 First, the humanist study of Stoicism, Epicureanism, skepticism, and Neoplatonism widened the philosophical horizon and eroded faith in the universal truth of Aristotelian philosophy—an essential preparatory stage for the rise of early modern thought. In Valla’s day, Aristotle was still “the Philosopher,” and scholastics put considerable effort into explaining his words. Valla attacks what he sees as the ipse dixit attitude of the scholastics. For him, a true philosopher does not follow a single master but instead says whatever he thinks. Referring to Pythagoras’ modest claim that he was a not a wise man but a lover of wisdom (Repastinatio, 1:1; DD 1:2), Valla maintains that he does not belong to any sect (including that of the skeptics) and wants to retain his independence as critical thinker. What the scholastics forget, he thinks, is that there were many alternatives in antiquity to the supposedly great master, many sects, and many other types of philosopher. In criticizing Aristotle’s natural philosophy, for instance, he gave vent to a sentiment which ultimately eroded faith in the Aristotelian system. This does not, however, mean that he was developing a non-Aristotelian natural philosophy; his rejection of Aristotle’s account of nature was primarily motivated by religious and linguistic considerations. Indeed, Valla’s insistence on common linguistic usage, combined with his appeal to common sense and his religious fervor, seems at times to foster a fideism that is at odds with an exploratory attitude towards the natural world. But with hindsight we can say that any undermining of the faith in the exclusiveness of the scholastic-Aristotelian worldview contributed to its demise and, ultimately, to its replacement by a different, mechanistic one. And although the humanist polemic was only one factor among many others, its role in this process was by no means negligible. Likewise, in attacking Peripatetic moral philosophy, Valla showed that there were alternatives to the Aristotelian paradigm, even though his use of Epicureanism and Stoicism was rhetorical rather than historical.