French philosophy for René Descartes' oeuvre. Modern philosophy began in France with the philosophy of René Descartes (1596–1650). His "Meditations on First Philosophy" changed the primary object of philosophical thought from ontology to epistemology and overcame the Aristotelian dogmatism inherited in philosophy from Scholasticism, the dominant form of thought in preceding centuries, while simultaneously raising some of the most fundamental problems for future generations of philosophers. René Descartes was concerned with the uncertainty in the sciences and the radical scepticism which spread across Europe when publications of Sextus Empiricus became available. Descartes desired to find indubitable ground on which all the sciences
Islamic philosophy and religion. The social philosopher and Ash'ari polymath Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) was the last major Islamic philosopher from Tunis, North Africa. In his "Muqaddimah", he developed the earliest theories on social philosophy, in formulating theories of social cohesion and social conflict. His "Muqaddimah" was also the introduction to a seven volume analysis of universal history. Ibn Khaldun is considered the "father of sociology", "father of historiography", and "father of the philosophy of history" by some, for allegedly being the first to discuss the topics of sociology, historiography and the philosophy of history in detail. Islamic philosophy found an audience with