born in 1548 in Nola, a small Italian town.
He fought against the darkness of bigotry,
ignorance, superstition and fanaticism of
the Middle Age at the cost of his life.
His struggle was to free minds from bigotry and
superstitions for the advent of the Renaissance, the
rebirth of ancient wisdom in Europe, the renewal of
the ancient philosophy.
In all times, people have always wondered about themselves. Who am I? What are the causes of my actions,
thoughts and feelings? What is the meaning of life? These questions have been the key in drawing the course of life
and establishment of civilisations. The knowledge of man opens the doors to other aspects of life. What is the true
nature of man under the light of philosophy?
Stars and Their Planets
He made interesting
explanations about our solar
system and the other suns
and the planets around
them.
He described
the almost circular
movements of the
earth and stars and
went beyond
Copernicus with the
movement of the
solar system and
the planets of other
suns because
Copernicus was still
defending the fixed
heavens where other
stars are located.
He said that stars are
some other suns around which
many other planets are orbiting. This
was a revolutionary idea about the
cosmos. Our solar system is not the only solar
system and the sun is no longer at the centre of the
universe but one of the many centres. The planets
around our sun are not the only planets in the
universe. For Bruno, other suns and their planets
are inhabited by various types of beings; some more
intelligent than us, some less.
An Infinite Universe
The universe was infinite for Bruno. There is
infinite number of worlds with infinite number of
beings living on them. Each world is finite within the
infinite universe.
The infinite universe is immobile because there is
nothing beyond it, nowhere to move to.
The unity of the universe is stable in its oneness
and so remains forever. This is the basic
characteristic of the universe that unites everything
within itself. Beyond the multiplicity of forms and
things, there lies the principle of unity, which is a key
to understanding the similarities among different
things such as between men and animals, men and
plants, our planet earth and other planets, our sun
and the other suns. With this unity, the Greek
philosophers could declare a basic principle of
ancient philosophy;
"Know yourself so you can know
the universe."
He lived in a time when vices had
replaced the throne of virtues. Folly,
nonsense and vice were at the
power. The light, which made the
minds of the ancestors divine
and heroic, was almost
diminished.
He was faced with the
resistance of ignorant who
believed that change would
always be bad. He wrote
"Do you know how
powerful the habit of
believing and being brought
up on certain opinions since
childhood, in shutting off the
most obvious things from the
understanding?"
His name was not mentioned
for a long time due to fear of the
authorities.
He was burnt at the stake on 17th
of February 1600, in the great square of
Flowers in Rome. His message has re-echoed
in all the corners of western world.
Constant Change
He defended the idea of constant change that we
find in Heraclitus and Greek philosophy. Everything
in the universe is constantly changing. Our planet
changes constantly; climatic changes, geological
changes, the continents and the oceans. We change
constantly; our body, our emotions and thoughts.
The reason of constant change is to reach
perfection. If we do not strive to improve, we will not
be in harmony with nature. Each and every being
keeps changing to improve and come closer to
perfection.
For Bruno, everything in the universe is
interdependent. The universe is an intertwined web
of many causes and effects. All things are effects of
some causes that is why all things are not real
because they depend on something else to exist.
And everything in the universe are composite and at
the same time dissoluble.
Time is the number of this constant change and
constant motion, which can be experienced by only
a body. Where there is no body, there is no motion
and therefore no measurement of motion, which
means there is no time
A Living Universe
He described a living universe, which
we find in Plato as well, a universe like an
enormous animal where infinite solar
systems are like the cells of an enormous
body. In this universe, all things are alive,
as all parts of our bodies alive.
The celestial bodies were the great
living creatures for Bruno as it was in the
philosophy of Pythagoras and Plato.
These celestial beings were more than
living beings. They are divinities such as
the deities Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Mercury
and Apollo, which are associated with the
planets and the sun.
In this living body, there is a continuous
process of corruption and generation of
forms. Bruno explains corruption and
generation of forms as same because
they derive from the same principle. The
end of a corruption is the beginning of the
generation of another thing so corruption is a
generation and generation is a corruption.
Coincidence of Opposites
The principle of Unity behind all these various
worlds and beings reconciles opposites. The
reconciliation helps us to clear away doubts and
conflicts.
The 16th century, when Bruno lived, was a period
of extreme violence especially politically and
religiously. Bruno, with the idea of coincidence of
opposites, wanted to reconcile different Christian
groups. He wanted to show that what seems
opposite in the appearance is not opposite in
essence.
Isn't the maximum heat and minimum cold wholly
one, asks Bruno. Is it not from the limit of maximum
heat that we obtain the point of departure in the
movement toward cold? The extreme of an opposite
is an approach to the other side of the opposite.
All things are composed of contraries where we
find continuous transformations from one opposite
to another; day follows night and night follows day,
summer comes after winter and vice versa. There is
no delight without its contrary, which is pain.
When both contraries are in excess, they become
vices and soul falls into discord. Vice is a deviation
from its own nature whose perfection is in unity. In
the middle where the extremes meet and become
one and indifferent, is virtue. Virtue is the house of
temperance, the condition of a strong soul, which
does not give way to one opposite for the other.
Fighting against Ignorance
Bruno was a heroic spirit who fought against the
ignorance and bigotry of his time. He vividly
described the conditions of his time in his book
Cause, Principle and Unity; "
Blind error, greedy
time, adverse fortune, deaf envy, vile rage, hostile
zeal, cruel hearts, perverse spirits, bizarre passions
will not suffice to obscure the ait before me, nor
place the veil before my eyes, nor ever stop me from
beholding my beautiful sun.
He described his spirit that enabled him to go
through the troubled times as;
- Not throw up my hands (not easily give up).
- Not surrender to despair.
- Not succumb before the swift flood of criminal
falsehood with which I have been furiously attacked,
envy of the ignorant, the presumptions of sophists,
the depreciation of the malicious, the bad mouthing
of varlets, and the insinuations of mercenaries.
All valuable things are difficult to obtain. Narrow
and thorny is the way of beatitude...
They say there is a mysterious relation between the difficult
and the good. You have to make effort and work
hard to get the good but it is easy to get the evil
without any effort or work. In other words, it's easy to
miss the target but difficult to hit it.
“Know yourself so
you can know the
universe.”
Cause, Principle and Unity
Pedantry has never been more exalted for
governing the world than in our day said Bruno.
Pedantry is a sign of dark ages when man tends to
follow just the forms and rules instead of the spirit or
the essence behind things. Philosopher questions
everything as well as the conventions found in a
society or religion.
Philosophy for Bruno
The true philosopher's country was all the world
for Bruno. The Philosopher lives beyond countries,
borders like a citizen of the world. An idea we find in
the Stoics. The world citizen feels himself
responsible for humanity and believes in unity of
humanity.
In one of his books, he calls philosophy "
My beloved mother, philosophy...
" which is like a mother who looks after her children as philosophy
does in the chaos of life. Interestingly the Buddhists
also represent the perfect wisdom (prajnaparamita)
as a goddess, the mother of all Buddhas.
He wanted to give real meaning and value back
to philosophy though it was in the hands of pedants,
sophists, the ignorant and bigots. Their philosophy
was a mere intellectual occupation without the aim
to discover truths and to change the life.
For Bruno, the best philosophy is that which
brings about the perfection of the human intellect
most easily and eminently, and must closely
corresponds to the truth of nature. Philosophy is the
means to perfect human intelligence so the person
can express his own nature, his real Self.
For true philosophy, music or poetry is also
painting, and true painting is also music and
philosophy, and true poetry or music is a kind of
divine wisdom and painting. Philosophy as in the
past was considered to be a discipline that connects
other disciplines such as art, science and religion.
Without being a philosopher, it should be difficult to
be a painter, poet, musician or a scientist."
I hold worldly repute and hollow success without
truth to be hateful to God, most vile and
dishonourable. But I thus exhaust, vex and torment
myself for love of true wisdom and zeal for true
contemplation.
This was Bruno's goal for life. He
wasn't interested in titles, honours or worldly powers
but wisdom and dedicated his life to the search for
wisdom.
Bruno revived the ancient wisdom, which was the
backbone of Greek and Roman civilisation. He had
struggled to return the Goddess of Wisdom to
Europe which had lost it long before.
His fight against ignorance, pedantry, fanaticism
and corruption has become an inspiration for many
to continue his fight.
Guner Orucu
Sydney 2010
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