WWWBoard/LT

Renaissance Forum   Humanities & Classics 1002

[ HOME] [ POST ] [ SEARCH ] [ HELP ]

In Reply to: to be a renaissance person today posted by Cindy Weckert on January 20, 1999 at 12:39:50:

This post is closely related to another I just looked at. The question is "How diverse did a Renaissance person have to be to be considered a true Renaissance person", and "Is this possible today?" There is no denying that there is so much more to know today than there was just a couple of hundred years ago. Galileo studied whether or not the Earth is the center of the universe. Now, we study other universes, hundreds of constelations, and incredibly complex things that Galileo probably didn't imagine the vastness of. Quantum physics, chemical engineering, the stock market, chaos theory, advanced medicine....you could just go on and on. To be a true Renaissance person is impossible today. While even back then, the most accomplished people didn't know EVERYTHING, but now you can't even come close. To settle in on one area, and be an expert is more reasonable for today's person.
Just a thought: the Renaissance people we've been talking about-how many were married? How many happily? This has been discussed in other posts too, but to be so focused on knowledge and the continuous gaining of it is not worth having no love life, no leisure life. I guess it depends on what's really important to you, but did the ideal Renaissance man have a love of their life? Or was being married to your work part of being a Renaissance person?

Follow Ups:

POST FOLLOWUP

NAME:
E-MAIL:
SUBJECT:

RESPONSE:
: This post is closely related to another I just looked at. The question is "How diverse did a Renaissance person have to be to be considered a true Renaissance person", and "Is this possible today?" There is no denying that there is so much more to know today than there was just a couple of hundred years ago. Galileo studied whether or not the Earth is the center of the universe. Now, we study other universes, hundreds of constelations, and incredibly complex things that Galileo probably didn't imagine the vastness of. Quantum physics, chemical engineering, the stock market, chaos theory, advanced medicine....you could just go on and on. To be a true Renaissance person is impossible today. While even back then, the most accomplished people didn't know EVERYTHING, but now you can't even come close. To settle in on one area, and be an expert is more reasonable for today's person. : Just a thought: the Renaissance people we've been talking about-how many were married? How many happily? This has been discussed in other posts too, but to be so focused on knowledge and the continuous gaining of it is not worth having no love life, no leisure life. I guess it depends on what's really important to you, but did the ideal Renaissance man have a love of their life? Or was being married to your work part of being a Renaissance person?

LINK URL:
LINK TITLE:
IMAGE URL:

---

[ HOME] [ POST ] [ SEARCH ] [ HELP ]

---

[ FOLLOW UPS ] [ POST FOLLOWUP ]

---

 

v 1.1 is made possbile by:

Original WWWBoard design and code by Matt Wright.  See the original at Matt's Script Acrhive. WWWBoard v2.0a © 1998 Matt Wright. WWWBoard/LT Upgrade by Lion Templin of Leonine Computational Resources.  © 1998 Lion Templin. Tom Bacig, University of Minnesota, Duluth.  © 1998 Tom Bacig.