Western philosophy is part of modern philosophy is disputed. The term "modern philosophy" has multiple usages. For example, Thomas Hobbes is sometimes considered the first modern philosopher because he applied a systematic method to political philosophy. By contrast, René Descartes is often considered the first modern philosopher because he grounded his philosophy in problems of "knowledge", rather than problems of metaphysics. Modern philosophy and especially Enlightenment philosophy is distinguished by its increasing independence from traditional authorities such as the Church, academia, and Aristotelianism; a new focus on the foundations of knowledge and metaphysical system-building; and the emergence of modern physics out of
Warren Goldfarb Warren Goldfarb Warren David Goldfarb (born 1949) is a philosopher and mathematician with a specialization in the history of analytic philosophy and in logic, most notably his work on the classical decision problem (see his book on the subject, "The decision problem: Solvable classes of quantificational formulas", with Burton Dreben). He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he is now Walter Beverly Pearson Professor of Modern Mathematics and Mathematical Logic in the Department of Philosophy. He has been on the Harvard faculty since 1975, and was tenured in 1982, the only philosopher to be promoted to tenure at Harvard