Dante Alighieri · Philosophy
Dante’s revolutionary choice to write his masterpiece not in scholarly Latin but in Italian - and his argument, in <em>De Vulgari Eloquentia</em> and the <em>Convivio</em>, that the living mother tongue is <em>nobler</em> than Latin. Behind the choice is a question about who philosophy and wisdom are really for.
You learned that Dante argued the vernacular is nobler than Latin (because it is natural, first-learned, and universal), and made the radical choice to write his philosophy and his Comedy in Italian, opening wisdom to those excluded from Latin - a decision about language, audience, and who knowledge is for. Explain th…
Leads to Thomas Aquinas.
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