A Study On Marsilio Ficino's Ideas On Charity And Desire

What is the definition of Erose?This is a question that Plato attempted to answer in his The Symposium and The Phaedrus.With his description of Erose,Plato introduced his ontology and epistemology,and expressed his idea that it is the ultimate goal of philosophy to pursue True?Good?Beauty.Being a humanist during the period of renaissance,Marsilio Ficino was faced with a situation where scholasticism lost its absolute dominance in philosophy after being mystified and secularized in the fourteenth century and reflection on "human" became a philosophical theme after doubt over the Christian faiths emerged.It is Marsilio Ficino's hope that the authority of the Christian faiths could be restored amongst average people through revitalizing the theory of Plato and his Platonism.As a primary force that exists among creature,charity comes before any creature.According to Marsilio Ficino,Erose is an initial desire and tendency.Erose makes subject desire object,and pulls the former to the latter.Erose never ceases unless one's soul,i.e.its subject,becomes the one with God,its object.It is through this Erose that souls bond the secular world with scared one,and Erose becomes the core of belief.Besides,Marsilio Ficino equaled charity and eros,a demonstration of his standing of anthropocentrism,opposite to theocentricism of St.Thomas.Summa.