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Renaissance philosophy is the period of the history of philosophy in Europe that falls roughly between the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment. It includes the 15th century; some scholars extend it to as early as the 1350s or as late as the 16th century or early 17th century, overlapping the Reformation and the early modern era. Among the distinctive elements of Renaissance philosophy are the revival (renaissance means "rebirth") of classical civilization and learning; a partial return to the authority of Plato over Aristotle, who had come to dominate later medieval philosophy; and, among some philosophers, enthusiasm for the occult and Hermeticism. As with all periods, there is a wide drift of dates, reasons for categorization and boundaries. In particular, the Renaissance, more than later periods, is thought to begin in Italy with the Italian Renaissance and roll through Europe. The English Renaissance is often thought to include Shakespeare, at a time when Italy had passed through Mannerism and to the Baroque. As importantly the 16th century is split differently (see lumpers and splitters). Some historians see the Reformation and Counter-Reformation as being separated from the Renaissance and more important for philosophy, while others see the entire era as one sweeping period.
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History
The Renaissance as a movement is described as the reaching back for classical models in Medieval Europe, the search for naturalism over stylism in Art, the reemergence of mathematics as intimately related to philosophy. The triggers generally held to be important are the expansion of trade with China and India, the printing press, and the revival of learning. Greek was studied again in Italy in the mid 14th century, and in 1462 a "Platonic Academy" was founded in Florence by Cosimo de' Medici. Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) wrote Oratio de Hominis Dignitate or Discourse on the Dignity of Man in 1486. Sometimes called "the manifesto of the Renaissance", it invokes Plato and Aristotle to argue for a conception of human worth which, while rooted in faith, spreads to a belief in the importance of the human ability to encompass all knowledge. The word now used for one of the most important threads of the Renaissance is "humanism" -- that is, an increasing focus on the temporal and personal over merely seeing this world as a gateway to the Christian afterlife.
List of famous philosophers from the Renaissance
- Petrarch (1304-1374)
- Leonardo Bruni (1374-1444)
- Lorenzo Valla (1405-1457)
- Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499)
- Pietro Pomponazzi (1462-1525)
- Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494)
- Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536)
- Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527)
- Thomas More (1478-1535)
- Francisco de Vitoria (c.1480–1546)
- Martin Luther (1483-1546)
- Juan Luis Vives (1492-1540)
- Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)
- Giordano Bruno (1548-1600)
- Francisco Suárez (1548-1617)
- Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
- René Descartes (1596-1650)
- Nicholas of Cusa (1401 – 1464)
- Tommaso Campanella (1568 – 1639)
- Franciscus Patricius (1529 - 1597)
- Hugo Grotius (1583-1645)
- Thomas Hobbes (1588 - 1679)
- Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531)
