- Modern Philosophy

Catalog description

Thinkers such as Rene Descartes, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant are currently referred to so often, in so many different contexts, that their names have been transformed into immediately recognizable adjectives (Cartesian, Humean, Kantian). But what did these philosophers actually believe? And why did they believe it? This course is an intermediate-level survey of western philosophy from their period (now known as the “Early Modern” or “Modern” era, which runs roughly from 1600-1800). While these and other thinkers (such as Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, and Berkeley) in this era dealt with a wide variety of subjects, we will focus mostly on their contributions to epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind. We will address their writings with three different aims: a) to appreciate the sense in which they were, at one time, fresh and radical; b) to understand how, for better or for worse, they set the foundation for much of the modern—western, anyway—worldview; and c) to determine if what they say is either true or false.