Saving Renaissance and Reformation History, Grammar, and Disagreements with the Dead 英文参考文献.docVIP

Religions 2012, 3, 662–680; doi:10.3390/rel3030662 OPEN ACCESS religions ISSN 2077-1444 /journal/religions Article Saving Renaissance and Reformation: History, Grammar, and Disagreements with the Dead Constantin Fasolt Department of History and the College, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA; E-Mail: icon@ Received: 2 July 2012; in revised form: 26 July 2012 / Accepted: 27 July 2012 / Published: 6 August 2012 Abstract: Renaissance and Reformation used to serve historians as the main terms with which to refer to European history from roughly 1300–1600. Today those terms are commonly replaced with early modern history, and the periodization of European history into ancient, medieval, and modern periods itself is looking increasingly suspect. There are good reasons for those changes. But they obscure both the significance of disagreements dividing the living from the dead and the significance of grammar, in the fundamental sense of grammar advanced by Wittgenstein, for treating such disagreements. Renaissance and Reformation have the advantage of doing just the opposite: they confront us with both those disagreements and the significance of grammar. That makes them very much worth keeping. Keywords: antiquity; Renaissance; Reformation; Humanism; early modern; Wittgenstein; grammar; historiography; philosophy of history There is a peculiarity about the revision of historians that excludes them from the benefit of the common law that innocence must be assumed until guilt is proved. The presumption which is favourable to makers of history is adverse to writers of history. For history deals considerably with hanging matter, and nobody ought to hang on damaged testimony. Acton 1. Introduction It seems that we cannot agree on what to call the history of Europe from roughly 1300–1600. We used to call it Renaissance and Reformation. Now we are not so certain what that means. Ma