(This is a revised version of the course I taught at Temple University in Winter 2009. The original syllabus is available in the PDF links to the right.)
Course Description
This class will be a lecture and discussion-based survey of the Early Modern period in philosophy. We will read from a number of key works of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Descartes and Kant will serve as the bookends for this course. Both of these philosophers can reasonably be seen as marking important transitions in the field, and the period between them is full of some of the most fascinating figures in the history of philosophy. Along with Descartes and Kant, we will read from the work of Locke, Leibniz and Hume. We will also read a brief excerpt from Galileo in considering the intellectual background to Early Modern philosophy. Throughout the course we will focus on the various attempts of these philosophers to secure the foundations of knowledge, along with their treatment of fundamental concepts such as substance and causality.
Objectives
- Become familiar with key philosophers and texts from the Early Modern period.
- Learn the general terminology and methods employed by these philosophers, as an aid to subsequent study of this period.
- Develop general philosophical skills: analyzing philosophical texts and defending positions in discussion and in writing.
Class Format
This class will involve a mix of lecturing and discussion. I will generally begin each session with a short lecture, but I strongly believe that students learn more when they are actively engaging with the material. To that end I will encourage discussion for a significant portion of each class.
Required Texts
- Ariew and Watkins (eds.), Modern Philosophy: An Anthology of Primary Sources (Hackett, 1998).
Evaluation
- 25 % First Paper (4-5 pages, due date to be announced)
- 60 % Second Paper (8-10 pages, due last day of class)
- 15 % Participation
There will be no final exam. The participation grade will be based on your involvement in class discussion, along with written comments. Students will submit these comments to me prior to each class. They should consist of a brief paragraph of your general thoughts on the reading for that class: what you find most significant or problematic, along with any questions you might have about what is going on in the text. These comments need not be well-polished pieces of writing, and I will not be grading them (although failure to submit comments will affect your participation grade). I’ll use your comments to keep track of how we are doing with the readings and to ensure that you are reading them. They should also prove useful for you in preparing to discuss these topics in class.
Class Schedule
The schedule below generally moves chronologically through the period, although occasionally we will jump forward or backward in time. This will allow us to organize our discussion of philosophers along thematic lines.
Unit 1. Background to the Rise of Early Modern Philosophy
- Scholastic Philosophy and the Scientific Revolution
- Galileo, The Assayer [excerpt] (1623) [week 1]
Unit 2. Crisis and New Foundations
- Rationalism: Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy (1641)
- Meditations 1-2 [week 2]
- Meditations 3-4 [week 3]
- Meditations 5-6 [week 4]
- Empiricism: Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
- Innate notions, simple and complex ideas [excerpts from Books I and II] [week 5]
- Substance and personal identity [excerpts from Books II and III] [week 6]
Unit 3. Further Development of Empiricism and Rationalism
- Rationalism: Leibniz
- Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics (1686) [selected articles] [week 7]
- Leibniz, selected letters [week 8]
- Empiricism: Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)
- Ideas (sections II and III) [week 9]
- Skepticism regarding the idea of causality (section IV) [week 10]
- Hume’s positive account of causality (sections V and VII) [week 11]
Unit 4. The Kantian Synthesis
- Kant, Prolegomena (1783) [excerpts]
- Introduction [Preface and sections 1-5] [week 12]
- Mathematics and sensibility [sections 6-13] [week 13]
- Science and Kant’s response to Hume [sections 14-23, 27-30] [week 14]