Magical Thought and Renaissance Culture

Professors: Gabriela Dragnea Horvath & Dr. Mark Alfino, Department of Philosophy, Gonzaga University.

Class Meeting Times: M, T, Th 8:30 – 9:30. Students are requested to reserve three Wednesday afternoons for excursions, as noted in the schedule below.

This course examines the philosophical and cultural understandings of magic and mysticism in the transition through Medieval, Renaissance and early modern scientific culture. We will begin by looking at some late Roman and early Christian attitudes toward magic and some aspects of magical thought in the medieval period. The course considers magic from a philosophical point of view and in connection with Medieval Christian Philosophy, as well as examining similarities and differences between magical practices and scientific practices. The class will learn about magical symbolism in renaissance art and visit museum sites for this purpose.

Three essentials questions will be investigated in this course: 1. What is the cultural understanding of magic in the philosophy, religion, and everyday life of Early & Medieval Europe? 2. How does the Renaissance retrieval of classical and hermetic texts create a new understanding of magic in the Renaissance? 3. How does Renaissance magic lead to modern science?

Major Course Texts

Students will have copies of Richard Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages, Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man & A Platonic Discourse on Love, and Hermetica : The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius.

A reading packet will include excerpts from Biblical sources, major philosophers’ views on magic, including Augustine and St. Thomas. In addition to the texts of Pico’s already mentioned, excerpts from Marsilio Ficino and Giordano Bruno will represent the views of these philosophers.