The monograph presents a large-scale study of the French philosophical tradition of the classical era and the Enlightenment as a concentrated form of the national spirit of France. The origins and birth of French philosophy at the dawn of modern times, the classical era, which gave humanity continental rationalism, the Enlightenment, which captured European minds from Paris to St. Petersburg and prepared the Great French Revolution - these are the main stages in the development of one of the most important philosophical traditions for Western civilization. Peter Ramus and Montaigne, Descartes and Gassendi, Malebranche and Helvetius, Rousseau and Voltaire are names without which it is impossible to imagine modern Western culture. In this book, they all appear not just as a portrait gallery, but as a single family in which the modern world was nurtured.