Early Modern PhilosophyIntroduction |
Who were the main early modern philosophers? |
The customary division is between the rationalists and the empiricists. René Descartes (1596–1650), Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716), Benedict de Spinoza (1632–1677), and Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715) are usually listed as the epistemological rationalists, Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) and John Locke (1632–1704) as the empiricists. However, for a more complete picture, Francisco Suárez (1548–1617) should be counted among the rationalists and Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) among the empiricists.