Responding to the needs of an increasingly secularized and educated populace, the philosophical tradition since the Renaissance has shifted dramatically away from that of the preceding centuries. Concerned more with rationality, human nature, and human interaction with society and the world than the theological questions of the Middle Ages, contemporary philosophy has advanced study of the limits of the human mind. This insightful volume traces the evolution of present-day Western philosophy and the diverging methods of inquiry that continue to inform a wide range of disciplines.