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
The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life him, that he found his ethics within a pluralist meta-ethics. James, William: "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life" -- "International Journal of Ethics", volume 1, number 3 (April 1891), pp. 330–354 (Available via JSTOR) The essay was also featured in: The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life" was an essay by the philosopher William James, which he first delivered as a lecture to the Yale Philosophical Club, in 1891. It was later included in the collection, "The Will to Believe and other Essays in Popular Philosophy." He drew a distinction between three