Juan Luis Vives facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Joan Lluis Vives
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Anonymous portrait of Joan Lluis Vives, Museo del Prado
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| Born | 6 March 1493 |
| Died | 6 May 1540 (aged 47) |
| Era | Renaissance philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Renaissance humanism |
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Main interests
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Psychology, education |
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Notable ideas
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Study of the psyche |
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Juan Luis Vives March (who was also known as Joannes Lodovicus Vives) was a smart Spanish scholar. He lived mostly in the Southern Netherlands. He was a Renaissance humanist, which means he studied ancient Greek and Roman ideas.
Vives had many important ideas about the mind and how people think. He looked closely at emotions, memory, and how we learn. Because of his deep thinking, he is often called the "father" of modern psychology. Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Vives was one of the first to share ideas that shaped how we understand psychology today.
Contents
Early Life and Challenges
Juan Luis Vives was born in Valencia, Spain, in 1493. His family had changed from being Jewish to Christian. Sadly, when he was a child, he saw many family members, including his father, grandmother, and great-grandfather, punished by the Spanish Inquisition. This was a time when people were questioned about their religious beliefs.
His mother passed away from a disease in 1508 when he was 15 years old. Soon after, Vives left Spain and never went back.
Before leaving Spain, he went to the University of Valencia. There, he learned a type of teaching called scholasticism. This way of learning often involved lots of debates and discussions about old ideas.
Academic Journey and Important Works
From 1509 to 1512, Vives studied at the University of Paris. Later, in 1519, he became a professor at the University of Leuven. His friend Erasmus, a very famous scholar, encouraged him to write a detailed book about Augustine's De Civitate Dei. This book was published in 1522.
Soon after, Vives was invited to England. He became a teacher to Princess Mary, who later became queen. For her, he wrote books about how children and girls should be educated. One famous book was De Institutione Feminae Christianae, which he dedicated to the English queen, Catherine of Aragon.
While in England, he lived at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He also became a doctor of laws and gave lectures on philosophy. However, Vives spoke out against King Henry VIII's desire to end his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Because of this, he lost the king's favor and was kept in his house for six weeks in 1528.
After being released, he moved to Bruges. There, he spent the rest of his life writing many books. Most of these books challenged the old ways of thinking and the strong influence of Aristotle. One of his most important works is De Causis Corruptarum Artium.
Vives also wrote important books on education, like Introductio ad sapientiam (1524). His book De disciplinis talked about the need for better ways of teaching and studying. He also wrote Exercitatio linguae latinae, which was a Latin textbook with clever conversations.
His philosophical works include De anima et vita (1538). He also wrote "De Subventione Pauperum Sive de Humanis Necessitatibus" (1526). This was one of the first books in the Western world to discuss how to help people living in poverty in cities. It also suggested ways for governments to create social support laws.
Vives passed away in Bruges in 1540, at the age of 47. He was buried in the St. Donatian's Cathedral.
Helping People in Poverty
For a long time, helping the poor was mainly done by the Church and individuals giving money. But as society grew, these efforts were not enough. In 1525, the city of Bruges in the Netherlands asked Vives for ideas on how to help poor people.
He shared his thoughts in his book De Subventione Pauperum Sive de Humanis Necessitatibus (On Assistance To The Poor). Vives believed that the government had a duty to give some financial help to the poor. He also thought they should offer training for people without skills.
Bruges did not use Vives's ideas until 1557. However, his suggestions influenced laws about helping the poor in England and Germany in the 1530s.
Vives's Lasting Impact
Vives thought deeply about education and created a full theory on how people should learn. His ideas might have influenced other famous thinkers like Michel Eyquem de Montaigne. Important scholars like Thomas More and Erasmus admired him greatly. Erasmus even said Vives "will overshadow the name of Erasmus."
Vives is seen as the first scholar to directly study the human mind, or psyche. He talked to many people and noticed how their feelings connected to what they said and the topics they discussed. Some historians believe Vives was a very early pioneer of psychoanalysis, a way of understanding the mind. He is also called the father of modern psychology.
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Vives taught kings and queens. His ideas about giving children a varied and practical education came long before Jean Jacques Rousseau, another famous thinker.
Even though he was very important in the 1500s, Vives is not as well-known today outside of special academic studies. However, his values inspired two colleges in Belgium to name their combined school 'Vives' in 2013. This was also because of his connection to the area where Bruges is located.
Views on Gender Roles
Vives had specific ideas about the roles of men and women in society. Some people think he tried to find a middle ground, not completely against women but also not fully supporting them. Others see his views as quite traditional and favoring men. For example, he believed women should not be teachers.
His book De institutione feminae christianae, published in 1523, was written for Mary, the daughter of Queen Catherine of Aragon. It was meant to teach Mary about the proper roles for women. In this book, Vives wrote that an unmarried young woman should rarely be seen in public. He also stated that a man could not respect another man who was "ruled by a woman."
The book also described many rules for married women. They had to be loyal, dedicated, and obey their husbands. They also had to dress properly and cover their faces in public. A wife's honor came from her obedience. A husband's honor came from his ability to control his wife and make sure she was good.
Vives also wrote a book for husbands, De los deberes del marido. This book was much shorter than the one for women. It focused more on how a husband should choose and manage a good wife, rather than detailing how a husband should behave himself.
Thoughts on the Soul and Mind
Vives was very interested in the soul, which he saw as the inner part of a person. He believed it was more important to understand how the soul works than to define what it is. He thought the best part of the soul was its ability to "understand, remember, reason, and judge."
Vives said we cannot simply define the soul. But by looking at its different parts, we can better understand how it works. He compared the soul to a painting: "How we perceive a painted picture is more telling than declaring what the picture is itself."
He did not believe that human behavior was completely set in stone. Instead, he thought our soul could "change our behavior in good and social ways." He also suggested that our daily feelings affect whether our soul is doing good or bad.
Ideas on Medicine and Health
Vives is recognized for connecting psychology with medicine. His ideas were new and helped shape how we see the impact of medicine on people today. He stressed the importance of animal testing before trying new treatments on humans. Even though Vives did not perform medical procedures himself, his suggestions were very advanced for his time.
He hoped his ideas would influence the public. Some people believe that his ideas on medicine led to social improvements. Vives also made important early observations about human body health. He said that "Personal habits of cleanliness and temperance greatly impacted health." He believed that a clean body helps both the body and the mind.
He also talked about how to treat people with mental illness. He said that mocking or irritating them does not help. Vives believed that "Using the mentally ill as a form of entertainment is one of the most inhumane practices he had ever encountered." He thought some people with mental illness needed medicine, while others just needed kind treatment.
Emotions and the Body
Another important idea from Vives was about emotions. His thoughts were influenced by ancient thinkers like Galen and Hippocrates. They believed emotions were linked to different fluids in the body. Vives agreed that "different colored fluids that humans have reflected different types of emotions."
He also thought that "Certain emotions color fluids inside of human bodies and colored bodies likewise influences emotions." Vives suggested that almost all our emotions, even negative ones, can be helpful. He believed we can learn and grow from both good and bad feelings. He also thought that strong moral beliefs could affect a person's feelings about themselves. He said, "mental strength can influence physical strength."
The Power of Memory
Vives put a lot of importance on memory. He said that memory "relates to the past, while perception relates to the present." He believed that "Memory is something that is kept by either seeing or feeling it." He especially highlighted how humans imagine something inside their minds and connect it to an event to create a memory. This, he thought, makes it easier to remember things later.
He also talked about memories we are not aware of, which we now call the unconscious. He said that information is "Most accessible from memory when a certain amount of attention is given." Vives understood how humans retrieve memories. He noticed that the stronger an emotion connected to a memory, the easier it is to remember.
For keeping memories, imagination was key, especially for children. He also believed that memory could get better with practice. He advised, "One should memorize something every day, even a useless quotation." Vives also thought that children learn quickly because their minds are less cluttered with adult worries.
Vives himself had a strong memory experience as a child. He ate cherries when he had a fever. As an adult, when he ate cherries again, he "felt as though he was sick just as he was when he was a child." He found this amazing and realized that memories can stay in our minds for a very long time, even unconsciously. He also believed that "memory declines every day that the mind is not exercised."
How We Learn
Vives used the word "intelligence" to mean something like a "supervisor" for our minds. He thought intelligence helps direct our attention to different kinds of stimuli. For Vives, intelligence was a key part of how we think. When we learn, the memory of that experience is stored in a specific order by our intelligence.
Vives believed that intelligence is only important when we use it. Having a smart mind is only meaningful if a person actively uses it. Using our intelligence helps us remember things, which makes learning better overall.
Vives was one of the first to suggest that many things affect how a student learns. These include the student's health, the teacher's personality, the classroom environment, and the types of books students read. He said, "Vives placed special stress upon the proper environment of the school as the first ecological ingredient of the child's sense experience." He compared learning and gaining knowledge to how humans digest food. Feeding the mind with knowledge is just as important as feeding the body with food.
Major Works
- Opuscula varia (1519) - A collection of Vives's early philosophical writings.
- Adversus pseudodialecticos (1520)
- De ratione studii puerilis (1523) - About how children should study.
- De institutione feminae christianae (1524) - Dedicated to Catherine of Aragon, about the education of Christian women.
- Introductio ad sapientiam (1524) - An introduction to wisdom.
- Satellitium sive symbola (1524)
- De subventione pauperum. Sive de humanis necessitatibus libri II (1525) - Deals with the problem of poverty.
- De Europae dissidiis et Republica (1526)
- De Europae dissidiis et bello Turcico (1526)
- De conditione vitae Christianorum sub Turca (1526)
- De concordia et discordia in humano genere (1529)
- De pacificatione (1529)
- Quam misera esset vita Christianorum sub Turca (1529)
- De disciplinis libri XX (1531) - A large work about different subjects, including how arts were corrupted and how to teach them.
- De consultatione liber unus (1533) - A work on how to make good decisions.
- In quartum rhetoricorum ad Herennium praelectio (1533) - An introduction to the Rhetoric to Herennius.
- De ratione dicendi (1533) - A unique approach to public speaking.
- De conscribendis epistolis (1534) - A book on how to write letters.
- De anima et vita (1538) - About the soul and life.
- Linguae Latinae exercitatio (1538) - Exercises for the Latin language.
- De Europae statu ac tumultibus - A message to the Pope asking for peace among Christian leaders.
- De veritate fidei Christianae (1543) - About the truth of the Christian faith.
See also
In Spanish: Juan Luis Vives para niños
