Descartes was born in La Haye en Touraine (now Descartes), Indre-et-Loire, France. When he was one year old, his mother Jeanne Brochard died. His father Joachim was a member of the Parlement of Brittany at Rennes.[9] In 1606 or 1607 he entered the JesuitCollège Royal Henry-Le-Grand at La Flèche[10] where he was introduced to mathematics and physics, including Galileo's work.[11] After graduation in December 1616, he studied at the University of Poitiers, earning a Baccalauréat and Licence in law, in accordance with his father's wishes that he should become a lawyer.[12]
In his book, Discourse On The Method, he says "I entirely abandoned the study of letters. Resolving to seek no knowledge other than that of which could be found in myself or else in the great book of the world, I spent the rest of my youth traveling, visiting courts and armies, mixing with people of diverse temperaments and ranks, gathering various experiences, testing myself in the situations which fortune offered me, and at all times reflecting upon whatever came my way so as to derive some profit from it."
Given his ambition to become a professional military officer, Descartes joined the Army of Breda under the command of Maurice of Nassau in the Dutch Republic, and undertook a formal study of military engineering, as established by Simon Stevin. Descartes therefore received much encouragement in Breda to advance his knowledge of mathematics.[13] In this way he became acquainted with Isaac Beeckman, principal of Dordrecht school. Beeckman had proposed a difficult mathematical problem, and to his astonishment, it was the young Descartes who found the solution. Both believed that it was necessary to create a method that thoroughly linked mathematics and physics.[14] While in the service of the Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, Descartes was present at the Battle of the White Mountain outside Prague, in November 1620.[15]

ولد سبينوزا في عام 1632م في أمستردام، هولندا، لعائلة برتغالية من أصل يهودي تنتمي إلى طائفة المارنيين. فقد كان والداه يهوديين هاجرا من البرتغال. اضطر كثير من يهود شبه جزيرة أيبريا (أسبانيا والبرتغال) إلى الهجرة لكثير من دول غرب أوروبا هروبًا من اضطهاد السلطات هناك. وفي البداية اضطروا إلى اعتناق المسيحية، أما بعد أن وجدوا مناخًا متسامحًا في هولندا فقد عادوا مرة أخرى إلى اليهودية. كان والده تاجرا ناجحًا في أمستردام، ولكنه متزمت للدين اليهودي وبالإضافة إلى تجارته تولى كثيرًا من المناصب الدينية في المجتمع اليهودي هناك، بل وعددًا من المهام التدريسية المنصبة على تعاليم التلمود.[1]
كانت تربية باروخ اورثودوكسية، ولكن طبيعته الناقدة والمتعطّشة للمعرفة وضعته في صراع مع المجتمع اليهودي. درس العبريةوالتلمود في يشيفا (مدرسة يهودية) من 1639 حتى 1650م. في آخر دراسته كتب تعليقا على التلمود. وفي صيف 1656 نُبذ سبينوزا من أهله ومن الجالية اليهودية في أمستردام بسبب ادّعائه أن الله يكمن في الطبيعة والكون، وأن النصوص الدينية هي عبارة عن استعارات ومجازات غايتها أن تعرّف بطبيعة اللهّ. بعد ذلك بوقت قصير حاول أحد المتعصبين للدين طعنه.
كان سبينوزا تلميذًا نجيبًا وموهوبًا، وتلقى تعليمًا دينيًا في مدرسة الجالية اليهودية بأمستردام، وعلى الرغم من تعمقه في دراسة التوراة والتلمود، إلا أنه لم يتم إعداده ليصبح كاهنًا يهوديًا كما اعتقد الكثير من كتّاب سيرته. بعد وفاة أبيه تولى أخوه الأكبر شئون تجارته، وعندما مات هذا الأخ، وقع على عتق سبينوزا إدارة الشركة التجارية التي تركها الأب، لكن لم تكن لسبينوزا مواهب تجارية ولم تكن شئون المال والأعمال من اهتماماته، ولذلك أهمل التجارة حتى تراكمت الديون وتوقفت الشركة عن نشاطها. وعلى الرغم من ذلك فقد حصل سبينوزا على قليل من مال أبيه مكّنه من إكمال دراسته، وعندما لم يكفي الميراث لمتطلبات حياته، انشغل في عمل ذي طابع نادر في تلك الآونة وهو صنع العدسات الطبية، وعمل فيها من 1656 حتى 1660 ويبدو أن هذه المهنة كانت هي الوحيدة التي شدت انتباه سبينوزا وكانت متفقة مع ميوله، إذ كانت مهنة ذات طابع علمي تعتمد على جانب نظري متعلق بعلم البصريات وجانب عملي يعتمد على العلم التجريبي والخبرة المعملية.[2]
وفي عام 1660 حتى عام 1663 أسّس حلقة فكر مع أصدقاءٍ له وكتب نصوصه الأولى. ومن عام 1663 حتى 1670 أقام في بوسبرج وبعد نشر كتابه رسالة في اللاهوت والسياسة سنة 1670 ذهب ليستقرّ في لاهاي حيث اِشتغل كمستشار سرّي لجون دو ويت. في سنة 1676 تلقّى زيارة من الفيلسوف الألماني "لايبنيتز". ويعتبر كتابه الأخلاق الذي الفه سنة 1677 من أهم الكتب المؤثرة في الفلسفة الغربية[3], والذي عارض فيه ثنائية العقل-الجسد للفليسوف رينيه ديكارت. توفّي سبينوزا في 21 فبراير ـ شباط 1677 وهو بعمر 44 نتيجة أصابته بمرض رئوي ربما السل أو السحار السيليسي بسبب غبار تنعيم العدسات
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Baruch de Espinoza was born on 24 November 1632 in the Jodenbuurt in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He was the second son of Miguel de Espinoza, a successful, although not wealthy, Portuguese Sephardic Jewish merchant in Amsterdam.[23] His mother, Ana Débora, Miguel's second wife, died when Baruch was only six years old.[24] Spinoza's mother tongue was Portuguese, although he also knew Hebrew, Spanish, Dutch, perhaps French, and later Latin.[25] Although he wrote in Latin, Spinoza learned Latin late in his youth.
Spinoza had a traditional Jewish upbringing, attending the Keter Torah yeshiva of the Amsterdam Talmud Torah congregation headed by the learned and traditional senior Rabbi Saul Levi Morteira. His teachers also included the less traditional Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel, "a man of wide learning and secular interests, a friend of Vossius, Grotius, and Rembrandt".[26] While presumably a star pupil, and perhaps considered as a potential rabbi, Spinoza never reached the advanced study of the Torah in the upper levels of the curriculum.[27] Instead, at the age of 17, after the death of his elder brother, Isaac, he cut short his formal studies in order to begin working in the family importing business.[27]
In 1653, at age 20, Spinoza began studying Latin with Frances van den Enden (Franciscus van den Enden), a notorious free thinker, former Jesuit, and radical democrat who likely introduced Spinoza to scholastic and modern philosophy, including that of Descartes.[28] (A decade later, in the early 1660s, Van den Enden was considered to be a Cartesian and atheist,[29] and his books were put on the Catholic Index of Banned Books.)
Spinoza's father, Miguel, died in 1654 when Spinoza was 21. He duly recited Kaddish, the Jewish prayer of mourning, for eleven months as required by Jewish law.[30] When his sister Rebekah disputed his inheritance, he took her to court to establish his claim, won his case, but then renounced his claim in her favor

غوتفريد فيلهيلم لايبنتز
(بالألمانية: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz) (لايبزغ 1 يوليو (21 يونيو أو. إس.)، 1646 - 14 نوفمبر 1716 في هانوفر). هو فيلسوف وعالم طبيعة وعالم رياضيات ودبلوماسي ومكتبي ومحام ألماني الجنسية.
يشغل لايبنتز موقعاً هاماً في تاريخ الرياضيات و تاريخ الفلسفة. أسس لاينتز علم التفاضل و التكامل الرياضياتي و بشكل مستقل عن إسحق نيوتن، كما أن رموزه الرياضياتية ما زالت تُستخدم و بشكل شائع منذ أن تم نشرها و التعريف بها. قوانينه تلك كـ "قانون الاستمراية" و "قانون التجانس الفائق" كشفت بُعد نظره و لم يتم العمل بها رياضياتياً حتى القرن العشرين. كما أنه كان أحد أكبر منتجي الآلات الحاسبة الميكانيكية، و بينما كان يعمل على إضافة عمليتي الضرب و القسمة لحسّابة باسكال، كان الأول في التعريف بآلة الحساب الدولابية الهوائية، كما أنه اخترع "عجلة لايبنتز" و التي استُخدمت في المتر الحسابي و هو أول آلة حاسبة تم صنعها و إنتاجها بشكل تجاري، كما أنه عدّل النظام الرقمي الثنائي و هو النظام التي تقوم عليه الحواسب الرقمية. أما ما يخص الفلسفة، فقد عُرف عن لايبنتز "تفاؤله" كاستنتاجه بأن هذا الكون هو أكمل خلق لله بحيث لا يمكن أن يوجد أكمل منه. كما أنه كان، بالإضافة إلى رينيه ديكارت و باروخ سبينوزا، أحد أعمدة الفلسفة العقلانية خلال القرن السابع عشر الميلادي. عمله الفلسفي مهد الطريق للمنطق الحديث و الفلسفة التحليلية، و لكنه كان أيضا متعلقاً بإرث الفلسفة المدرسية القروسطية و التي يقوم الاستنتاج -أو الاستنباط- فيها من خلال استعمال العقل و العمل به على المبادئ الأولية و البديهيات و ليس على الدليل التجريبي. قام لايبنتز بمساهمات كبيرة في علم الفيزياء و التقنية كما أنه تنبأ بأفكار ظهرت لاحقاً على أسطح الفلسفة، نظرية الاحتمال، البيولوجيا، الطب، علم الأرض، علم النفس، اللغويات، و علم المعلومات. ألف في الفلسفة، السياسة، القانون، الأخلاق، اللاهوت، التاريخ، و فلسفة اللغة. هذه المساهمات العريضة كانت منشورة و متوزعة ما بين دوريات و عشرات الآلاف من الرسائل و المخطوطات. كتب بلغات عدة أهمها اللاتينية، الفرنسية، و الألمانية.
مات ابوه عام 1652 وهو في سن ستة سنوات.
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Gottfried Leibniz was born on July 1, 1646 (near the 1648 end of the Thirty Years' War), in Leipzig, Saxony, to Friedrich Leibniz and Catharina Schmuck. Friedrich noted in his family journal:
In English:
His father died when Leibniz was six years old, and from that point on he was raised by his mother. Her teachings influenced Leibniz's philosophical thoughts in his later life.
Leibniz's father had been a Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Leipzig and the boy inherited his father's personal library. He was given free access to it from the age of seven. While Leibniz's schoolwork focused on a small canon of authorities, his father's library enabled him to study a wide variety of advanced philosophical and theological works – ones that he would not have otherwise been able to read until his college years.[11] Access to his father's library, largely written in Latin, also led to his proficiency in the Latin language, which he achieved by the age of 12. He also composed three hundred hexameters of Latin verse in a single morning for a special event at school at the age of 13.[12]
He enrolled in his father's former university at age 15,[13] and completed his bachelor's degree in philosophy in December 1662. He defended his Disputatio Metaphysica de Principio Individui, which addressed the principle of individuation, on June 9, 1663. Leibniz earned his master's degree in philosophy on February 7, 1664. He published and defended a dissertation Specimen Quaestionum Philosophicarum ex Jure collectarum, arguing for both a theoretical and a pedagogical relationship between philosophy and law, in December 1664. After one year of legal studies, he was awarded his bachelor's degree in Law on September 28, 1665.[citation needed]
In 1666, at age 20, Leibniz wrote his first book, On the Art of Combinations, the first part of which was also his habilitation thesis in philosophy.[14] His next goal was to earn his license and doctorate in Law, which normally required three years of study. In 1666, the University of Leipzig turned down Leibniz's doctoral application and refused to grant him a doctorate in law, most likely due to his relative youth.[15][16] Leibniz subsequently left Leipzig.[17]
Leibniz then enrolled in the University of Altdorf, and almost immediately he submitted a thesis, which he had probably been working on earlier in Leipzig.[18] The title of his thesis was Disputatio Inauguralis De Casibus Perplexis In Jure. Leibniz earned his license to practice law and his Doctorate in Law in November 1666. He next declined the offer of an academic appointment at Altdorf, saying that "my thoughts were turned in an entirely different direction".[19]
As an adult, Leibniz often introduced himself as "Gottfried von Leibniz". Many posthumously published editions of his writings presented his name on the title page as "Freiherr G. W. von Leibniz." However, no document has ever been found from any contemporary government that stated his appointment to any form of nobility.[

2- المذهب التجريبي / و رواد هذا المذهب هم :
- جون لوك ....يتم الأم منذ الطفولة المبكرة ويتم الأب بعد سنوات قليلة.

جون لوك
(29 أغسطس 1632 - 28 أكتوبر 1704) (بالإنجليزية: John Locke) هو فيلسوف تجريبي ومفكر سياسي إنجليزي. ولد في عام 1632 في رنجتون Wringiton في إقليم سومرست وتعلم في مدرسة وستمنستر، ثم في كلية كنيسة المسيح في جامعة أوكسفورد، حيث انتخب طالباً مدى الحياة، لكن هذا اللقب سحب منه في عام 1684 بأمر من الملك. وبسبب كراهيته لعدم التسامح البيورتياني عند اللاهوتيين في هذه الكلية، لم ينخرط في سلك رجال الدين. وبدلاً من ذلك اخذ في دراسة الطب ومارس التجريب العلمي، حتى عرف باسم (دكتور لوك).
(درس جون لوك في كرايست تشيرش ، في أكسفورد ، وأصبح طبيباً ومستشاراً للايرال أوف شافتسبري . ثم تحّول إلى الفلسفة ، فأنتج طوال فترة عملية غير قصيرة مؤلفاً قيِّماً في موضوع المشكلات التي يستطيع الفهم البشري التعاطي بها .
وقد تولى لوك عدداً من المناصب الحكومية ، ولكنه فقد حظوته لما نُفي شافتسبري عام ١٦٨٣م ، ولكن الملك وليام الثالث من إنكلترا رحّب بعودته ، وعيّنه مستشاراً للحكومة في ميدان سكّ النقد ).
وفي عام 1667 أصبح طبيباً خاصاً لأسرة أنتوني آشلي كوبر (1621-1683) الذي صار فيما بعد الإيرل الأول لشافتسبري، ووزيراً للعدل، ولعب دوراً خطيراً في الأحداث السياسية العظيمة التي وقعت في إنجلترا ما بين ســنة 1660 وسنة 1680. لعبت علاقة لوك باللورد آشلي دوراً كبيراً في نظرياته السياسية الليبرالية. وكان اللورد آشلي يتمتع بنفوذ كبير في إنجلترا إذ كان يمثل المصالح السياسية لرؤوس الأموال التجارية في لندن، وتحت تأثير اللورد آشلي كتب لوك في عام 1667 مقالاً خاصاً بالتسامح (On Toleration) راجع فيه أفكاره القديمة الخاصة بإمكانية تنظيم الدولة لكل شؤون الكنيسة.

John Locke
biography & philosophy

Étienne Bonnot, known to posterity as the abbé de Condillac, was born in Grenoble on 30 September 1714. He was the youngest child of a large family. His parents both came from families of lawyers and officials which entered the noblesse de robe in the early eighteenth century. The noblesse de robe was an aristocracy built on the purchase of offices under the monarchy. Such offices could be very expensive to purchase. In 1705, Gabriel Bonnot, Étienne’s father, paid 10,000 livres for that of Secretary of the King in the Court of the Parlement of the Dauphiné, which brought him noble rank with the title vicomte de Mably. Local importance, tax exemptions, freedom from having soldiers billeted on one’s household, and the income from fees payable to such officeholders all made such investments worthwhile. For the monarchy it brought desperately needed short-term income and an opportunity to recruit fresh talent.
Gabriel Bonnot amassed a fortune through this and other posts such as receiver of tailles—the main land and personal tax—and as registrar of births, etc., for the Oisan; he was also a royal castellan, though jealousy probably forced him to resign the latter two offices in 1714. He invested heavily in royal stock and in land: it has been calculated that he invested more than 85,000 livres in government stock, and, significantly, he seems to have reached the peak of his fortune in 1720. In 1719 he bought the domain of Mably for 300,000 livres and the following year that of Condillac, near Romans.
Gabriel Bonnot died in September 1726 leaving his wife and dependent children comfortably off, despite losses in his investment income following the collapse of Law’s system. Each son was bequeathed the sum of 25,000 livres on attaining the age of twenty-five. Their mother also held a life interest in annuities in their names. The income from both these sources, reckoned at 1,300 livres a year, would have given Condillac a modest competence. It also meant that he was not to be forced into the Church as a younger son whose family lacked means.
At his father’s death Étienne was nearly twelve years old and, according to the 1836 Encyclopédie des gens du monde, unable to read because his very weak eyesight had forbidden study. The same source states that he then began his studies under a good curé and learnt fast. On 29 August 1728 Étienne acted as proxy godfather to his sister Anne’s firstborn. The baptismal certificate is interesting as the first record of his using the title de Condillac, marking him out as a noble.2 Condillac’s eldest brother Jean was known as M. de Mably from 1727 at least, and his brother Gabriel became famous as the abbé de Mab

Born in Edinburgh, Hume spent his childhood at Ninewells, the family's modest estate on the Whitadder River in the border lowlands near Berwick. His father died just after David's second birthday, “leaving me, with an elder brother and a sister under the care of our Mother, a woman of singular Merit, who, though young and handsome, devoted herself to the rearing and educating of her Children.” (All quotations in this section are from Hume's autobiographical essay, “My Own life”, reprinted in HL.)
Katherine Falconer Hume realized that young David was “uncommonly wake-minded” — precocious, in her lowland dialect — so when his brother went up to Edinburgh University, David, not yet twelve, joined him. He read widely in history and literature, as well as ancient and modern philosophy, and also studied some mathematics and contemporary science.
Hume's family thought him suited for a career in the law, but he preferred reading classical authors, especially Cicero, whose Offices became his secular substitute for The Whole Duty of Man and his family's strict Calvinism. Pursuing the goal of becoming “a Scholar & Philosopher,” he followed a rigorous program of reading and reflection for three years until “there seem'd to be open'd up to me a New Scene of Thought.”

ولِدَ تشارلز ساندرز بيرس في العاشر من شهر سبتمبر عام ١٨۳۹، في كامبريدج، ماساتشوستس، حيث كان والده، بنجامين بيرس، أستاذًا جامعيًّا في علم الفلك والرياضيات بجامعة هارفارد. وكان تشارلز الابن الثاني من بين ثلاثة أبناء ذكور، وكانت له شقيقة صغرى. كانت والدته، سارة هانت ميلز، ابنة سيناتور قوي النفوذ، وكانت العائلة تحتل مكانة مرموقة في مجتمع نيو إنجلاند.
- وقد عانى بيرس نفس مأساة جون ستيوارت ميل، فقد علمه والده وأثقل كاهله بافتراض تمتع ابنه بالعبقرية.
-وقد ورث بيرس عبئًا آخر أكبر تمثل في ألم العصب الثلاثي التوائِم (ألم الوجه المزمن العشوائي)، علاوة على كونه أعسر. ولكنه تغلب على كونه أعسر بنجاح.

Peirce was born at 3 Phillips Place in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was the son of Sarah Hunt Mills and Benjamin Peirce, himself a professor of astronomy and mathematics at Harvard University and perhaps the first serious research mathematician in America. At age 12, Charles read his older brother's copy of Richard Whately's Elements of Logic, then the leading English-language text on the subject. So began his lifelong fascination with logic and reasoning.[13] He went on to earn the B.A. and M.A. from Harvard; in 1863 the Lawrence Scientific School awarded him a B.Sc. that was Harvard's first summa cum laude chemistry degree;[14] and otherwise his academic record was undistinguished.[15] At Harvard, he began lifelong friendships with Francis Ellingwood Abbot, Chauncey Wright, and William James.[16] One of his Harvard instructors, Charles William Eliot, formed an unfavorable opinion of Peirce. This opinion proved fateful, because Eliot, while President of Harvard 1869–1909—a period encompassing nearly all of Peirce's working life—repeatedly vetoed Harvard's employing Peirce in any capacity.[17]
Peirce suffered from his late teens onward from a nervous condition then known as "facial neuralgia", which would today be diagnosed as trigeminal neuralgia. Brent says that when in the throes of its pain "he was, at first, almost stupefied, and then aloof, cold, depressed, extremely suspicious, impatient of the slightest crossing, and subject to violent outbursts of temper". Its consequences may have led to the social isolation which made his life's later years so tragic.