This chapter addresses early modern and modern philosophies that reclaim the power of the discipline following a thousand years in which philosophy occupied an ancillary position to theology. It focuses on attempts to rekindle the role of philosophy as defining the good life, it looks for the transformative power that a philosophical life may have in modern times, and identifies the obstacles that this objective may encounter. It introduces a new ideal of philosophic personal redemption, which emphasizes the individual’s capacity to be redeemed by their efforts alone, on earth, and during their lifespan. Two additional transformative ideals complete this chapter: the Romantic view of self-realization and the Rousseauian, phenomenological, and existentialist views of authenticity. Throughout this chapter, some themes have been underlined: the transformative epistemologies of early modern and modern philosophies have pointed to the vicissitudes of skepticism; attempts at self-transformation have regularly made use of humor as a philosophic tool that enables gradual transformation, and of laughter for a more radical one; and philosophy’s efforts to regain autonomy have disclosed the scope of Christianity’s hold also from the Renaissance to post-modernism, along additional factors that inhibit the full impact of transformative philosophy to be felt: such as the relation of philosophy to science and of mental health to virtue; the retreat of synoptic ethics and the loss of concern for human fulfillment; the exclusive emphasis on romantic love rather than on various philosophic impersonal and indiscriminate loves, including the love of wisdom; the tension between ethics and morality, sociability, and politics; the teaching of philosophy, and the intrinsic, yet valuable, limitations of philosophy to transform those who approach it.