Marsilio Ficino

Abstract

In his Platonic Theology (1474), Marsilio Ficino seeks to demonstrate that rational confirmation of the Christian belief in the personal immortality of the soul can be found in the philosophy of Plato and his ancient disciples. (For another selection, with biographical information, see Chapter 3.) This was part of his overall programme to develop a ‘pious philosophy’, strongly based on Platonism, which would reduce the conflicts between reason and faith – conflicts that had arisen, in his view, largely because of Aristotle's domination of the philosophical curriculum since the thirteenth century. Like Cardinal Bessarion, Ficino believed that Platonism was much closer than Aristotelianism to Christianity. This was particularly so in relation to the crucial issue of the immortality of the soul, where Aristotle's position was ambiguous at best, while Plato explicitly endorsed the notion of an afterlife.