Agrippa von Nettesheim, Henry Cornelius - Charles G. Nauert, Jr. (essay date 1957)
Charles G. Nauert, Jr. (essay date 1957)
SOURCE: "Magic and Skepticism in Agrippa's Thought," in Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. XVIII, April, 1957, pp. 161-82.
[In the following excerpt, Nauert examines the interrelationship between belief in occult science and skepticism about the limits of human knowledge, suggesting that both elements were present in all phases of Agrippa's work.]
From his own age down to the present, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486-1535) has received widely varying evaluations from students of his thought. Some have dismissed him cursorily as an intellectual lightweight or as a wicked familiar of demons. Even those who have valued him highly have often done so for most contradictory reasons. Much of this disagreement results from uncertainty about which Agrippa to believe: Agrippa the credulous magician, author of a widely used magical compilation, De occulta philosophia libri tres, or...
[The entire page is 7016 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
