Early Modern Philosophy

Via a study of the works of chiefly Descartes, Locke, Berkeley and Hume, we critically consider some watershed developments toward the creation of analytic philosophy. We sample the vast intellectual transformation that unfolded in seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe and the relationship this had both to the ignition of natural science and to the social and political transformations also unfolding. The course equips students with an ability to both appreciate and criticise whole philosophies wrought by time-tested geniuses of past times, compare these philosophies and in the process learn about rationalism and empiricism, the synthetic versus the analytic orientation in philosophy, the relationship of modern to ancient philosophy, the historical interconnection of science and philosophy, the significance of philosophy for social transformation, and various conceptions of the relationships between epistemology, metaphysics and moral philosophy.