Pietro Pomponazzi 1462 – 1525
Pietro Pomponazzi was an Italian Renaissance Aristotelian and one of the most controversial philosophers of his age. Trained in the Aristotelian tradition at Padua, he argued in his Treatise on the Immortality of the Soul that the natural reading of Aristotle could not demonstrate the personal immortality of the soul, and that virtue must therefore be its own reward. The book provoked widespread condemnation and a public burning at Venice. His later writings on fate and on miracles developed a thoroughgoing naturalism, holding that apparently miraculous events could be explained by natural causes.
Key facts
- Nationality
- Italian
- Era
- Modern
- Movements
- Renaissance
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Pietro Pomponazzi:
“If the soul is by nature mortal, virtue is its own reward.”
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Attributed to Pietro Pomponazzi:
“Aristotle teaches that the soul is the form of the body and dies with it.”
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Attributed to Pietro Pomponazzi:
“Religion and natural philosophy must be kept distinct.”
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Attributed to Pietro Pomponazzi:
“Apparent miracles are explicable by natural causes.”
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Attributed to Pietro Pomponazzi:
“Reason finds nothing in nature that does not arise from nature.”