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The Renaissance is regarded as one of the most significant times in human history, reflecting a major transition from the medieval to the modern world. This period, which lasted roughly from the middle of the fourteenth century to the beginning of the seventeenth century, was one of intense, all-encompassing, and, in many respects, unique philosophical activity.

The essential assumption of the Renaissance movement was that the ruins of ancient antiquity constituted an irreplaceable source of perfection to which degraded and decadent modern times may turn in order to heal the damage caused by the fall of the Roman Empire. It was often assumed that God had given a single unified truth to humanity and that the works of ancient philosophers had preserved part of this original deposit of divine wisdom. This idea not only laid the foundation for a scholarly culture that was centered on ancient texts and their interpretation, but also fostered an approach to textual interpretation that strove to harmonize and reconcile divergent philosophical accounts. One of the most prominent characteristics of Renaissance philosophy, fueled by newly available texts, was a growing interest in primary sources of Greek and Roman thinking that were previously unknown or underutilized. The revived study of Neoplatonism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Skepticism undermined faith in Aristotelian philosophy's universal truth and broadened the philosophical scope, giving a fertile ground for the slow emergence of modern science and philosophy.

Humanism

Maria Pico della Mirandola

Humanism, a radical shift in perspective, was central principle of Renaissance. It sprang from the rediscovery of classical Greek and Roman texts, emphasizing the individual's dignity, worth, and potential. The humanist movement did not eliminate older approaches to philosophy, but contributed to change them in important ways, providing new information and new methods to the field. Humanists called for a radical change of philosophy and uncovered older texts that multiplied and hardened current philosophical discord. Some of the most salient features of humanist reform are the accurate study of texts in the original languages, the preference for ancient authors and commentators over medieval ones, and the avoidance of technical language in the interest of moral suasion and accessibility. Humanists stressed moral philosophy as the branch of philosophical studies that best met their needs. They addressed a general audience in an accessible manner and aimed to bring about an increase in public and private virtue. Regarding philosophy as a discipline allied to history, rhetoric, and philology, they expressed little interest in metaphysical or epistemological questions. Logic was subordinated to rhetoric and reshaped to serve the purposes of persuasion. Figures like Petrarch, Erasmus, and Pico della Mirandola exemplified this humanistic spirit, advocating for the pursuit of knowledge and the cultivation of virtue.

Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374) was a fundamental figure in the humanist movement. In De sui ipsius et multorum aliorum ignorantia (On His Own Ignorance and That of Many Others), he developed what would become the basic critique of Scholastic philosophy. One of his key criticisms of Scholastic Aristotelianism is that it is pointless and inefficient in reaching the good life. Furthermore, clinging to a single authority when all others are untrustworthy is simply dumb. He specifically targeted Averroes, Aristotle's commentator, and contemporary Aristotelians who agreed with him as anti-Christian. Petrarca returned to a vision of philosophy founded in the classical tradition, and since then, when professional humanists developed an interest in philosophy, they nearly invariably concerned themselves with ethical questions. Among those he influenced were Coluccio Salutati (1331–1406), Leonardo Bruni (c.1370–1444) and Poggio Bracciolini (1380–1459), all of whom promoted humanistic learning in distinctive ways.

Throughout the fifteenth and early sixteenth century, humanists were unanimous in their condemnation of university education and their contempt for Scholastic logic. Humanists such as Valla and Rudolph Agricola (1443–1485), whose main work is De inventione dialectica (On Dialectical Invention, 1479), set about to replace the Scholastic curriculum, based on syllogism and disputation, with a treatment of logic oriented toward the use of persuasion and topics, a technique of verbal association aiming at the invention and organization of material for arguments. According to Valla and Agricola, language is primarily a vehicle for communication and debate, and consequently arguments should be evaluated in terms of how effective and useful they are rather than in terms of formal validity. Accordingly, they subsumed the study of the Aristotelian theory of inference under a broader range of forms of argumentation. This approach was taken up and developed in various directions by later humanists, such as Mario Nizolio (1488–1567), Juan Luis Vives (1493–1540), and Petrus Ramus (1515–1572).

Humanism also supported Christian reform. The most important Christian humanist was the Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus (c.1466–1536). He was hostile to Scholasticism, which he did not consider a proper basis for Christian life, and put his erudition at the service of religion by promoting learned piety (docta pietas). In 1503, he published Enchiridion militis christiani (Handbook of the Christian Soldier), a guide to the Christian life addressed to laymen in need of spiritual guidance, in which he developed the concept of a philosophia Christi. His most famous work is Moriae encomium (The Praise of Folly), a satirical monologue first published in 1511 that touches upon a variety of social, political, intellectual, and religious issues. In 1524, he published De libero arbitrio (On Free Will), an open attack a one central doctrine of Martin Luther’s theology: that the human will is enslaved by sin. Erasmus’s analysis hinges on the interpretation of relevant biblical and patristic passages and reaches the conclusion that the human will is extremely weak, but able, with the help of divine grace, to choose the path of salvation.

Aristotelianism

Renaissance philosophy emphasized increased access to previously unknown literature from ancient Greece and Rome. The increased study of Aristotle, however, was not due to the unearthing of undiscovered books, but rather to a fresh interest in texts long translated into Latin but less studied, such as the Poetics, and particularly novel approaches to well-known texts. Humanists dedicated a significant amount of time and work to making Aristotelian writings clearer and more accurate beginning in the early 15th century. To rediscover the meaning of Aristotle's philosophy, they updated Scholastic translations of his writings, read them in the original Greek, and examined them using philological methods. The availability of these new interpretative tools had a great impact on the philosophical debate. Moreover, in the four decades after 1490, the Aristotelian interpretations of Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius, Ammonius, Philoponus, Simplicius, and other Greek commentators were added to the views of Arabic and medieval commentators, stimulating new solutions to Aristotelian problems and leading to a wide variety of interpretations of Aristotle in the Renaissance period.

Pietro Pomponazzi

The most powerful tradition, at least in Italy, held that Averroes' books were the best key to understanding Aristotle's true thinking. Averroes was most known for his idea of intellectual oneness. Among the supporters of his notion that there is only one intellect for all human beings are Paul of Venice (d. 1429), who is considered as the foundational figure of Renaissance Averroism, Alessandro Achillini (1463-1512), and the Jewish philosopher Elijah del Medigo (1458-1493). Nicoletto Vernia (d. 1499) and Agostino Nifo (c. 1469-1538) were two other Renaissance Aristotelians who spent a significant amount of their philosophical energies explaining Averroes' works. Initially, they were defenders of Averroes' theory of the unity of the intellect, but as loyal followers of Averroes as a guide to Aristotle, they became careful students of the Greek commentators, and in their later thought, both Vernia and Nifo attacked Averroes as a misleading interpreter of Aristotle, believing that personal immortality could be philosophically proven.

Many Renaissance Aristotelians read Aristotle for scientific or secular purposes, with no particular interest in religious or theological issues. Pietro Pomponazzi (1462-1525), one of the most famous and influential Aristotelian philosophers of the Renaissance, based his ideas totally on natural philosophy. Pomponazzi argued in De immortalitate animae (Treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, 1516), drawing on the Aristotelian text, that proof of the intellect's ability to survive the death of the body must be found in an intellectual activity that functions independently of the body. According to him, such activity cannot exist since the ultimate intellectual activity, the attainment of universals in cognition, is always mediated by sense perception. Therefore, based solely on philosophical premises and Aristotelian principles, the conclusion is that the entire soul dies with the body.

Platonism

During the Renaissance, it became possible to take a broader perspective on philosophy than the old Peripatetic framework allowed. No ancient revival had a greater impact on philosophical history than Platonism's resurgence. Platonism's rich doctrinal depth and formal elegance established it as a viable challenger to the Peripatetic tradition. Renaissance Platonism was a product of humanism, and it indicated a stronger departure from medieval philosophy. Many Christians saw Platonic philosophy as safer and more appealing than Aristotelianism. Many Renaissance Platonists found inspiration in the Neoplatonic concept of philosophy as a means of unification with God. The Platonic dialogues were seen as sacred secrets to be solved, rather than as profane works to be taken literally.

Benozzo Gozzoli, Pletone, Cappella dei Magi

Platonism was introduced to Italy by Byzantine scholar George Gemistos Plethon (c.1360-1454), who delivered a series of lectures during the Council of Florence in 1439, which he later recast as De differentiis Aristotelis et Platonis (The Differences Between Aristotle and Plato). This study, which compared the two philosophers' doctrines (to Aristotle's considerable disadvantage), sparked a debate about Plato and Aristotle's relative merit. In the treatise In calumniatorem Platonis (Against the Calumniator of Plato), Cardinal Bessarion (1403-1472) defended Plethon against the charge leveled against his philosophy by the Aristotelian George of Trebizond (1396-1472), who in Comparatio philosophorum Aristotelis et Platonis (A Comparison of the Philosophers Aristotle and Plato) had maintained that Platonism was unchristian and actually a new religion.

The most important Renaissance Platonist was Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499), who translated Plato’s works into Latin and wrote commentaries on several of them. He also translated and commented on Plotinus’s Enneads and translated treatises and commentaries by Porphyry, Iamblichus, Proclus, Synesius, and other Neoplatonists. He considered Plato as part of a long tradition of ancient theology (prisca theologia) that was inaugurated by Hermes and Zoroaster, culminated with Plato, and continued with Plotinus and the other Neoplatonists. Like the ancient Neoplatonists, Ficino assimilated Aristotelian physics and metaphysics and adapted them to Platonic purposes.

Platonic elements were particularly important in the thought of Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), who attributed his philosophical activities to the Neoplatonic tradition and authors such as Proclus and Pseudo-Dionysius. The underlying issue running across his works is how humans, as finite created beings, may conceive about the infinite and transcendent God. His best-known work, De docta ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance, 1440), expresses his belief that the human mind must recognize its own necessary ignorance of what God is like, an ignorance caused by the ontological and cognitive disparity between God and the finite human knower. The theory of God's coincidence of opposites is closely related to that of learned ignorance. All things coincide in God in the sense that God, as undifferentiated being, is beyond all opposition.

The doctrine of Platonic love was one of the most significant barriers to Platonism's reception and adoption in the early fifteenth century. Many scholars simply couldn't accept Plato's open handling of homosexuality. However, by the middle of the sixteenth century, this idea had become one of the most widely accepted aspects of Platonic philosophy. The transition of Platonic love from an immoral and offensive liability to a beneficial asset marks a watershed moment in Plato's resurgence as a key influence on Western philosophy throughout the Renaissance.

Bessarion and Ficino did not deny that Platonic love was essentially homosexual in outlook, but they insisted that it was entirely honourable and chaste. To reinforce this point, they associated Platonic discussions of love with those found in the Bible. Another way in which Ficino made Platonic love more palatable to his contemporaries was to emphasise its place within an elaborate system of Neoplatonic metaphysics. But Ficino’s efforts to accommodate the theory to the values of a fifteenth-century audience did not include concealing or denying that Platonic love was homoerotic. Ficino completely accepted the idea that Platonic love involved a chaste relationship between men and endorsed the belief that the soul’s spiritual ascent to ultimate beauty was fuelled by love between men.

Hellenistic Philosophies

Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Skepticism saw a renaissance during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as part of the increasing recovery of ancient literature and ideas. The rebirth of Stoicism began with Petrarca, who pursued two routes. The first was influenced by Seneca and consisted in the portrayal of a way of life in writings such as De vita solitaria (The Life of Solitude) and De otio religioso (On Religious Leisure) that combined the cultivation of scholastic work with ethical excellence.

While many humanists agreed with Petrarca on the importance of Stoic moral theory, others questioned its strict precepts. They accused the Stoics of suppressing all emotions and condemned their viewpoint for being inhumanely strict. In contrast to the Stoics' harsh ethical attitude, they embraced the more moderate Peripatetic perspective, saying that it provides a more practical basis for morality by placing the attainment of virtue within the reach of normal human abilities. Another Stoic doctrine that was frequently attacked on religious grounds was the belief that the wise man is completely responsible for his own happiness and does not require supernatural intervention.

Justus Lipsius by Peter Paul Rubens

The most important exponent of Stoicism during the Renaissance was the Flemish humanist Justus Lipsius (1547–1606), who worked hard to brighten the appeal of Stoicism to Christians. His first Neostoic work was De constantia (On Constancy, 1584), in which he promoted Stoic moral philosophy as a refuge from the horrors of the civil and religious wars that ravaged the continent at the time.

Epicureanism was connected with contemptuous atheism and hedonistic dissipation in the Middle Ages. In 1417, Bracciolini discovered Lucretius' poem De rerum natura, the most informative source on Epicurean teaching, which, along with Ambrogio Traversari's translation of Diogenes Laertius's Life of Epicurus into Latin, contributed to a more discriminating appraisal of Epicurean doctrine and a rejection of the traditional prejudice against Epicurus himself. In a letter published in 1428, Francesco Filelfo (1398-1481) claimed that, contrary to common belief, Epicurus was not "addicted to pleasure, lewd and lascivious," but rather "sober, learned and venerable." Cosma Raimondi (d. 1436) passionately maintained Epicurus and the position that the supreme good consists in pleasure both of the mind and the body.

The revival of ancient philosophy was particularly dramatic in the case of Skepticism, whose revitalisation grew out of many of the currents of Renaissance thought and contributed to make the problem of knowledge crucial for early modern philosophy. The major ancient texts stating the Skeptical arguments were slightly known in the Middle Ages. It was in the fifteenth and sixteenth century that Sextus Empiricus’s Outlines of Pyrrhonism and Against the Mathematicians, Cicero’s Academica, and Diogenes Laertius’s Life of Pyrrho started to receive serious philosophical consideration.

Individualism

The concept of individualism emerged during the Renaissance through a renewed focus on human potential and self-expression.

During the Renaissance, a cultural movement that spanned the 14th to the 17th century, there was a significant shift in the way people viewed themselves and their place in the world. This period, often referred to as the 'rebirth' of classical knowledge, saw a resurgence of interest in the humanistic philosophy of ancient Greece and Rome. This philosophy placed a high value on the individual and their capacity for self-expression, self-determination, and self-improvement.

The concept of individualism was further reinforced by the socio-economic changes of the time. The rise of a wealthy and powerful middle class, particularly in the Italian city-states, led to an increased emphasis on individual achievement and personal success. This was a marked departure from the feudal system of the Middle Ages, where one's status was largely determined by birth and the collective identity of the family or clan was paramount.

Lucas Cranach I - Martin Luther (1529), St. Anna in Augsburg

In the realm of art and literature, the Renaissance saw a shift away from the religious and communal themes of the Middle Ages towards more personal and secular subjects. Artists and writers began to explore the complexities of the human condition and the individual's relationship with the world around them. This was reflected in the development of portraiture and autobiography as popular genres, as well as the use of perspective in painting, which allowed for a more individualised representation of the world.

Individualism emerged throughout the Renaissance, motivated in part by the period's religious upheaval. The Protestant Reformation, led by Martin Luther and John Calvin, attacked the Catholic Church's authority and advocated for a personal relationship with God. This stressed the value of the individual and their particular faith.

The concept of individualism originated during the Renaissance as a result of a number of reasons, including revived interest in humanistic philosophy, socioeconomic shifts, advances in art and literature, and religious upheaval. This signified a dramatic shift in how individuals perceived themselves and their place in the world, establishing the framework for today's concept of the individual.