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
Georg Kohler (philosopher) Georg Kohler (philosopher) Georg Kohler (born in Konolfingen, Bern, Switzerland in 1945) is a Swiss Philosopher. He is a professor emeritus of Political Philosophy at University of Zurich. He is also a publicist and an author. He has written books on political philosophy and modern day Swiss politics and also collaborated with other writers including Hermann Lübbe. Kohler's early education was in grammar schools. He then studied philosophy at the university of Zurich. In 1978 he completed his Licentiate degree of Jurisprudenz (law) from the University of Zurich. Until 1980 he held the post of Assistant of Philosophical Seminars at