Agrippa von Nettesheim, Henry Cornelius | Richard H. Popkin (essay date 1964)
Richard H. Popkin (essay date 1964)
SOURCE: "The Revival of Greek Scepticism in the 16th Century," in The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Descartes, revised edition, Van Gorcum & Comp., 1964, pp. 17-43.
[Below, Popkin focuses on On the Uncertainty and Vanity of the Sciences as an "example of fundamentalist anti-intellectualism" that nevertheless played an important role in the revival of interest in ancient skepticism.]
Probably the most notorious of those who have been ranked as sceptics in [the sixteenth century] is the curious figure, Henricus Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, 1486-1535. He was a man who was interested in many things, but most notably, occult science. A strange work he wrote in 1526, De Incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum declamatio invectiva… has led him to be classed as an early sceptic. The popularity of this work, its many editions in Latin, as well as Italian, French and English...
[The entire page is 916 words long]
Navigate
