Albrecht Dürer, A Man Drawing a Recumbent Woman, 1525

Course Description

The course is an introduction to the central metaphysical and epistemological views of four highly influential early modern philosophers: Descartes, Leibniz, Hume, and Kant. We examine their various attempts to explain the nature of the human mind and its relation to the body, whether it's possible to know anything at all about the material world of nature, proofs for the existence of God, and other related topics including causation, determinism, freedom of the will, and the limits of human experience. We consider these issues in the context of the scientific developments of the time, in particular that of the "new science" which supplanted the Aristotelian view of nature in the seventeenth century. Students will engage in close reading of the texts, as well as careful analysis and evaluation of the philosophical arguments presented in them.