Humanism was the defining school of thought of the Renaissance. This school of thought's emphasis on the individual and the power of people helps to explain the other artistic and academic accomplishments of the era. None of the other movements listed deal with the mentality of Renaissance Europe. Existentialism was developed in the 19th and 20th centuries. Pragmatism, stoicism, and mysticism are all ancient philosophies developed well before humanism.

Thomas Hobbes was one of the seventeenth century’s most influential political philosophers and a devoted advocate of the Scientific Revolution. Hobbes had a quite negative (even condemnatory) view of human nature, which leaps off the pages of his most famous work, Leviathan. In Leviathan, Hobbes, lays out his case for absolute monarchy, the best possible governmental system – or so Hobbes alleged. According to him, humans are by nature inherently selfish, destructively chaotic, and incurably violent creatures (more animalistic than humanistic). This human condition couldn’t be cured or overcome and so, without adequate control and supervision, humans quickly descend into outright bloody confrontation. The best possible cure for this affliction? An absolute monarch, whose strict control, iron grip on every piece of economic and social machinery, and complete monopoly on the use of force could compel obedience, security, and order amongst people. Any other form of government, Hobbes warned, wouldn’t be strong enough to keep the peace and before too long, violence and chaos would again break out. The best ruler, in Hobbes’ view, was the strongest, most ruthless, most absolute, one who could command, and claim, unquestioning obedience.

Seventeenth century political philosopher John Locke disagreed with his contemporary Thomas Hobbes in basically every way possible. While Hobbes was a staunch defender of absolute monarchy, Locke vehemently championed a system of limited government. According to Locke, any proper government (aka a limited one) existed for one fundamental purpose: the protection of private property. Humans, in Locke’s view, were innately free, rational, and decent individuals who only needed government to play a mediatory role in their lives. In order to ensure optimal living conditions, therefore, humans would enter into a consensual social contract, in which they handed over a bit of their natural freedoms to a leader who in turn promised to protect their belongings, mediate disputes, and otherwise safeguard their lives. Locke took his ideas one step further – in a truly revolutionary claim, he asserted that just governments were predicated on trust between the people and their leader. If this trust was violated (perhaps by the leader’s failure to protect property or his attempt to become a tyrant), the people were fully justified – and even morally obligated – to rise up in rebellion and overthrow their current ruler. This last idea was truly shocking and it would reverberate through history more dramatically and influentially than any other of Locke’s many brilliant ideas.

Blaise Pascal was a seventeenth century French scientist, mathematician, and philosopher whose commitment to the rigors and principles of the Scientific Revolution was unwavering. A wealthy man, Pascal voluntarily rid himself of all his luxurious possessions and properties in order to pursue an unencumbered life pursuing scientific research and rational thought. Inspired by the current climate of clashes between religious thinkers and proponents of science, Pascal decided to embark on an ambitious project: he would attempt to reconcile faith and science and prove that their coexistence was possible. While Pascal never fully achieved this goal, his work Pensees (French for “Thoughts”) is truly a marvel of logical reasoning. Pascal singled out both religious zealots and avowed atheists, whom he assailed as being equally mentally closed off to the possibility that either side was correct. Instead, Pascal urged, any truly rational individual, should fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, embracing the possibility of a deity while also acknowledging the unknowability of the existence of a divine being. He was especially critical of scientists, whom he believed were far too optimistic and even deluded by their new knowledge. His final verdict was that religion seems to be a mentally positive influence on humanity and so should therefore be respected and protected.

The philosophy of Deism is rested in the belief in a “watchmaker God.” That is to say, a God that created the universe with a set of unbreakable natural laws and then sat back and no longer interfered in day-to-day affairs. It was widely embraced by enlightenment thinkers like Thomas Jefferson. It first emerged during the Scientific Revolution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The concept of Divine Right of Kings is most closely associated with the Sun King, Louis XIV. Louis XIV is famous for his declaration “I am the state!” The Divine Right of Kings was a prevailing political philosophy in Europe during much of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. It essentially states that the king is not answerable to parliament, the people, or the aristocracy. Instead the king draws his legitimacy from God.

John Locke would have agreed with all of these statements except the notion that mankind, when living in a state of nature, is barbaric and brutish. This is an idea that is credited to Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes and Locke are often contrasted against one another, Locke the prototypical liberal, Hobbes the prototypical conservative. And indeed there is much truth in this comparison. Locke believed that mankind existed peacefully in a state of nature, whereas Hobbes believed that mankind was wicked and brutish in a state of nature and that the role of government was to protect mankind from the worst excesses of its own nature. Hobbes believed an authoritarian government was vital to keep society from spiraling into chaos and bloodshed.

The Renaissance was a pan-European phenomenon triggered by a rediscovery of classical knowledge during the Crusades. The artistic accomplishments of the Renaissance in Italy are an important part of that phenomenon, but they do not accurately describe it on their own. The Renaissance is also not to be confused with the Middle Ages, the Reformation, or the Scientific Revolution.

The term “Westphalian Sovereignty” refers to the terms of the Peace of Westphalia which brought to an end the hostilities of the Thirty Years’ War. The Thirty Years’ War was one of the bloodiest and most brutal wars in European history. It was a complicated war with many phases and shifting alliances. It was primarily fought as a rivalry between Catholicism and Protestantism, and as a conflict between secular and religious authority. The term “Westphalian Sovereignty” is used to describe the principle of international law which states that each nation has exclusive sovereignty over its own territory and its own domestic affairs. This is a key concept in European international relations that, due to the spread of European nation-state construction, prevails around the world to this day.

The French philosopher and political thinker Baron de Montesquieu is most famous for his development of the idea of “separation of powers” in government. According to Montesquieu and his seminal text Spirit of the Laws, the best way to ensure against tyranny government is to maintain separate branches of government, each with their own particular area of authority and each able to check the power of the others. This theory is enshrined in the constitutions of many modern democracies, including the United States.