Modern Philosophy

Modern Philosophy is a philosophical movement in Western Europe and North America in the 17th to 20th centuries. It consists of many thoughts and doctrines, but many share common threads. It is disputed how much of the Renaissance is included.

Modern philosophy traditionally begins with Rene Descartes and his dictum "I think, therefore I am."

The major players in philosophy of mind, epistemology, and metaphysics during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are divided into two main groups:

The Rationalists assumed that all knowledge must begin from certain "innate ideas" in the mind. Major Rationalists were: Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz and Nicolas Malebranche

The Empiricists held that knowledge must begin with sensory experience. Major Empiricists were: John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume.

Big political philosophers of Modern Philosophy included Thomas Hobbs and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

In an attempt to bring unity to Rationalism and Empiricism, Immanuel Kant inspired the German Idealism movement. The characteristic theme of idealism was that the world and the mind equally must be understood according to the same categories. Karl Marx appropriated both Hegel's philosophy of history and the empirical ethics dominant in Britain, transforming Hegel's ideas into a strictly materialist form, to be used as a tool for revolution.