The Rationalists

Rene Descartes (1596–1650), the French philosopher and mathematician, is regarded as the founder of modern philosophy.

Benedict de Spinoza (1632–1677) was born in Amsterdam, where his orthodox Jewish family had fled to from persecution in Portugal. Expelled from the synagogue for his heterodox philosophy, he identified God with nature and denied the possibility of an act of creation.

Gottfried Wilhelm Von Leibniz (1646–1716) was a German philosopher, mathematician, and political adviser, renowned for his work as a metaphysician and as a logician, and distinguished also for his independent invention of differential and integral calculus.