Humans on the thresholds of history :|Protagoras, Pico della Mirandola, and Herder

Abstract

This thesis presents the transformation of the ideas on the nature of human beings throughout three fundamental thresholds of the history of philosophy by examining the three representative philosophers from these thresholds. In this regard, Protagoras for Ancient Greece, Pico della Mirandola for the Renaissance, and Johann Gottfried von Herder for the Enlightenment have been chosen. In the thesis, I will examine their ideas on the nature of human beings in the context of historical and philosophical conditions. The purpose of this analysis is to show that, firstly, the development of their ideas and methods, and secondly, their similarities and differences. After this examination, the ideas and methods of these philosophers will be compared and contrasted. The purpose of the thesis is that, as this examination and comparison proves, that the effort of developing an alternative approach regarding the nature of human beings against the prevailing positions at the times of thresholds requires defending the indeterminacy of the human nature and prioritizing human experience (real ground) to metaphysical argumentations (logical ground). In conclusion, I hope that this study will contribute to philosophy literature both with its content and its method of reading the breaking points of the history through a comparative analysis of philosophers that are not generally discussed in the literature.