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
The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature the superior wisdom of philosophy". His thesis advisor was his fellow Young Hegelian and personal friend, Bruno Bauer. 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