with its hope of
finding the panacea of evil by uncovering the common animating force of the
universe. This is a charlatan school, to be sure, but it indicates the tendency
of some of the chief exponents of the age to explain nature through the forces
imbedded in it.

Hence
we see Neo-Platonic tendencies, and the Neo-Platonic thinkers mentioned above.
Although Neo-Platonism, logically developed, leads to pantheism, the thinkers
of the Renaissance, with the exception of Bruno, are not pantheists. Without
any logical foundation they still affirm transcendency,
but this more from faith than from conviction.

Now to the Philosophy of Giordano Bruno

I. Life and Works

Bruno
was born at Nola 1548 and at the age of fifteen or sixteen entered the Catholic
Dominican order in Naples. Falling under suspicion of
heresy, he was cast out of the Order, and began a disturbed life of wandering,
during which he roamed over half of Europe. He was at Geneva, Paris, Oxford, Frankfurt, everywhere teaching and
writing and engaging in heated controversy.

Invited
by the Venetian nobleman Giovanni Mocenigo, who
wished to study Bruno''s theory of memory-training, he went to Venice. There he was denounced as a
heretic to the tribunal of the Inquisition by the very nobleman who had
sponsored him.

At Venice, during the course of his
trial, Bruno acknowledged that he had fallen into heresy and declared himself
disposed to amend. Consigned by the Republic of Venice to the Inquisition in Rome, he was again subjected to
trial.

This
time he refused to retract and hence was condemned to death as an obstinate
heretic. The sentence of death was carried out at Rome on February
17, 1600.

Bruno''s
principal works are: Della causa, principio, ed uno (Concerning
Cause, Principle, and Unity); Del'' infinito, universo e mondi (On the
Infinite, the Universe and the World); Eroici
furori (Heroic Furors); De immenso
et innumerabilibus (On the Boundless and the
Innumerable); De monde, numero, et figura (On the Monad, the Number, and the Figure).

II. Doctrine Concerning the Universe

Elements
of the speculation of Heraclitus, Parmenides,
Democritus, and the Stoics, together with the doctrine of Neo-Platonic
emanations and Nicholas of Cusa''s theory of the coincidence of opposites, as well
as the new heliocentric theory of Copernicus nurtured the thought of Bruno.
Under the apparent confusion of his teaching lies the unity and organic
wholeness of monistic immanentism, of which Bruno was
the principal protagonist during the Renaissance period.

According
to Bruno, the universe is infinite, full of a plurality of heliocentric solar
systems which are broken up and recomposed according to the theory of
Democritus. The fundamental principles of the universe are two: matter, the
passive principle; and the soul, the active principle. Both represent two
aspects of a single substance, two indistinguishable powers of a single
principle, in which they are reconciled and united, and in which their
differences are annulled, according to the principle of coincidence of
opposites of Nicholas of Cusa.

"All
things are one," says Bruno. The soul of the universe is conceived of as
intelligent, the ordinator of the world itself, the
interior force of everything. Such a force is not transcendent, but immanent;
it adheres in things. It is God, conceived of as "Natura
naturans," producing all and ordaining all to
its end; it is infinite. The world, the work of "Natura
naturans," is "Natura
naturata," which, as the effect of an infinite
cause, is also infinite.

Individual
souls (and not only the human soul, but the soul of every individual essence,
since for Bruno everything is animate) are the passing shades of the eternal
becoming of the world. Bruno calls them monads. Birth is the individuation of
the infinite in the finite; death indicates the return of the finite to the
infinite.

Thus
far the concept of Bruno is decidedly monistic immanentism.
Nevertheless, besides the mens imbedded in all
things, that is, the soul of the world immanent in the universe, Bruno admits
also the mens super omnia,
that is, God, who transcends the world. But this God (quite different from the
Christian God, because the world does not depend upon Him) is the object of
faith and not of science; Bruno admits this in order to overcome the
materialistic pantheism of his system.

In
such a materialistic concept of the universe, any positive religion, including
Christianity, is impossible. Religion for Bruno has practical but not
theoretical value; it is an efficacious means of educating the ignorant masses
through the symbolism of forms. Consequently, Bruno''s thought necessarily
conflicts with the doctrine of the Catholic Church.

Bruno''s
moral system is opposed to the teachings of the Catholic Church, but is
consistent with his naturalistic immanentism. The end
which man must realize is limited to the present life; it consists in the
participation of the individual in the life of the universe. Virtue is not
renunciation or asceticism but "heroic furor" -- that is, the joyous
consciousness of one''s own excellence and of one''s own participation in the
life of the universe.

The
system of Bruno is a theoretical expression of Humanism, and his thought was to
have a great influence on modern philosophy