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
Vincent Descombes the University of Chicago. Descombes was a member of the French libertarian socialist group Socialisme ou Barbarie. Vincent Descombes Vincent Descombes (; born 1943) is a French philosopher. His major work has been in the philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. Descombes is particularly noted for a lengthy critique in two volumes of the project he calls cognitivism, and which is, roughly, the view current in philosophy of mind that mental and psychological facts can ultimately be treated as, or reduced to, physical facts about the brain. Descombes has also written an introduction to modern French philosophy ("Le même