| PHIL
32 -- The Origins of Modern Philosophy Winter 2008 |
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| Instructor:
Clinton Tolley office: HSS 8061 hours: Thurs, 2:00-4:00pm phone: 2-2686 email: ctolley [at] ucsd.edu |
Teaching Assistant:
{to be determined} office: --- hours: --- phone: --- email: --- |
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| Time:
Tues & Thurs, 9:30am-10:50am Location: Warren Lecture Hall [WLH] 2205 [map] (*NOTE: no longer meeting in CICC 101.) |
| Readings
in Modern Philosophy, Vol. 1: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz and associated texts eds., Roger Ariew & Eric Watkins (Hackett, 2000) [cover] {available at the Price Center bookstore} |
| In the aftermath of the
Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and
the Scientific Revolutions of the 16th and 17th centuries, a radically
new form of thinking emerged, one which still shapes our own
consciousness to this day. The rallying cry: let each person cultivate
the power to think for themselves.
And thus the ‘modern’ worldview was born. In this course, we will
follow René DESCARTES, Thomas HOBBES, Antoine ARNAULD, Baruch
SPINOZA, and Gottfried Wilhelm LEIBNIZ, as they try to make sense of
this bold new project. Their task: to sort out what it could mean – and
whether, in the end, it is even intelligible – for each person’s
capacity to think things through, each person’s ability to reason with
one another, for Reason itself
(as they would come to say) to be the ultimate arbiter of the true and
the good, to be the measure of all things. Topics to be covered include: the meaning and value of knowledge, the difference between everyday and scientific knowledge, the limits of knowledge and the possibility that we might not know anything at all, the basic 'categories' of being, the problematic status of 'spiritual' beings (such as the divine and the human) and their 'freedom' in the world of the new science, the special nature of a human being's relation to itself, the possibility that there is no 'final' (or 'absolute') reason for things being the way they happen to be. (Note: Phil 32 may be used to fulfill the Muir College breadth requirement.) |
| {a more detailed
description of the requirements can be found at WebCT.} Weekly questionnaires Take-home open-book mid-term exam In-class closed-book final exam Attendance |
| {A more detailed schedule
can be found at WebCT.} Descartes, Discourse on Method Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy Arnauld, Hobbes, and Descartes, Objections and Replies to the Meditations Spinoza, letters to Oldenburg and Meyer Spinoza, Ethics Leibniz, letters on Descartes Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics Leibniz, letters to Arnauld |
| Routledge
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
entries (requires sign-in) Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
entries
Overview of 'continental
rationalism'
(i.e., Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, as well as Nicholas Malebranche); Descartes: life and works, theory of knowledge, theory of ideas, argument for God's existence Spinoza: overview Arnauld: overview For students who haven't taken a course in philosophy before, Simon Blackburn's Think (Oxford UP, 1999) is a short and very readable text that gives a nice introduction to what philosophy is and what philosophical thinking and writing is like. For those looking for a companion treatment of many of the themes and figures to be discussed in this course, John Cottingham's The Rationalists (Oxford UP, 1988) is especially recommended. |