French philosophy French philosophy French philosophy, here taken to mean philosophy in the French language, has been extremely diverse and has influenced Western philosophy as a whole for centuries, from the medieval scholasticism of Peter Abelard, through the founding of modern philosophy by René Descartes, to 20th century philosophy of science, existentialism, phenomenology, structuralism, and postmodernism. Peter Abelard (1079 – April 21, 1142) was a scholastic philosopher, theologian and logician. The story of his affair with and love for Héloïse has become legendary. The "Chambers Biographical Dictionary" describes him as "the keenest thinker and boldest theologian of the 12th Century". The general
Theosophy and Western philosophy Theosophy and Western philosophy Modern Theosophy is classified by prominent representatives of Western philosophy as a "pantheistic philosophical-religious system." A Russian philosopher Vladimir Trefilov claimed that Blavatsky's doctrine was formed from the beginning as a synthesis of philosophical views and religious forms of the various ages and peoples with modern scientific ideas. An author of The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Michael Wakoff stated that Blavatskian Theosophy was based on Buddhist and Hindu philosophy, and fragments of the Western esotericism with using an "absolutist metaphysics." In "" it is said Blavatsky's Theosophy is an attempt to merge into a universal doctrine