First lectures on History of Western Philosophy

The epoch we were talking about was Renaissance, which differs to the modern one. Christianity had a very important role at that time. The culture of modern times is more lay than clerical. The Church started being replaced as the governmental authority that control the culture. The feudal aristocracy which was able to hold its own against central governments, started losing its political and then economical importance.

According to Wikipedia Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historic era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not uniform across Europe, this is a general use of the term. As a cultural movement, it encompassed a resurgence of learning based on classical sources, the development of linear perspective in painting, and gradual but widespread educational reform.

Florance was the strongest and the richest city in Italy. The reformations took place there, as it was a modern city with kings and nobels. Theybelieved that philosophy, maths and medicine was more important than religion. Therefore, they tried to convince people to believe in science rather than in the Bible because Philosophers made more sense.

We also talked about Russell. He was a liberal. His main work was in mathematics. He was a specialist in demostrating the logical basis.

A term SYLLOGISM is a kind of logical argument in which one proposition (the conclusion) is inferred from two others (the premises) of a certain form.

eg.

All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
Therefore, Socrates is mortal