Early modern philosophy Early modern philosophy Early modern philosophy (also classical modern philosophy) is a period in the history of philosophy at the beginning or overlapping with the period known as modern philosophy. The early modern period in history is roughly 1500–1789, but the label "early modern philosophy" is usually used to refer to a more specific period of time. In the narrowest sense, the term is used to refer principally to the philosophy of the 17th century, posited to have begun with René Descartes; to have included Thomas Hobbes, Blaise Pascal, Baruch Spinoza; and to have ended with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and
Freud and Philosophy psychoanalysts or psychologists would accept them. The critic Frederick Crews commented in "Out of My System" (1975) that "school of suspicion" was an apt term for Ricœur's grouping of Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. The philosopher Vincent Descombes noted in "Modern French Philosophy" (1979) that "Freud and Philosophy" led to "polemic between the Lacanians" and Ricœur. John B. Thompson described "Freud and Philosophy" as a "well-known and justly acclaimed study of Freud" in his introduction to Ricœur's "Hermeneutics and the human sciences" (1981). He compared Ricœur's views to Lacan's, writing that despite differences between the two, both accepted the "irreducible role