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
Andrew Pyle (philosopher) Andrew Pyle (philosopher) Andrew Pyle (born 17 March 1955) is a British philosopher on the history of philosophical atomism. Pyle is currently a Reader in Early Modern Philosophy at the University of Bristol, where he also received his doctorate. His dissertation was titled "Atomism and its Critics: Democritus to Newton". Pyle also writes on the history of science and has given talks within the university on the nature of science historically. Pyle is one of the editors of the "Continuum Encyclopedia of British Philosophy". In 2018, Bristol University held an all day conference honouring the thematic themes of Pyle's research