 If he'd been a baker instead of a sculptor, would his name have been Donatello? For the last episode in this series on critical thinking, I've come to fiancé. Florence was the heart of the Italian Renaissance, a massive cultural upheaval that started in the 14th century and spanned almost 200 years. As with most things, many historians will be quick to point out that what actually happened was a series of complex and interconnected events that were causally inseparable from everything that came before and after, but it's pretty inarguable that a lot of stuff changed in Europe really quickly. Mathematics went from pre-algebra to algebraic geometry. Astronomy went from the geocentric model of the universe to observations of ellipsoidal motion of the planets. Physics went from heavier things fall faster than land things to has anyone actually tried that? And art went from this to this. The causes of this rapid change were many, but one of the most significant was the rediscovery and subsequent obsession with ancient Greek texts like Plato and Aristotle, which enshrined human reason as a sort of holy and infinitely powerful tool. For the ancient Greek philosophers, the mind was the organ of truth and understanding, a sort of mechanism for achieving a higher level of being. The logic of Aristotle and the rigor of Socrates were both simply means to that ends. And that's what I'd like to talk about here. What reason and rationality are actually full. There's a pervasive sentiment in our culture, a divide between thought and emotion. Stop me if you've heard any of this before. Being logical means not feeling. Rational choices are cold and impersonal. Absolute nonsense. Let me read you the actual definition of rationality. Rationality is the conformity of one's beliefs with one's reasons to believe, of one's actions with one's reasons for acting. Note some absences in that definition. Being rational doesn't mean being cold and impersonal. It doesn't mean not listening to your heart. It doesn't even mean preferring practicality or efficiency. Rationality is solely synchronizing our thoughts and beliefs with reality and acting in such a way that the things that we care about turn out the way that we want them to. It's simply the act of using thought to achieve goals. If you have goals, whether those goals are driven by desires of creativity or compassion or success or love, rationality is the best and the only reliable tool that you have to achieve them. That's why the Renaissance wasn't just a revolution in philosophy or mathematics, why rediscovering the ancient Greek adulation of human reason didn't just affect scientists like Galileo. The Renaissance was a rediscovery of the importance of learning and thought in everything, in art, literature, music, poetry. Look at Il Duomo di Taranzi. This is a masterpiece of artistic vision and architecture. It's totally free from the flying buttresses that were thought to be necessary for supporting such a structure at the time. And it's the result of Brunelleschi's intense calculation and invention. Look at Da Vinci's rigorous analysis of the human form, how he dissected it and sought to understand it better so that he could better realize his vision of painting it more realistically. Listen to this. Palastrianist Misape Marchelli. This is the result of two centuries of investigation and analysis in how to make different melodic lines work together in harmony. None of these advancements in the arts would have gotten off the ground without a cultural revitalization of the principles of critical thinking and reason. We would still be listening to Gregorian Chance today, which, although nice for a while, can start to get, well, monotonous. The practice of logic and rigor have never been divorced from the joyous celebration of every facet of life that the Italian Renaissance embodies. They always have been and still are an essential part of it. Rationality, more than anything, was what allowed the development of whole new means of expression and an explosion of creativity. It was also certainly involved in generating the infrastructure for it, like the reinvention of the printing press and incorporating mathematics into science. But it was also a crucial component of that expression itself. Ask any artist about the geometry of perspective and vanishing points, which first gained widespread use during the Renaissance. And it becomes painfully obvious that this artificial barrier that we've invented between making art and thinking hard about things is totally bankrupt. No matter what it is that you want to do, whether your goals are political or economic or hedonistic or whatever, reason is unquestionably the best tool that you have to find a path between the world as it is and the world as you want it to be. And practicing reason, developing your critical thinking skills and studying logic and rigor makes that path shorter and clearer. Right now, my path is leading to some authentic Italian pizza. Good thing I thought of that.