Philosophy by the Book

Sixteenth Century Philosophy

The revival of learning which characterised the period of the Renaissance grew apace in the sixteenth century as the full impact of the invention of the printing press took effect. The rediscovery of ancient Pyrrhonism was the catalyst for the reintroduction of scepticism in the West in works like Montaigne's Essais, while Copernicus' De revolutionibus began to send tremors through theological and natural philosophical circles. Indeed, the appearance of Copernicus' work is normally thought to herald the onset of the Scientific Revolution.

Scholasticism, a highly sophisticated and Christianised Aristotelianism, held sway as the philosophical orthodoxy, but the seeds of its downfall were beginning to sprout in the writings of the young Galileo Galilei and Francis Bacon.