Placing Bruno—both advanced philosopher and magician burned at the stake—in the Hermetic tradition, Yates's acclaimed study gives an overview not only of Renaissance humanism but of its interplay—and conflict—with magic and occult practices. "Among those who have explored the intellectual world of the sixteenth century no one in England can rival Miss Yates. Wherever she looks, she illuminates. Now she has looked on Bruno. This brilliant book takes time to digest, but it is an intellectual adventure to read it. Historians (...) of ideas, of religion, and of science will study it. Some of them, after reading it, will have to think again.... For Miss Yates has put Bruno, for the first time, in his tradition, and has shown what that tradition was."—Hugh Trevor-Roper, _New Statesman_ "A decisive contribution to the understanding of Giordano Bruno, this book will probably remove a great number of misrepresentations that still plague the tormented figure of the Nolan prophet."—Giorgio de Santillana, _American Historical Review_ "Yates's book is an important addition to our knowledge of Giordano Bruno. But it is even more important, I think, as a step toward understanding the unity of the sixteenth century."—J. Bronowski, _New York Review of Books_. (shrink)

Giordano Bruno Giordano Bruno was an Italian philosopher of the later Renaissance whose writings encompassed the ongoing traditions, intentions, and achievements of his times and transmitted them into early modernity. Taking up the medieval practice of the art of memory and of formal logic, he focused on the creativity of the human mind. Bruno … Continue reading Giordano Bruno →.

Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake in Rome in 1600, accused of heresy by the Inquisition. His life took him from Italy to Northern Europe and England, and finally to Venice, where he was arrested. His six dialogues in Italian, today considered a turning point towards the philosophy and science of the modern world, were written during his visit to Elizabethan London. He died refusing to recant views which he defined as philosophical rather than theological, and for which (...) he claimed liberty of expression. The papers in this volume derive from a conference commemorating the 400th anniversary of Bruno's death. Some focus on his experience in England, others on the Italian context of his thought and his impact upon others. Together they constitute a major new survey of the range of Bruno's philosophical activity, as well as evaluating his use of earlier cultural traditions and his influence on both contemporary and more modern themes and trends. (shrink)

Jill Kraye - Giordano Bruno: Philosopher of the Renaissance - Journal of the History of Philosophy 43:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 43.3 357-358 Hilary Gatti, editor. Giordano Bruno: Philosopher of the Renaissance. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2002. Pp. xxiv + 424. Cloth, $89.95. The Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake on 17 February 1600 in the Campo de' Fiori in Rome. The four-hundredth anniversary of this dramatic event, which has come to symbolize the (...) end of the High Renaissance, was a rather tepid and bland affair compared to the third centenary, which occurred at the height of "Brunomania," with all its attendant ideological fervor and political partisanship. In their struggle against the Church and other conservative elements in Italian society, nineteenth-century liberal and anti-clerical thinkers had transformed the renegade Dominican, whose radical ideas and heretical views were expressed in bombastic Italian prose and.. (shrink)

Quando la biblioteca diventa un confessionale. Nel 1585, Giordano Bruno ritorna a Parigi dopo il soggiorno londinese, e comincia a frequentare l’abbazia di Saint Victor, famosa per la sua ” libraria “, immortalata da Rabelais. Il bibliotecario, Guillaume Cotin, trasforma lo “scriptorium” in un confessionale, dove il filosofo dà libero sfogo ai suoi ricordi e al suo impetuoso carattere. -/- When the library becomes a confessional. In 1585, Giordano Bruno, returns to Paris after his stay in London, and (...) begins to attend the abbey of Saint Victor, famous for his library, immortalized by Rabelais. The librarian, Guillaume Cotin, transforms the scriptorium into a confessional, where the philosopher gives free rein to his memories and his impetuous character. (shrink)

L’articolo si propone di chiarire uno dei punti oscuri della biografia di Giordano Bruno. Nel 1571 il Capitolo generale dei Domenicani di Roma lo assegnò come studente formale allo Studio di Andria. Secondo i suoi più importanti biografi, il Nolano non ci sarebbe mai andato. Attraverso l’accurata analisi dei documenti relativi al corso di studi, e il riscontro delle citazioni contenute in alcune opere, l’ipotesi che Bruno abbia soggiornato ad Andria per circa un anno appare, invece, estremamente probabile. The (...) article tries to clarify one of the obscure points of Giordano Bruno’s biography. In 1571 the General Chapter of the Dominicans in Rome assigned him, as a formal student, to the Study of Andria. According to his most important biographers, the Nolan never went there. However, through the careful analysis of the documents relating to his course of studies, and the comparison of the quotations contained in some of his works, the hypothesis that Bruno stayed in Andria for about a year appears extremely probable. (shrink)

Giordano Bruno was a philosopher in his own right. However, he was famous through the centuries due to his execution as a heretic. His pronouncements against teachings of the Catholic Church, his defence of the cosmology of Nicholas Copernicus, and his provocative personality, all this made him a paradigmatic figure of modernity. Bruno’s way of philosophizing is not looking for outright solutions but rather for the depth of the problems; he knows his predecessors and their strategies as well as (...) their weaknesses, which he exposes satirically. This introduction helps to identify the original thought of Bruno who proudly said about himself: “Philosophy is my profession!” His major achievements concern the creativity of the human mind studied through the theory of memory, the infinity of the world, and the discovery of atomism for modernity. He never held a permanent office within or without the academic world. Therefore, the way of thinking of this “Knight Errant of Philosophy” will be presented along the stations of his journey through Western Europe. (shrink)

El presente trabajo analiza las implicaciones sociales, políticas y teológicas propuestas por Giordano Bruno, a partir de su propuesta de un universo infinito. Para ello, se analizarán los conceptos de vacío y pluralidad que permiten la comprensión del modelo de universo infinito, explicado en un segundo momento, para finalizar con el análisis de la relación de esta propuesta con un pensamiento revolucionario en el terreno social, político y teológico del Siglo XVI.

Giordano Bruno's philosophical feat consists in the definition of a transformational force proper to human nature, which underlines its radical integration in the infinite cosmos.

Abstract: Il testo viene pubblicato per gentile concessione della casa editrice ESI ed e’ tratto dal libro di Stefano Ulliana “Il concetto creativo e dialettico dello Spirito nei Dialoghi Italiani di Giordano Bruno. Il confronto con la tradizione neoplatonico-aristotelica: il testo bruniano De l’Infinito, Universo e mondi”, Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, Napoli, 2003. -/- Le argomentazioni presentate ne Il concetto creativo e dialettico dello Spirito nei Dialoghi Italiani di Giordano Bruno (Il confronto con la tradizione neoplatonico-aristotelica: il testo bruniano (...) De l’Infinito, Universo e mondi) costituiscono le conclusioni ultime e definitive di un lavoro di ricerca che ha investito l’insieme dei Dialoghi Italiani, riuscendo a reperire ed a far emergere quello che pare il nucleo più profondo ed importante—il vero e proprio elevato fondamento—della speculazione bruniana: la presenza attiva di un concetto triadico teologico-politico—il Padre, il Figlio e lo Spirito della tradizione trinitaria cristiana—però riformulato attraverso il capovolgimento rivoluzionario di questa stessa tradizione, attuato attraverso il concetto creativo e dialettico dell’infinito. In questo modo la stessa tradizione platonica pare subire una trasformazione essenziale, abbandonando qualunque forma di alienazione e negazione, per riaprirsi invece verso soluzioni che paiono riprendere moniti ed osservazioni suscitati dalle prime, grandi e maestose, speculazioni dei filosofi presocratici. Parmenide, Eraclito ed Empedocle sembrano rivivere nei testi bruniani, riproponendo una soluzione ben diversa a quei nodi e problemi teoretico-pratici—fondamentale il rapporto Uno-molti e tutto ciò che da esso consegue, sia sul piano naturale che politico—apparentemente risolti e codificati dal pensiero postsocratico, prima platonico e poi aristotelico. L’inscindibilità del principio di libertà (la figura teologica del Padre) ed eguaglianza (il Figlio), attraverso il richiamo alla fonte amorosa infinita ed universale (lo Spirito), consente alla riflessione bruniana di presentare per la prima volta nel panorama filosofico mondiale di tutti i tempi la possibilità di salvaguardare sia l’aspetto creativo naturale, che la diversità politica, presentando nel contempo un concetto di ragione capace di esprimere un movimento infinito sempre aperto ed attento alla molteplicità. In questa liberazione della potenza e della volontà dalle strettoie ordinate e gerarchiche della tradizione il pensiero e la riflessione di Giordano Bruno danno inizio alla modernità, ripresentandosi quale mirabile soluzione ogni qual volta potere e violenza paiono assestarsi e reciprocamente incrementarsi, in un circolo apparentemente indistruttibile. -/- Allora i capitoli di questo libro—attraverso l’analisi di concetti importanti nella filosofia bruniana, quali quelli del desiderio e dell’immaginazione, della materia e della ragione—riattraversano la storia della definizione filosofica delle entità reali più importanti—Dio, Natura, Ragione, Uno—per mostrare un’opposizione fondamentale: l’opposizione fra la fusione speculativa apportata dal pensiero neoplatonico-aristotelico (antico, moderno e contemporaneo), attenta alla difesa della necessità ordinata di un mondo unico, e la liberazione speculativo-pratica bruniana, attenta a far rivivere la coscienza dell’infinito, in noi e fuori di noi. -/- English Abstract: The arguments that have been presented in this essay, which are part of the book ‘The creative and dialectical concept of the Spirit in the Italian Dialogues of Jordanus Brunus. The comparison with the neoplatonic-Aristotelian tradition: the brunian text De l’Infinito, Universo e mondi’, constitute the ultimate and definitive conclusions of a body of research that has mainly focused on Bruno’s work “Dialoghi Italiani”. This research has managed to rise the deepest and most important core of the true foundation of Giordano Bruno’s speculative thinking—the active presence of a triadic theological-political concept of the Father, the Son and the Spirit of Christian tradition. However, this triad has also been reformulated through the revolutionary overturning of this tradition and realized through a creative and dialectical concept of the infinite. In this way the same Platonic tradition seems to undergo an essential transformation by abandoning any form of alienation and negation and indeed to open itself to recover those warnings and observations that the first great speculative thoughts of the Presocratics philosophers brought about. Parmenides, Heraclitus and Empedocles seem to come to life again in Bruno’s essays by proposing a different solution to those theoretical and practical problems such as the fundamental relation between One-many and what it can represent either at the natural level or at the political level which have been apparently solved and codified in the Platonic and Aristotelian thought. -/- The indissolubility of the freedom principle (the theological character of the Father) and equality (the Son), through the use of the loving, infinite and universal source (the Spirit), allows Bruno’s reflection to present for the first time in the entire philosophical tradition the possibility of safeguarding the creative aspect as well as the political diversity. He achieves this by showing a concept of reason which is able to express the infinite movement that it is always open and measured (careful) towards the multiplicity. In this release of power and will from the ordered and hierarchical paths of the philosophy tradition, Bruno’s thought gave birth to Modernity. (shrink)

Neuroscience, together with a broadened concept of “mind” has instigated pragmatic and ethical concerns about the experience and treatment of pain. If pain medicine is to be authentic, it requires knowledge of the brain-mind, pain, and the relative and appropriate “goodness” of potential interventions that can and/or should be provided. This speaks to the need for an ethics that reflects and is relevant to the contemporary neuroscience of pain, acknowledgment and appreciation of the sentient being in pain, effects of environment (...) and value(s), and the nature of healing. It may be that neuroethics provides this viable meta-ethic for pain care. This essay describes how an integrative neuroethics of pain care allows, if not obligates, alignment of facts, values, and moral attitudes as a continuing process of re-investigation, analysis, and revision of what we know (and don’t know) about brains, minds, selves, and how we regard and treat the painient. (shrink)

A demographic revolution is taking place in Europe and worldwide. According to World Health Organization estimates, the number of people aged 60 and over is growing faster than any other age group. This change in the population structure affects disease patterns and is deemed to cause an increase in the demands on healthcare systems. This raises concerns about the ethics of healthcare delivery . What criteria should direct healthcare distribution? Is it right to meet the demands of an ageing population, (...) to the detriment of the younger strata of population? a. (shrink)

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1903 Edition.

Even the most scientifically reductionist view of the individual reveals that we are complex systems nested within complex systems. These interactions within and among systems are based and depend on numerous variables of our environment. If we define ethics as a system of moral decision making, then it becomes clear that these decisions ultimately affect the situation of managing our activities and relationships with others in our environment. Given that ecology literally means “a study or system of wisdom and reasoning (...) about the interrelation of organisms in their environment or place of inhabitance,” Owen Flanagan's description of ethics as “human ecology” takes on considerable relevance and importance. (shrink)

The mission and goal of the Giordano Bruno GlobalShift University is to provide education to young people that is affordable and meaningful and enables young people to be self-reliant and responsible members of society. To develop new thinking and a new consciousness is the challenge awaiting the young generation. Meeting it calls for questioning established values and dogmas, much as Giordano Bruno did in regard to the Aristotelian view of the cosmos embraced at the time by the Catholic (...) Church. Bruno's ?heresy? laid the foundations for the modern scientific worldview, and it continues to inspire the view that will rise above it. It inspires the Giordano Bruno GlobalShift University to question the dominant materialist and reductionist paradigm in science and society, offering in its place a holistic, dynamic, and evolutionary view, and foundation for a more peaceful, equitable, and sustainable world. (shrink)

Neste artigo o autor pretende mostrar como as reflexões filosóficas de Giordano Bruno sobre a Retórica foram fortemente influenciadas pelas concepções metafísicas e metodológicas de Raimundo Lúlio. Para tanto, são analisados especialmente os Escritos de Wittenberg, Artificium perorandi e De lampade combinatoria, onde Bruno discute a aplicação dos princípios do lulismo através da utilização da metáfora dos caracteres e da hierarquização do cosmos, bem como da operacionalização de um processo combinatório na construção de proposições e argumentos.

Transgender children who are not treated for their condition are at high risk of violence and suicide. As a matter of survival, many are willing to take whatever help is available, even if this is offered by illegal sources, and this often traps them into the juvenile criminal system and exposes them to various threats. Endocrinology offers a revolutionary instrument to help children /adolescents with gender identity disorder: suspension of puberty. Suspension of puberty raises many ethical issues, and experts dissent (...) as to when treatment should be commenced and how children should be followed up. This paper argues that suspension of puberty is not only not unethical: if it is likely to improve the child’s quality of life and even save his or her life, then it is indeed unethical to defer treatment. (shrink)

Giordano Bruno was a philosopher in his own right. However, he was famous through the centuries due to his execution as a heretic. His pronouncements against teachings of the Catholic Church, his defence of the cosmology of Nicholas Copernicus, and his provocative personality, all this made him a paradigmatic figure of modernity. Bruno’s way of philosophizing is not looking for outright solutions but rather for the depth of the problems; he knows his predecessors and their strategies as well as (...) their weaknesses, which he exposes satirically. This introduction helps to identify the original thought of Bruno who proudly said about himself: “Philosophy is my profession!” His major achievements concern the creativity of the human mind studied through the theory of memory, the infinity of the world, and the discovery of atomism for modernity. He never held a permanent office within or without the academic world. Therefore, the way of thinking of this “Knight Errant of Philosophy” will be presented along the stations of his journey through Western Europe. (shrink)

Originariamente letto a una conferenza nel marzo 1907, questo breve saggio non e ne una biografia di Giordano Bruno ne un'esposizione del suo pensiero, ma un'analisi del ruolo da lui ricoperto nella cultura del tempo e delle ragioni del suo scontro con le autorita ecclesiastiche. Rifiutando le semplificazioni di un Giordano Bruno ateo o anticlericale, Giovanni Gentile espone una sua personale interpretazione della vita del pensatore nolano, considerandolo non gia un "martire del libero pensiero," quanto piuttosto, al pari (...) di Socrate, un "martire della filosofia." Ne scaturisce il ritratto di un Bruno avverso non alla religione in se ma alla superstizione, e fautore, in anticipo sui tempi, della separazione tra fede e scienza.". (shrink)

This article focuses on the use of one verse from the Biblical Songs of Songs in central passages of Giordano Bruno's first published book on the art of memory. De umbris idearum [On the Shadows of Ideas] not solely aims at improving mnemonic capacities, it also envisages the preconditions and limits of cognition in Bruno's new inifitist cosmology. Taking relevant scholarly literature on the topic as a point of departure, this contribution presents De umbris in the context of Bruno's (...) philosophy in general; it focuses on Bruno's evocation of Origen's commentary on that passage in the Song of Songs. The article analyzes in detail the reasons for Bruno's subversion of the traditional exegetic tradition that was massively influenced by Origen's spiritualized reading of the Song of Songs. Bruno's misappropriation of the Origen's commentary turns out to be a mise en abyme, a mannerist strategy of representation. It not only reflects the very method that underlies Bruno's art of memory, but is also to be understood as a conscious subversion of exegetic traditions in general. (shrink)

In this highly original study, Nuccio Ordine uses the figure of the ass as a lens through which to focus on the thought and writings of the great Renaissance humanist philosopher Giordano Bruno.

This paper analyses Giordano Bruno's dialogue De l’infinito universo e mondi, written during his stay in England, in the context of his philosophical works and, particularly, within the context of scientific and imaginative writings such as Cyrano de Bergerac's Other Worlds and Francis Godwin's The Man in the Moone. The article also discusses the contemporary speculations of Galileo and Kepler regarding the existence of a plurality of worlds and the presence of creatures on the moon and their rapport with (...) humans. Besides the imaginative, fantastic and pseudoscientific elements, attention is also given to religious implications and attitudes, especially in the case of Godwin, who, like his countryman John Wilkins—author of The Discovery of the Worlde in the Moone –was a bishop and therefore wanted to avoid any controversy with the church. (shrink)

Gender Identity Disorder is classified as a mental illness and included in the DSM-IV and ICD-10. It will also be included in the DSM-V. The psychiatric diagnosis, in spite of some apparent advantages, has significant psychological and social adverse implications. This paper discusses some of the main epistemological reasons to consider gender variance as a mental disorder. It will also evaluate whether reasons of other kinds may justify the inclusion of gender variance amongst mental illnesses.

Vorbemerkung „Nichts unter der Sonne ist neu," war Giordano Brunos Leitspruch. Dennoch ist es angebracht, ihn als einen Denker vorzustellen, der eine eigene ...

Prologue: the hooded friar -- A most solemn act of justice -- The Nolan philosopher -- "Napoli e tutto il mondo" -- "The world is fine as it is" -- "I have, in effect, harbored doubts" -- "I came into this world to light a fire" -- Footprints in the forest -- A thousand worlds -- Art and astronomy -- Trouble again -- Holy asininity -- The signs of the times -- A lonely sparrow -- Thirty -- The gifts of (...) the Magi -- The song of Circe -- "Go up to Oxford" -- Down risky streets -- The art of magic -- Canticles -- Squaring the circle -- Consolation and valediction -- Infinities -- Return to Italy -- The witness -- The adversary -- Gethsemane -- Hell's purgatory -- The sentence -- The field of flowers -- Epilogue: the four rivers. (shrink)

O presente artigo toma como ponto de partida a questão da verdade - verdade em si e, sobretudo, verdade "para mim". Levanta-se, assim, a questão de saber em que medida é possível fundamentar a verdade no indivíduo. Por outro lado, trata-se igualmente de saber até que ponto a verdade tem a ver com dados inteligíveis, com actos noéticos e cognitivos bem como com tudo aquilo que, numa palavra, nos disponibiliza para a racionalidade. O artigo busca resposta para estas questões, sublinhando (...) sobretudo o facto de que Kierkegaard, sempre em busca de um delicado equilíbrio entre a Fé e a Razão, se confronta com a natureza paradoxal de um evento histórico, a Øjeblikket, o qual se apresenta como o fundamento mesmo das "razões" ou, por outras palavras, da verdade propriamente dita. /// What is truth? Moreover, what is "truth for me"? Is it possible to ground truth in the individual? But does not truth have, eo ipso, to do with intelligible data, with noetic and cognitive acts as well as with all that that, in a word, makes us fully available for rationality? The present paper searches for an answer, whereby it is underlined how Kierkegaard, always in search of a delicate balance between Faith and Reason, comes across the paradoxical nature of an historical event, of the Øjeblikket, which to him appears as the roc on which to ground "the reasons" or, in other words, that that we properly call the truth. (shrink)

Giordano Bruno's notorious public death in 1600, at the hands of the Inquisition in Rome, marked the transition from Renaissance philosophy to the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. In his philosophical works he addressed such delicate issues as the role of Christ as mediator and the distinction, in human beings, between soul and matter. This volume presents new translations of Cause, Principle and Unity, in which he challenges Aristotelian accounts of causality and spells out the implications of Copernicanism (...) for a new theory of an infinite universe, and of two essays on magic, On Magic and A General Account of Bonding, in which he interprets earlier theories about magical events in the light of the unusual powers of natural phenomena. (shrink)

Giordano Bruno's notorious public death in 1600, at the hands of the Inquisition in Rome, marked the transition from Renaissance philosophy to the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. In his philosophical works he addressed such delicate issues as the role of Christ as mediator and the distinction, in human beings, between soul and matter. This volume presents new translations of Cause, Principle and Unity, in which he challenges Aristotelian accounts of causality and spells out the implications of Copernicanism (...) for a new theory of an infinite universe, and of two essays on magic, On Magic and A General Account of Bonding, in which he interprets earlier theories about magical events in the light of the unusual powers of natural phenomena. (shrink)

At the turn of the seventeenth century, Bruno and Cavalieri independently developed two theories, central to which was the concept of the geometrical indivisible. The introduction of indivisibles had significant implications for geometry – especially in the case of Cavalieri, for whom indivisibles provided a forerunner of the calculus. But how did this event occur? What can we learn from the fact that two theories of indivisibles arose at about the same time? These are the questions addressed in this paper. (...) Relying on the methodology of “historical epistemology”, this paper asserts that the similarities and differences between the theories of Bruno and Cavalieri can be explained in terms of “shared knowledge”. The paper shows that the idea – on which both Bruno and Cavalieri build – that geometrical objects are generated by motion was part of the mathematical culture of the time. Tracing this idea back to its Pythagorean origins thus sheds light on the relationship between motion and continuum in mathematics. (shrink)

Dans ce livre passionnant aux allures d’enquête policière, Laurence Giordano nous mène sur les traces de trois orphelins – Nicolas, Marie et Michel Bryck – qui sans elle seraient restés sans voix et sans histoire, comme la vaste majorité du petit peuple du xixe siècle. C’est avec la découverte d’une lettre de Marie dans un carton concernant les « Orphelins du choléra des épidémies de 1832 et de 1839 » des archives départementales de Paris que l’historienne ouvre ce récit, (...) qui déroge aux règle... (shrink)

This is a new release of the original 1927 edition.

Neste artigo abordamos a temática cosmológica dominante na segunda metade do século XVI. Polarizada entre duas posições antagônicas: os partidários do geocentrismo, que se apoiavam no modelo descritivo aristotélico-ptolomaico, e os copernicanos que defendiam um cosmo heliocêntrico. Para desenvolver esse debate nos apoiamos em PLATAO, 2001; ARISTÓTELES, 2002 e COPÉRNICO, 2009, BRUNO, 2012; numa leitura hermenêutica da discussão cosmológica apresentada por esses autores. Diante desses dois víeis descritivos do cosmo nos interessava investigar qual a posição adotada por Giordano Bruno (...) diante desse contexto. Bruno, nos seus textos se apresenta como um crítico contumaz do geocentrismo, relacionando diretamente tal descrição a Aristóteles, e como um defensor do heliocentrismo copernicano. O debate cosmológico bruniano é expostos em várias obras, entre elas podemos citar A ceia das Cinzas publicada em 1584 e L’immenso e gli innumerevoli de 1592. O antiaristotelismo de Bruno é bastante contundente, mas o mesmo vigor não aparece ao tratar o modelo cosmológico copernicano. Nos perguntamos, então, o que justificava a elaboração do elogio bruniano, com ressalvas, a Copérnico. Concluímos que, apesar da aproximação com o heliocentrismo copernicano, não é possível caracterizar Bruno como um copernicano. Copérnico permaneceu atrelado aos conceito de última esfera, de universo hierarquizado, por exemplo, definições que são refutadas por Bruno. O cosmo bruniano é infinito, homogêneo e povoado de inumeráveis mundos. Esses conceitos não estão presentes no cosmo heliocêntrico copernicano. (shrink)

A scholarly account of an important and previously uninvestigated aspect of Bruno's philosophy. Yates sets out in the historian's careful way to show that "Bruno's philosophy and his religion are one and the same, and both are Hermetic." A treatment of the development of the Hermetic tradition from Ficino and Pico allows the author to show that "the philosophy of the infinite universe and the innumerable worlds... is not... scientific thinking" but a continuation of the tradition which was mistakenly thought (...) to stem from an ancient Egyptian magical religion. Although this is definitely the work of an historian, any philosopher interested in the beginnings of modern science or in Renaissance thought will find it a valuable aid and contribution.—K. A. M. (shrink)