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Agrippa, Heinrich Cornelius

Born: 14 September 1486, Nettesheim (Cologne)

Died: 18 February 1535, Grenoble

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Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy

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Abstract

Agrippa was the main expounder of the occult philosophy, which is the knowledge of the hidden causes of things and is finalized to their manipulation by magic. Magic, in turn, is the highest form and the end of philosophy. According to his De occulta philosophia, magic is threefold: natural (concerning sublunar world), celestial (concerning stars and heavenly intelligences), and divine (concerning God and higher angels). It consists of the manipulation of concrete objects and of the summoning of intelligences and God, which is performed on the basis of the precepts of the Kabbalah. Agrippa’s overall aim was to purify magic from its necromantic and irrational components: this would enable the restoration of the prelapsarian condition of man (in accordance with the Hermetic ideal of deification) and a Christian reform of culture. The critique of philosophical knowledge and of every science, presented in Agrippa’s De vanitate, and his critique to the subordination of woman typical of Scholastic theology, contained in the De nobilitate foeminei sexus, are functional to these ends.

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References

Primary Literature

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Antichistica, Lingue, Educazione e Filosofia (A.L.E.F.), Università degli Studi di Parma, Parma, Italy

    Andrea Strazzoni

  2. National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia

    Andrea Strazzoni

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  1. Andrea Strazzoni
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Correspondence to Andrea Strazzoni .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Verona, Mantova, Italy

    Marco Sgarbi

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Strazzoni, A. (2016). Agrippa, Heinrich Cornelius. In: Sgarbi, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_547-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_547-1

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