ABSTRACT
This chapter explores what might be described as a significant turning point in Western thought. During the Renaissance and subsequent to it there was a revolution in the European outlook as the temporal power of the Christian Church diminished. Machiavelli was one of the first writers in pre-modern Europe to make a conscious attempt to describe a world in which Fortuna could be made subservient to virtu. The chapter highlights some themes that would become fundamentally important for the modern age, post Machiavelli, and are evident in his deliberations on Fortuna and virtu. The Renaissance, and the subsequent Cartesian transition, have equal significance for a world dominated by Western modernity, and for its most powerful extension, the ideology of rationalism. The chapter concludes with a short section on the departure point chosen by many for the investigation of western modernity and its leitmotif of rationalism, namely Rene Descartes.
