School

Modern philosophy

Western philosophy from Descartes and Spinoza to the present, and its questions about mind, knowledge and God.

Also called Modern Western philosophy

Introduction

Modern philosophy is the name usually given to Western philosophy from the seventeenth century onward, beginning with Descartes. It is not a single school but a long conversation, marked by a turn to the knowing subject: the question of what we can know, and how, moved to the centre, and with it the question of how the mind is related to the body and the world.

Its main currents include the rationalism of Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, the empiricism of Locke and Hume, Kant’s critical philosophy and the idealism that followed it, and in the twentieth century analytic philosophy, phenomenology and pragmatism. Its debates about consciousness, knowledge, God and religious experience bear directly on the claims of the contemplative traditions.

This Library includes modern philosophers chiefly where their work meets those traditions: Spinoza’s philosophy of the one substance and the intellectual love of God, and William James’s study of religious and mystical experience.

History

Historical

Descartes’ Meditations of 1641 sought a foundation for knowledge in the certainty of the thinking self, and divided reality into mind and matter. Spinoza answered with a philosophy of one substance, God or Nature, of which mind and body are aspects; his Ethics appeared after his death in 1677. Locke, Berkeley and Hume grounded knowledge in experience, and Hume’s scepticism challenged the arguments of natural theology.

Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781) argued that knowledge is limited to possible experience, and that God, freedom and the soul lie beyond theoretical knowledge. The idealists, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, sought to overcome these limits, and drew in part on Spinoza and the mystics. In the nineteenth century, Schopenhauer read the Upaniṣads and Buddhist texts, and the comparative study of religion began.

In the twentieth century, pragmatism, phenomenology and analytic philosophy each took up the questions of mind and religion in new ways. Since the 1990s, the philosophy of consciousness has become one of the liveliest fields, and dialogue with Indian, Buddhist and Chinese philosophy has grown.

1641Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy
1677Spinoza’s Ethics is published after his death
1781Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason
1890William James’s Principles of Psychology
1902James’s Varieties of Religious Experience
1990sThe philosophy of consciousness becomes a central field

Major thinkers

Key concepts

Important texts

Convergence and divergence

Resemblance and difference, given equal room. Each note is marked with the kind of statement it makes.

Areas of convergence

Unity, with Advaita Vedānta
Scholarship
Spinoza’s one substance and the idealists’ Absolute have often been compared with Brahman, the one reality of Advaita.

Areas of divergence

Epistemology, with Advaita Vedānta
Scholarship
Modern philosophy usually seeks knowledge by reason and experience alone; Advaita holds that the ultimate is known only through scripture and realization.

Cite this entry

Chicago (bibliography): “Modern philosophy.” Tradition. The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society. Last modified November 7, 2026. https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/traditions/modern-philosophy.
Chicago (note): “Modern philosophy,” tradition, The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, last modified November 7, 2026, https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/traditions/modern-philosophy.
MLA: “Modern philosophy.” The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, 7 Nov. 2026, www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/traditions/modern-philosophy.
BibTeX: @misc{traditions-modern-philosophy, title = {{Modern philosophy}}, howpublished = {The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society}, note = {Tradition. Last modified November 7, 2026}, year = {2026}, url = {https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/traditions/modern-philosophy} }

Schools and branches

German IdealismMovementThe philosophy of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, which sought to overcome Kant’s division between the knower and the Absolute.