The previous section ended with Rene Descartes, who is often considered the first modern philosopher. I do not agree with this consensus. Instead, I consider him the last of the old guard, because of his tendency to give in to the religious zealots of his time. Evidence for my contention can be found in the opening pages of his First Mediation, where he defends the the church's use of circular logic, despite his own keen awareness of the fallacy. Descartes was a prisoner of the past, not a harbiginer of the future.
It is my contention that true philosophers attest to life, not death. They live in the now, and not for a putative hereafter. They seek truth, even to their own detriment, and are not tools of the church or state. By removing Descartes, I can present to you a group of philosophers and psychologists who are all true iconoclasts, seekers of truth who refused to bow to the demands of the state. They are men of the mind, as Ayn Rand would say. Most importantly, they are, as a group, nearly eubillient in the idea that all the mysteries of the world can be solved rationally and scientifically.
Two new modes of thought would drastically and forever change the way mankind would investigate the world around him.
Positivism: The contention that science should study only that which can be directly experienced. This would eventually even be applied to the study of man, by the radical behaviorists.
Empiricism: Sensory experience is the way of knowledge, all Knowledge comes from it, and all subsequent intellectual processes derive from it.
An examintion of this period of time would be incomplete without a presentation of the rationalist philosophers. The term is somewhat of a misnomer, as these thinkers, Spinoza, Voltaire, could be nearly as positivist and empirical as the sensationalists. However, rationalist philosophers tend to stress a more active, less mechanistic mind. They also give greater credence to innate mental structures. Rejecting life, as seen by the empiricists, as automata, the rationalists postulated an active mind that possessed innate knowledge (Nativism), moral principles, and logical deduction.
Lastly, in general, they favor the value of logical deduction over empiricism.
Spinoza, unsurprisingly, perhaps represents a synthesis of both of these views.
British Empiricists and French Sensationalists
The Rationalists