Modern philosophy will determine the scope of one's use of "modern philosophy." How much of Renaissance intellectual history is part of modern philosophy is disputed: the Early Renaissance is often considered less modern and more medieval compared to the later High Renaissance. By the 17th and 18th centuries the major figures in philosophy of mind, epistemology, and metaphysics were roughly divided into two main groups. The "Rationalists," mostly in France and Germany, argued all knowledge must begin from certain "innate ideas" in the mind. Major rationalists were Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz, and Nicolas Malebranche. The "Empiricists," by contrast, held that knowledge
Modern philosophy themselves as "analytic" departments. The term generally refers to a broad philosophical tradition characterized by an emphasis on clarity and argument (often achieved via modern formal logic and analysis of language) and a respect for the natural sciences. Various philosophical movements in Asia arose in the modern period including: Modern philosophy Modern philosophy is philosophy developed in the modern era and associated with modernity. It is not a specific doctrine or school (and thus should not be confused with "Modernism"), although there are certain assumptions common to much of it, which helps to distinguish it from earlier philosophy. The 17th