Campanella was first and foremost a social reformer, which is why he spent more than 30 years in prison. He was accused of both heresy and political conspiracy.
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Initially, he was inspired by Bernardino Telesio (1509-1588), although later differentiated his thinking. Telesio intended to study nature from his own principles, which for him were reduced to the action of heat and cold on the corporeal, moving away from this form both from Aristotle and from magic. Telesio affirmed the autonomy of nature and, consequently, the need to study it independent on metaphysics from the information provided by sensitive experience. It is observed in the thought of Telesio, some animist componenetes inspired by the presocratic .
Campanella, unlike Telesio, is a little closer to magic and animism. His theory of knowledge states that all knowledge derives from sensitivity and to it is reduced. So sensory knowledge provides absolute certainty and therefore does not require evidence of any kind. Scepticism does not make sense because there is an innate faculty in the soul that gives us undoubted principles, the first of the caules is that we exist, think, want and can. This knowledge of self smimos is budget in any knowledge of outer things. We know ourselves, first of all, and only know the outer things as we know each other modified or impressed by them. Campanella extends this awareness to all beings. Although it would be wrong to say that Campanella carries out a problematic approach to reality, we notice at this point similarity, with the ideas that will later develop Desartes.