- Modern Philosophy from Descartes to Kant

Catalog description

An introduction to major thinkers and themes of seventeenth and eighteenth-century Europe. The dynamics of the Scientific Revolution, the collection of new discoveries and inventions, and the evolving experimental methods in the early modern period led philosophers to a profound reappraisal of fundamental issues, such as the sources and limits of knowledge, the relation between mind and body, theories of human freedom and personal identity, and the apparently competing desires to explain the surrounding world in both natural and religious terms. Students will investigate how these philosophical developments led to distinctively modern ways of thinking about nature and the self. Primary documents will be read throughout.