“On Defining the Renaissance: A Humanistic Approach”! Central Renaissance Conference Session on Problems of Definition and Value University of Missouri – Columbia Columbia, Missouri March 29, 1974

Karl J. Fink and James W. Marchand It seems somehow impolite to challenge the methodological basis of scholarship in Renaissance studies – to ask whether the questions posed are good ones or if they can even be posed, but, with due apologies, this is what we wish to do. In so doing, however, that is, in discussing the question of “What is the Renaissance?”, we hope that we will not be simply beating a dead horse, for it is to be hoped that those non-productive questions of yesteryear as to the meaning of the term itself and whether it ought to be applied to this or that phenomenon are past. We are well aware that there is a large volume of material, surveyed masterfully by Ferguson and Burdach, for example, on defining the

Renaissance and by Kristeller on related concepts of comparable complexity like

Humanism. There are even those, like Taylor, who have so despaired of arriving at a reasonable definition of the term Renaissance that they pride themselves on not using it at all.1 If, however, one surveys all these attempts at a definition of the term the

Renaissance, one will note a lack common to all of them: a lack of attention to the strategy of definition and the field of concept formation. In other words we are not so

! This article is based on a talk given at the 1974 Central Renaissance Conference hosted by the University of Missouri in Columbia. Our discussion is directed primarily to the theme set for the conference – “Sixteenth-century Civilization: Fulfillment or End of the Renaissance?”, although we feel the issues involved in defining the Renaissance are significant for other areas of the Humanities. 1 For discussion of various attempts to define and/or delimit the Renaissance, see Konrad Burdach, Renaissance, Reformation and Humanismus, 2nd ed., (Berlin, 1926), and especially Wallace K. Ferguson, The Renaissance in Historical Thought, Five Centuries of Interpretations, (Boston, 1948). Concerning the related concept of Humanism the reader may refer to Paul Kristeller, “Studies on Renaissance Humanism during the Last Twenty Years,” in Studies in the Renaissance, (New York, 1962), IX, 7-30. H.O. Taylor prided himself on writing two volumes on Thought and Expression in the Sixteenth Century, (New York, 1920), without having used the forbidden term. much interested in proposing another definition for the Renaissance as we are in discussing the prior question, namely, how does one go about discussing such a problem.

It is hoped that our deliberations may thus have importance for the question of definition, delimitation, and periodization in literature in general, as well as for defining the

Renaissance.

The first thing one notices in observing the definitions of the Renaissance is the question of the appropriateness of the term: was the Renaissance a real rebirth or just a continuation?2 Or, would it be appropriate to choose another term, such as revitalization, renewal, reaffirmation, etc.? It is commonly held in works on definition theory that these are pseudo-questions, since they are nominal and not real, that is, have merely to do with labels, tags, and not real things, or, as Paul Lehmann put it, they are merely examples of

Etikettierung.3 Before we put the question of name aside with a casual A Rose By Any

Other Name, however, we might do well to look at William Dray’s well-known article

“’Explaining What’ in History.” He points out that a world of importance can be attached to a word such as revolution when Ramsey Muir says: “It was not merely an economic change that was beginning: it was a social revolution.”4 Before Dray it was often maintained that the term applied to a historical event of conglomerate of events was of no importance; almost no one maintains this today. The first point in our discussion of strategy is then this: It is quite proper to ask whether the Renaissance was actually a

Renaissance. In discussing this question, it is naturally of importance to be reminded of the other renaissances, The Carolingian Renaissance, The Ottonian Renaissance, and The

2 See on this question C. H. Haskins’ The Renaissance of the 12th Century, (Cambridge, 1927), 3-32. 3 Paul Lehmann, “Das Problem der Karolingischen Renaissance,” in: I Problemi della Civilta Carolingia (Settimane di studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’ Alto Medioevo, I), (Spoleto, 1954), 309-358. 4 William Dray, “’Explaining What’ in History,” in: Patrick Gardiner, Theories of History, (Glencoe, Illinois, 1959), 403-408.

2 Renaissance of the 12th Century,5for the Renaissance is an historical process and, pace

Lehmann, not a historical fact. It is one of several theoretical constructs such as

Humanism, Mannerism, Gothic, or Baroque which are of use to us in explicating some of the facts of the period, but it is useless to ask when it begins and when it ends, except as this question helps us in explicating these facts. While some may consider the “rival” renaissances by now to be superannuated, one ought at all times keep the generality of the term in mind.6

If there exists renaissances, then, what sort of concept is the notion of renaissance? Not all concepts are alike, although most of the works on the definition of the renaissance tacitly assume that they are. There are, for example, non-metrical concepts such as hot, where the amount of heat necessary to be hot is not only not defined, but un-definable to anyone but the scientist, who himself cannot make up his mind. We have porous concepts, such as phone in linguistics, where things keep slipping though the conceptual framework of the concepts. Or, of vital importance to the human sciences are dialectical concepts like “democracy” where the antinomy between the One and the Many cannot be absolutely resolved.7 In fact, there are many different kinds of concepts and no advance in the philosophy of science over the past quarter-century has been so important as recent work on the problem of concept formation.8 However, such questions have always occupied philosophers. This is witnessed by the concern of the

5 See the discussion by Haskins and Lehmann cited above, notes 2 and 3. 6 The Dictionary of the History of Ideas, ed. Philip Wiener, (New York, 1973), states that the term Renaissance is a “synoptic abstraction,” but also expresses the view that it is autonomous and contemporary with a particular cultural change and with a specific epoch, IV, 121. 7 For a survey of various kinds of concepts see Francis Zartman’s Definition and Open Texture, (University of Illinois Dissertation, 1964). Others can be located in separate discussion such as the dialectical concepts found in Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen’s Analytical Economics, (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), 17-46. 8 See Ernan McMullin, “Recent Work in the Philosophy of Science,” New Scholasticism, 40 (1966), 479- 517.

3 1920’s and 1930’s with theory construction: botryology,9 and theory of clumps,10 typology,11 nonmetrical ordering,12 numerical taxonomy,13 to name but a few. In a number of fields, notably sociology and psychology, there have been attempts to articulate “languages” of research.14 In other fields, notably biology, attempts at axiomatization have led to examination of concept formation.15 In spite of the importance of such matters to literary study, as is seen by the number of works on terminology, we know of no work which deals with definition of concept formation in literary study. In this unfortunate state of affairs scholars have expended much energy on long and involved discussions on terminology rather than actual issues. This is perhaps nowhere so evident as in prelim questions such as “What literary movement does Mörike fit into?” or “Define romanticism” and in the interminable series of papers on the definition of comparative literature. Our present study will present a discussion of the notions of concept formation and will apply these to the question of the definition of literary movements in general, to the renaissance specifically.

Concept Formation

Aristotelian concepts are those amenable to Aristotelian (classical) methods of classification and division. Such concepts are characterized by clear borders, no overlap with other concepts, and the possibility of uniquely assigning an entity no overlap with

9 I. J. Good, “Botryological Speculations,” in: The Scientist Speculates, ed. I.J. Good, (New York, 1965) 120-132; idem, The Estimation of Probabilities, (Cambridge, Mass., 1965). 10 R. M. Needham, “Applications of the Theory of Clumps,” Mechanical Translation, 8 (1965), 113-127. 11 W. S. Allen, “Classification and Language,” Classification Society Bulletin, 1 (1965), 13-22; Carl G. Hempel, Aspects of Scientific Explanation, (New York, 1965), 155-171. 12 Carl G. Hempel, Fundamentals of Concept Formation in Empirical Science, (Chicago, 1952), 155-171. 13 R. R. Sokal and P. H. A. Sneath, Principles of Numerical Taxonomy, (San Francisco, 1963). 14 George Mandler and William Kessen, The Language of Psychology, (New York, 1959); Jerome S. Bruner, J. J. Goodnow and G. A. Austin, A Study of Thinking, (New York, 1956); Robert Bierstedt, “Nominal and Real Definitions in Sociological Theory,” in: Symposium on Sociological Theory, ed. L. Gross, (Buffalo, 1959), 121-144. 15 J. H. Woodger, Axiomatic Method in Biology, (Cambridge, 1937); idem, The Technique of Theory Construction, (Chicago, 1939).

4 other concepts, and the possibility of uniquely assigning an entity to a concept. This is assured by following the three rules: “1. There must be only one fundamentum divisionis at each step. 2. The division must be exhaustive. 3. The successive steps of the division must proceed by gradual stages.”16 Such concepts are rare in literary study, although there is a strong tendency to treat literary concepts as if they were Aristotelian and to treat non-Aristotelian concepts as if they were somehow inferior to Aristotelian concepts. For example, when we ask our students to assign an author to a movement or to define a movement we are treating the notion of movement as if it were Aristotelian. When we argue the question as to whether Shakespeare’s works are to be attributed to Bacon, we are assuming that attribution is an Aristotelian concept. When we argue as to the definition of the grotesque, we are treating grotesque as if it were Aristotelian.

The existence of non-Aristotelian concepts has been pointed out in a number of quarters,17 under such terms as “ideal types” (Weber, Hempel), “vagueness” (Runes,

Black), “porosity and open texture” (Waisman), “penumbra” (Georgescu-Roegen), to name a few, so that the existence of such entities seems assured. Also, the importance of

“ideal type” for literary studies has been noted in Ernst Cassirer’s “Some Remarks on the

Question of the Originality of the Renaissance,” while Morris Weitz has commented on

“open texture” in “The Role of Theory in Aesthetics.”18 Unfortunately, none of these treatments offers a taxonomy or even gives examples of the use of such concepts in discourse. Perhaps this is due to the ineffable nature of non-Aristotelian concepts,

16 Cf. Susan Stebbing, A Modern Introduction to Logic, (New York and London, 1930). 17 See footnote 7. 18 Cassirer, Journal of the History of Ideas, 4 (1943), 49-56; Weitz, in: Problems in Aesthetics, ed. Morris Weitz, (New York, 1959), 145-56.

5 perhaps because of the difficulty one has in explaining them, or the embarrassment one has in using them. At any rate, we shall discuss only one, the notion of “ideal type”.

According to Hempel,

An ideal type… is a mental construct formed by the synthesis of many diffuse,

more or less present and occasionally absent, concrete individual phenomena,

which are arranged, according to certain one-sidedly accentuated points of view,

into a unified analytical construct, which in its conceptual purity cannot be found

in reality; it is a utopia, a limiting concept, with which concrete phenomena can

only be compared for the purpose of explicating some of their significant

components.19

“Neanderthal man” and “today’s youth” are examples of ideal types. It has been maintained, for example, that American students read Hesse more than German students, although publication statistics will show the opposite to be true, and one can easily find many American students who have never even heard of Hesse. Nevertheless, it is true that the “American student,” as one usually encounters him in the newspapers, reads

Hesse, in fact it is, like the beard, almost a defining characteristic. It is important to note that, as Hempel points out, such concepts cannot be defined by genus proximum and differentia specifica, as can Aristotelian concepts, and that concrete cases cannot be subsumed under them as instances, that is, they are intensional and not extensional.

Thus, to return to our example, one cannot define “student” as the term is used by our daily newspapers, for indeed many people who are not studying at universities and colleges are included, and the majority of those who do attend institutions of higher

19 Carl G. Hempel, “Typological Methods in the Social Sciences,” in: Philosophy of the Social Sciences, ed. Maurice Natanson, (New York, 1963), 211.

6 learning are excluded, from extension of the term as usually used. It is and ideal type. In literary study, such notions as “generations,” “genre,” “movement,” and the like are really ideal types. One cannot point to any archetypal Romantic novel, for example, nor can one specify a set of characteristics, possession of which assures that a novel will be a

Romantic novel. It is simply an ideal type, a very useful notion, and we have neither reason to be ashamed of its fuzziness nor to try to change it into an Aristotelian concept by making up ever newer ad hoc definitions. The logic of the humanities is distinct from that of the natural sciences.

Definition

A definition states that a certain term is applied to a concrete concept. Its form is in part dictated by the type of concept being defined. Aristotelian concepts are best defined by proximum genus and differentia specifica, familiar to us from schoolbook discussions of definition. Most works on scientific definition permit only this kind.20

But other types are best defined by operations (e.g., Pike’s definition of the phoneme in terms of the operations performed in order to obtain it21); theoretical terms are best defined by their position in the theory.22 Since even a scholarly paper is intended to communicate, one should avoid using accepted terms in new applications.23

Nevertheless, it is obvious that the more a term is used, the more likelihood there is that new meanings will become attached to it (Zipf’s law24), and a term which covers too

20 For an opposing point of view, see Richard Robinson, Definition, (Oxford, 1954). See also Kenneth Burke, A Grammar of Motives and a Rhetoric of Motives, (Cleveland, 1962), “per Genus et Differentiam,” 408 ff. 21 Kenneth Pike, Phonemics, (Ann Arbor, 1949). 22 Sandra B. Rosenthal, “The Cognitive Status of Theoretical Terms,” Dialectica, 22 (1968), 3-19; I. M. Copi, Introduction to Logic, 2nd ed., (New York, 1961), 99 ff. 23 Cf. Robinson, op. cit., (note 20 above), 80 ff. 24 For a discussion of Zipf’s law see Collin Cherry, On Human Communication, (Cambridge, Mass., 1957), 103 ff.

7 many things really applies to nothing (dictum de omne et de nullo). In such cases, it may be best to scrap the term altogether, and this has been proposed in the case of the

Renaissance. It seems to us that too much emphasis is put on discussions of literary terms on the proprietas verborum or “fitness of terms.” Unless there is a danger of clash of terms or psychological conditioning we ought really to maintain that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. In the case of the Renaissance, as pointed out above, there is good reason for worrying about the intrinsic meaning of the word with its consequent conditioning. Above all, a definition should not make a non-Aristotelian one.

We cannot forego adding here one more admonition concerning definition by systrophe, which is, we suppose, the most common type of definition in literary studies. It is from

Peachams Garden of Eloquence (1953):

Systrophe of some called Conglobatio, of other Convolutio, is when the Orator

bringeth in many definitions of one thing, yet not such definitions as do declare

the substance of a thing by the general kind [proximum genus] and the difference

[differentia specifica], which the art of reasoning doth prescribe, but others of

another kind all heaped together: such as these definitions of Cicero be in the

second book of an Orator, where he amplifieth the dignity of an history thus: an

historie saith he, is the testimony of the times, the light of veritie, the maintenance

of memorie, the scoolemistresse of life, and messenger of antiquitie.25

If you will look at Symonds’ definition of the Renaissance, you will see that his discussion is for the most part systrophic.

By the term Renaissance, or new birth is indicated a natural movement, not to be

explained by this or that characteristic, but to be accepted as an effort of humanity

25 Henry Peacham, The Garden of Eloquence, (Gainesville, Florida, 1954), 153.

8 for which at length the time had come, and in the onward progress of which we

still participate. The history of the Renaissance is not the history of the

attainment of self-conscious freedom by the human spirit manifested in European

races. It is no mere political mutation, no new fashion of art, no restoration of

classical standards of taste. The arts and the inventions, the knowledge and the

book, which suddenly become - (became?) vital at the time of the Renaissance,

had long lain neglected on the shores of the Dead Sea which we call the Middle

Ages. It was not their discovery which caused the Renaissance. But it was the

intellectual energy, the spontaneous outburst of intelligence, which enabled

mankind at the moment to make use of them. The force then generated still

continues, vital and expansive, in the spirit of the modern World.26

If the term is to mean anything, it cannot b extended to include everything, and statements such as “We are still living in the Renaissance” are meaningless, except for rhetorical purposes.

If then such notions as the Renaissance are ideal types and are not amenable to delimitation by normal strategies of definition, how shall we deal with them? Are we reduced to silence by Wittgenstein’s famous dictum: “Was man nicht sagen kann, darüber muß man schweigen.” The answer is of course No, but we must cease treating such notions as if they were definable, discrete entities with clear-cut borders. The question, for example: “Was Erasmus truly a Renaissance man?” cannot be answered by enumerating the defining characteristics of the Renaissaince and checking to see if

Erasmus possessed these. If we may be permitted a metaphor, the difference between the high jump and the balance beam in the Olympics is much like the difference between the

26 John A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy: The Age of the Despots, (New York, 1907), 1.

9 concept formation of the sciences and the humanities. There is no question as to who wins in the high jump, but the gymnastic competition involves judgment and the human equation; no matter how much the guidelines try to Aristotelianize the judgment by citing parameters of good performance, in the long run, good performance will be judged by imponderables. Thus we need not apologize when we find that the term Renaissance is applied now in one sense, now in another, or when one authority has the Renaissance end in 1600, another in 1700. The desire for fixed and firm borders and fixed and firm terminology, for words which always mean the same thing, it seems to us, contrary to the very logic of the humanities.

A Logic of the Humanities

It is unfortunate that scholars in the humanities have been conditioned to feel that ideal type concepts are somehow inferior to Aristotelian concepts. In fact, this feeling is so universal that almost all books on teaching in the humanities espouse such notions as programmed learning, algorithms, stated goals which are quantized and quantified, so that many universities are now using cost-effective doctrines in allocation of funds.

These notions, which come to us from the sciences, are of limited application in a field where the human being is the measure of all things, not the machine. The human learner, for example, may function better by not having everything carefully spelled out for him, by being immersed in the subject, for example. The time has come when we must reaffirm, for example, that linguistics is a human activity, and that mechanical methods of study are subservient to humans and not vice versa. In literary studies we must reaffirm the undeniable fact, for example, that whatever information the computer may offer us in the final instance be weighed by the human mind. Thus it is fallacious to affirm that the

10 computer can solve problems of attribution, for example. Although it may appear that we are straying from the central problem, we must admit that the scholar’s notions are invariably conditioned by the ambience, intellectual and otherwise, in which they are conceived. The prevailing models in science are algorithmic, based on notions of positivism and computerization, and there is an ever-present danger that the humanities will be swamped with such notions, so that we must be on the defensive against them.

Above all, we must avoid giving in to methods of quantizing and quantifying and put forth a logic of the humanities focusing on qualta rather than quanta. Thus, those who wish to define and delimit the Renaissance in the traditional ways run the risk of perverting their own concept by applying methods of quantification when measuring phenomena requiring humanistic judgments.

What then may we propose as a definition of the Renaissance? The Renaissance is an intellectual movement in Western European thought which may be delimited in time and space for the purpose of explicating some feature or event, which may be defined variously for the same purposes, but which must forever remain flexible. It is a floating concept, and ideal type, a construct much like other terms such as Romanticism, which are valuable for the Humanist perhaps just because they defy traditional rules of definition. Thus, to return to our opening statement, questions like “What is

Renaissance” are perfectly valid for the Humanist, if not for the Aristotelian Humanist.

And, rather than being frustrated and humiliated by such “fuzzy” notions, we Humanists ought to be proud of them and cultivate them. Se non é ben trovato, é vero.

University of Illinois James W. Marchand

Karl J. Fink

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