The Renaissance

Renaissance is a French term that equates to rebirth. In so doing, the term accurately depicts the intellectual, scientific, and economic changes that occurred in Europe after the Dark Ages lasting through the sixteenth century. Within the Renaissance the rebirth of classical Greek ideals helped turn in new directions art, society, science, and thought. Curiosity and objectivity about the world asserted the importance of individualism which would lead to humanism. From such a view, it was felt that ration and trained thought as perpetrated by Platonic ideals were the highest goal to which man could aspire. For rational thought and virtuous behavior would lead to the highest development of the soul, not pious preaching or devout worship of idols.

The Renaissance to this day represents one of the greatest periods of transformation in the arts, culture, and sciences of Western civilization. The main developments of the Renaissance include a revival of antiquity (art, literature, and theories of Graeco-Roman paganism), a revival of learning, humanism, and the increasingly secular nature of life. There was also an explosion of creativity in the fine arts and the cultivation of the arts. There was a growth in individualism in both private and public life, while scientific and philosophical boundaries were expanded. New social, political, and economic institutions arose based in part on the new view of humanity and the world. The Renaissance

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may be demonstrating the limits of the human and rational thought to reveal all of the mysteries of existence, but his argument that we cannot know if the soul is immortal certainly flies in the face of religious arguments of the medieval era that try to prove its immortality. Rational thought and the use of the intellect to determine such answers is still quite characteristic of Renaissance thoughts and writings. So, too, it is apparent in the sciences and arts. With respect to the sciences, medicine began to advance during the Renaissance. In the report of the Paris medical faculty from 1348, we see an attempt at explaining the causes of the plague. In this explanation of causes we see that there are primary and secondary causes. One such cause advanced as a reason is labeled the universal and distant cause. In their explanation of this causative factor of the plague, we can see the medical faculty wrestling with Greek ideas of science as well as modern notions of mortality and immortality. The alignment of planets is provided as one of the reasons bringing about such a life-robbing plague to mankind: "In 1345, at one hour after noon on 20 March, there was a major conjunction of three planets in Aquarius...Aristotle test

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