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Rationalism
True knowledge starts from reason’s own clear ideas, deducing the world from axioms like geometry.
Descartes doubted away everything doubtable and rebuilt knowledge on the cogito; Spinoza wrote ethics in Euclid’s format, deducing God, mind and freedom from definitions and axioms; Leibniz had infinite monads each mirroring the whole universe. The three shared one conviction: the senses deceive, and only the clear ideas reason carries within itself are reliable. The line collided head-on with empiricism across the Channel, and the century-long standoff finally forced Kant onto a third road.
Who belongs to it
🔍Descartes1596–1650French Philosopher and Mathematician, Proposer of "I Think, Therefore I Am," Father of Modern Philosophy🔮Spinoza1632–1677Dutch Philosopher, Representative of Pantheism and Rationalist Ethics➕Leibniz1646–1716German Philosopher and Mathematician, Proposer of the Monadology and the "Best of All Possible Worlds"