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Michel de Montaigne was born on February 28, 1533, at the Château de Montaigne, near Bordeaux, France. His family was minor nobility and Montaigne studied law and served as counselor at the Bordeaux Parliament. He retired in 1571 to work on a series of philosophical essays, which were published in 1575 and for which he is best known. Montaigne also served as mayor of Bordeaux from 1581 to 1585.
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Francis Bacon was born on January 22, 1561 in London, England. Bacon served as attorney general and Lord Chancellor of England, resigning amid charges of corruption. His more valuable work was philosophical. Bacon took up Aristotelian ideas, arguing for an empirical, inductive approach, known as the scientific method, which is the foundation of modern scientific inquiry.
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English writer who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson was a devout Anglican and committed Tory.
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English essayist. The son of a reform-mindeed Unitarian minister, he abandoned the idea of entering the clergy and took up painting, philosophy, and later journalism.
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