The early modern period of European history was marked by massive social, economic, political, and religious upheaval. As the major population centers of Europe recovered from the effects of the Black Death, literacy and urbanization—as well as the increasing shift of political power from the landed aristocracy to the emergent merchant classes, not to mention the major influx of wealth from colonies in North and South America and the emerging transatlantic slave trade—fueled a paradigm shift in how humans imagined their place in the universe, the role of the Church and the state in their everyday lives, and the methods by which they theorized about the substance and causes of the natural world.
This course is a survey of the major authors, themes, and debates that emerged from these epochal shifts. As the primacy of Biblical interpretations of Greek philosophy in medieval universities fell to the side, two main traditions emerged: the rationalists, embodied by philosophers like Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza; and the empiricists, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume.
Throughout the semester, we will address their (sometimes agreeing, sometimes diverging) ideas about the relationship of body and mind, whether ideas in the mind give rise to sensible qualities or vice versa, how the natural world discloses the place and role of God in the universe, of the harmony between necessity and freedom, and the cause and nature of human happiness. We will also take some interludes to discuss some of the broader historical, social, political, and cultural issues permeating this period of Western philosophy.
This course is a survey of the major authors, themes, and debates that emerged from these epochal shifts. As the primacy of Biblical interpretations of Greek philosophy in medieval universities fell to the side, two main traditions emerged: the rationalists, embodied by philosophers like Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza; and the empiricists, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume.
Throughout the semester, we will address their (sometimes agreeing, sometimes diverging) ideas about the relationship of body and mind, whether ideas in the mind give rise to sensible qualities or vice versa, how the natural world discloses the place and role of God in the universe, of the harmony between necessity and freedom, and the cause and nature of human happiness. We will also take some interludes to discuss some of the broader historical, social, political, and cultural issues permeating this period of Western philosophy.
- Teacher: Adam Schipper