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
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