Paul Oskar Kristeller

Kristeller, Paul Oskar 

Born May 22, 1905, in Berlin. American philosopher and historian of philosophy.

Kristeller has been in the USA since 1939, the year in which he became a teacher. He became a professor at Columbia University (in New York) in 1956. Kristeller’s research is devoted primarily to the philosophy of the Renaissance. While regarding the period as a new era, he concentrates his attention on the continuation and further development of earlier traditions. Acknowledging the influence of Italian humanism upon all spheres of culture, Kristeller nonetheless asserts (despite traditional views) that the philosophy of the Renaissance developed independently of humanism and partly in conflict with it.

WORKS

The Philosophy of M. Ficino. New York, 1943.
The Classics and Renaissance Thought. Cambridge (Mass.), 1955.
Studies in Renaissance Thought and Letters. Rome, 1956.
Renaissance Thought, vols. 1–2. New York, 1961–65.