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Summary Of Oration On The Dignity Of Man

Decent Essays

1a. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola says that human beings are free to become whatever or whomever they may choose to be. In his work, Oration on the Dignity of Man, Mirandola discusses how as a human being you have “no limit or no bound” and “may choose for yourself the limits and bounds of your nature” He believes that God created humans with no fixed position in life and that the choices they make during their journey will define whether they fall into high or low positions on the chain of life.
1b. Pico believes that human beings are free because they have the ability to choose their own paths. In Oration on the Dignity of Man, he states that “we should not make that freedom of choice God gave us into something harmful, for it was intended to be to our advantage.” Representing that God created us as free beings in having the freedom to choose. Later on in his work, he declares, “Let a holy ambition enter into our souls; let us not be content with mediocrity, but rather strive after the highest and expend all our strength in achieving it.” He regarded the most noble goal, the goal to reach the highest position, in union to god. To choose to be next to God was the greatest achievement.
1c. The ancient philosopher that was the most influential in Pico’s beliefs was Plato. His influence guided him “away from the focus on civic life that had been such a feature of earlier humanist thought” and lead him to the belief than man could “aspire to union with God through the

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