The Early modern philosophy reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Early modern philosophy

Early modern philosophy is generally regarded as the period in philosophy that starts with the seventeenth revolution of the seventeenth century, and ends with the Enlightenment era.

The main theme of the period is the rise of the Cartesian method in philosophy, and the subsequent decline of the Scholastic method. It is often characterised in terms of the conflict between the competing schools of Rationalism as represented by Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza, and Empiricism, represented by Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley and Hume, though this may be a simplification.

References (to follow)

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