During the Renaissance, advancements in all areas and disciplines were nothing short of quantum leaps out of the depths of medievalism into the heights of human potential. The list of giants who enriched the world during the Renaissance is an impressive who's who of genius: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Galileo, Christopher Columbus, and Shakespeare, to name just a few.

And not only the mind of man was expanded. The New World was discovered, leading to unprecedented economic potential and a race to exploit the natural resources of paradise, forever to the detriment of the natives.

Neoplatonism ruled, for the second time since the original Plato philosophized. Greater contact with the Byzantine Empire and the Far East allowed for increased exposure to the ancient classics by the Europeans. More of these texts survived in the East, having been spared the destructive barbarian hordes and the draconian censorship of the emerging Church.

The philosophy of Aristotle and his followers received renewed interest, as did that of the Stoics, the Epicureans, the Atomists, and just about every famous philosophy from the philosophical golden age. There was little in the way of a new philosophical movement during the Renaissance. The intellectual genesis that was the Renaissance was imbued with the classical concepts, and as it grew and reached maturity, Western thinkers began to proffer bold new visions about mankind, the universe, and our place therein.