After Reading a couple of works by Descartes (XVI century), I am now reading "Three Books of Occult Philosophy" by Cornelius Agrippa (around 1530). The difference in mindset and worldview is enormous. It seems that in around one hundred years, philosophy went from a discipline without any method but repeating what ancients had written, with no regard for experience, to something almost similar to our current thought process.
For example, Agrippa is convinced that the eyes of a mongoose will grow again after being gorged out, and that a piece of cloth kept in its cage while the animal regains its eyes is very helpful on curing eye diseases. This is a colorful example but his book is full of statements that can be disproved by a simple experiment that would take you almost no effort (like gorging a mongoose's eyes and NOT watching them grow again, poor little animal). He just didn't think of testing his claims. I understand he might now have had access to a mongoose, but there are many other claims that anyone could have checked on the spot.
What happened in this hundred years? What philosophers or works should I read to bridge this period?
