Far earlier than the Reformation, the pre-Socratics were the first to think and reason about their surroundings and selves independent of theology/mythology. They discovered a way of looking at a complex world with rational simplicity, and applied that to society.

Three generations later, single actors speak as individuals apart from the chorus for the first time (individuals driving drama, as opposed to a shared fate), and democracy begins as an institution governed by individual votes and citizen jurisprudence.

In the most general sense, the Reformation is an analogue: with the rejection of ecclesiastical hierarchy, individuals were free to consider themselves and their place in the world, on reason alone.

For Enlightenment philosophers who examined the unchecked power and limitations of the human individual, David Hume is a good first read.

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