Pico della Mirandola of Dignitas Hominis: Statement of the Problem from the Perspective of the Philosophy of Culture

Abstract

The growing interest in the genesis of new philosophical forms brings about the need to consider the appropriation of Pico della Mirandola’s dignitas hominis by the transcendental ontology. In contrast with Heidegger’s fundamental ontology, this approach suggests a return to metaphysics and revives the interest to subjectivity in the context of the real world (Husserl). This view of the problem substantiated the use of optics of the philosophy of culture. The study aims to qualify the source of transcendental ontology of the subject in the context of the debate on the impact the Renaissance had on these ideas. To this cause, the following objectives need be reached: 1) to describe the specificities of the adepts’ of transcendental ontology view of the issue of subjectivity; 2) to substantiate the idea of the European philosophy’s turn to transcendental ontology through the prism of the philosophy of culture; 3) to identify the key predeterminants for thematization of the ontological region of consciousness in the Florencia Platonism through seeing metaphysical features of dignity as formed in the Renaissance culture; 4) to determine the meaning of the new understanding of man in the Renaissance culture for the modern formation of the subject. The study is based on the studies and commentaries of transcendental ontology by the philosophers of the 20th century. The study was carried out on the materials of the work of Pico della Mirandola and Marsilio Ficino to allow for a comparison of original wording and further commentaries. The methodology is based on critical analysis of philosophical works and the axiomatic and deductive method. As a result, the author assumes that it is the Renaissance understanding most visibly visualized in Pico’s writings on dignitas hominis that serve as an implicit basis for the transcendental ontology of the subject. In his works dignity not only takes on an ethical but also ontological dimension to illustrate the possibilities for a human of the new era. Pico follows his teacher’s, Marsilio Ficino’s, suit and manifests consciousness of the ontological structure of the world as evidence and thinking of human being as an ultimate principle of freedom, knowledge and action. Determinedness of the human image as a basis for the understanding of dignity gives a Renaissance connotation of the subject leading to an integrated characteristic of the concept, including the principle of absolute freedom and the transcendental sphere of consciousness, as its very special ontological area of responsibility.

Keywords

• subject
• metaphysics
• transcendentalism
• ontological phenomenology
• renaissance platonism
• the concept of dignity