French philosophy for René Descartes' oeuvre. Modern philosophy began in France with the philosophy of René Descartes (1596–1650). His "Meditations on First Philosophy" changed the primary object of philosophical thought from ontology to epistemology and overcame the Aristotelian dogmatism inherited in philosophy from Scholasticism, the dominant form of thought in preceding centuries, while simultaneously raising some of the most fundamental problems for future generations of philosophers. René Descartes was concerned with the uncertainty in the sciences and the radical scepticism which spread across Europe when publications of Sextus Empiricus became available. Descartes desired to find indubitable ground on which all the sciences
The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature () is a book written by the German philosopher Karl Marx as his university thesis. Completed in 1841, it was on the basis of this work that he earned his Ph.D. The thesis is a comparative study on atomism of Democritus and Epicurus on contingency and dedicated to Marx's friend, mentor, and future father-in-law Ludwig von Westphalen. It was described as "a daring and original piece of work in which Marx set out to show that theology must yield to