Joan Lluis Vives Spanish theologian, philosopher, humanist and educator. Date of Birth: 06.03.1492 Country: Spain

Biography of Juan Luis Vives

Juan Luis Vives was a Spanish theologian, philosopher, humanist, and educator. He was born into a converted Christian Jewish family, and many of his close relatives faced persecution from the Inquisition. Perhaps as a result, Vives left his homeland at a young age. This is evident in his strongly orthodox late treatise, "Defense of the Christian Faith."

Vives studied in Paris and lived and taught in England and Flanders, making him more closely associated with the European humanist movement than with Spain. He held the chair of Latin at the University of Leuven and, upon the recommendation of Thomas More, obtained a chair at Oxford. He served as a reader to Catherine of Aragon and wrote educational treatises for Mary Tudor. After the fall of Catherine of Aragon, he returned to Bruges.

Juan Luis Vives was the author of approximately 60 works in Latin. He had friendly relations with Erasmus of Rotterdam and Thomas More. He criticized scholastic teaching and believed that knowledge was based on observation and experimentation. In many ways, he anticipated Francis Bacon's empirical method. Vives paved new paths in psychology, particularly in his work "On the Soul and Life" (1538), which laid the foundations for the scientific understanding of emotions, memory, and language. Among his many pedagogical ideas, his treatises on the education of children and women stand out, as well as his reflections on the school of mutual learning for people of different ages and genders. His dialogues for teaching Latin to boys are marked by brilliance and elegance.

The basis of Vives' philosophical system was Aristotelianism. He considered the main question to be not what the soul is, but rather its manifestations. He extensively studied the question of idea association and the nature of memory. Vives' works influenced Jan Amos Comenius, as well as Ignatius of Loyola and his theory of Jesuit education. The further development of Vives' ideas can be seen in the works of Spanish materialist philosopher, J. Ortega.