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The Rationalists: Discourse on Method/Meditations; Ethics; Discourse on Metaphysics the Monadology
The Rationalists Discourse on Method/Meditations Ethics Discourse on Metaphysics the Monadology Author:Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz In the middle years of the seventeenth century, philosophy sprang forward into what is generally called its modern era. The motivating mind behind the revolution in metaphysical thought was that of Rene Descartes. When he introduced the approach of "Cartesian doubt" he brought to philosophy not only a new spirit but a new method, and thereby fou... more »nded the first "school" of the modern age: Rationalism. The rationalists--in contrast to the empiricists--believed that in order to discover the nature of things one need only apply reason to the problem; that is, if you take indubitable premises and operate on them logically, you can infer everything there is to know. Contained in this volume are the five works, complete, that present the essential statements of rationalism's three greatest figures: Descartes, who began it; Spinoza, who epitomized it; and Leibniz, who gave it its last serious expression.« less