As taught in every classroom and echoed in every official philosophical narrative, Kant (1724 ‐ 1804) is usually portrayed as a ‘giant of philosophy’. The never married, isolated, reclusive, ‘cannot be bothered to have children’ sophist, who never travelled and knew nothing of the world of work or reality, is hailed as a great Copernican-confirmer, another of the Enlightenment’s luminous orbs of rationalism. The revisionist historians paint the recluse as a happy, sociable chap. Contemporary accounts express the opposite viewpoint.

In the standard narrative, apparently no one before Kant and the self-proclaimed Enlighteners, had thought about morality, physics, science, reason, life or the soul. In this vein we should never underestimate the powerful impact of the printing press (1440). The ease of publication, distribution and the forced necessity of literacy, allowed such propaganda to take root. The narrative was and is, that before the 17th century all was dark.

This claim is fiction of course. Relativity for example, was discussed by the schoolmen in the first universities during the 12th century (at Chartres for example). By the time Galileo and friends were taught physics, the laws of inertia and motion were already well understood, not to mention astronomy and advanced geometry. You have to be incredibly naive to believe that Newton et al conjured their theories and experiments out of nothing.  More here