Western philosophy is part of modern philosophy is disputed. The term "modern philosophy" has multiple usages. For example, Thomas Hobbes is sometimes considered the first modern philosopher because he applied a systematic method to political philosophy. By contrast, René Descartes is often considered the first modern philosopher because he grounded his philosophy in problems of "knowledge", rather than problems of metaphysics. Modern philosophy and especially Enlightenment philosophy is distinguished by its increasing independence from traditional authorities such as the Church, academia, and Aristotelianism; a new focus on the foundations of knowledge and metaphysical system-building; and the emergence of modern physics out of
20th-century French philosophy highly influenced by biology, particularly Darwin's "Origin of Species", which was released the year of Bergson's birth. This led Bergson to discuss the 'Body' and 'Self' in detail, arguably prompting the fundamental ontological and epistemological questions to be raised later in the 20th century. Bergson's work was a major influence on Gilles Deleuze, who wrote a monograph on him ("Bergsonism") and whose philosophical analyses of cinema ("" and "") develop his ideas. Following debates concerning the foundation of mathematics around the mathematician and philosopher Henri Poincaré (1854–1912), who opposed Bertrand Russell and Frege, various French philosophers started working on philosophy