Craig Martin

Craig Martin

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Post-Doctoral Rome Prize
September 5, 2011–August 6, 2012
Profession
Associate Professor, Department of History, Oakland University
Project title
Renaissance Italian Thought and the Religious Rejection of Aristotle
Project description

This project examines the religious and intellectual contexts of polemical writings against Aristotle and his followers during the Scientific Revolution by examining the legacy of Renaissance Italian natural philosophy. The rejection of Aristotelianism is widely considered to have been concomitant to the development of modern science. Its rejection had significant ramifications for Christianity, which for centuries had used Aristotelian concepts in its theology. To bolster their positions, proponents of new sciences used a variety of techniques to contend that Renaissance Italian natural philosophy was impious, irreligious, or even atheistic. Those who argued for alternatives to traditional natural philosophy tried to demonstrate its lack of orthodoxy by using historical, rhetorical, and philosophical arguments, many of which had origins in controversies of the Italian Renaissance.