Modern philosophy will determine the scope of one's use of "modern philosophy." How much of Renaissance intellectual history is part of modern philosophy is disputed: the Early Renaissance is often considered less modern and more medieval compared to the later High Renaissance. By the 17th and 18th centuries the major figures in philosophy of mind, epistemology, and metaphysics were roughly divided into two main groups. The "Rationalists," mostly in France and Germany, argued all knowledge must begin from certain "innate ideas" in the mind. Major rationalists were Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz, and Nicolas Malebranche. The "Empiricists," by contrast, held that knowledge
Philosophy encyclopedia Philosophy encyclopedia A philosophy encyclopedia is a comprehensive reference work that seeks to make available to the reader a number of articles on the subject of philosophy. Many paper and online encyclopedias of philosophy have been written, with encyclopedias in general dating back to the 1st century AD with Pliny the Elder's "Naturalis Historia". The "Encyclopédie" was a French encyclopedia edited by the philosopher and art critic Denis Diderot and the scientist, mathematician, and philosopher Jean le Rond d'Alembert. It was compiled by a group of intellectuals called the "Encyclopédistes" and includes, in addition to Diderot and d'Alembert, the famous