In the year 1548 an Italian boy was born in the little town of Nola, not far from Vesuvius. Although, he spent the greater part of his life in hostile
and foreign countries he was drawn back to his home at the end of his travels and after he had written nearly twenty books. Bruno was interested in
the nature of ideas. Although the name was not yet invented it will be perfectly proper to dub Bruno as an epistemologist, or as a pioneer
Semanticist. He takes fresh stock of the human mind.
Here's the link - www.infidels.org...
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Intriguing choice, deepwaters -although I'm not sure he's actually "forgotten" -at least not to any student of the
Reformation/Renaissance/Counter-Reformation or even of Elizabethan English Literature.
And, if you know Rome -you'll know that there is a rather splendid statue there in his memory.
"Greater part of his life": not quite; but an energetic traveller (especially among the Protestants) - "returning home" isn't quite right
either (in the geopolitics of that day, at least): they got him in the Papal States -not in Naples.
An "epistemologist"? Yes, I guess so -particularly in his influence on Spinoza. "Semanticist" - not a clear term to me, I'm afraid.
Given the contempt for history we have come to believe synonymous with Hollywood, he'd even make a tolerable movie-subject. Rather Romantic stuff:
clever poor boy escapes from dreadful Catholics, wanders through Europe, is seduced back to Rome, jailed for 8 years and then burnt alive. He could
easily have met Shakespeare, Elizabeth -who knows whom?? Pity he was white, really.
If he is unknown to some posters -he really is worth a little search and read.
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