Syllabus
Course Description and Overview:
The modern era in western philosophy spans the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. Spurred mainly by advances in science, but also by criticisms of Church dogma, philosophers attempted to accommodate new learning with a broad view of human abilities, and to construct systematic understandings of the world. This course mainly surveys, chronologically, the work of eight philosophers of the modern era: Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. Among the recurring topics to be discussed are the nature of mind, free will, space and time, the self, and scientific reasoning. In combination with Philosophy 201: History of Ancient Western Philosophy, this course will provide students a broad background in the history of western philosophy, preparing you for both advanced work in the history of philosophy and contemporary study of a wide range of topics including epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, and metaphysics.
Texts
Required
Roger Ariew and Eric Watkins. Modern Philosophy: An Anthology of Primary Sources, 2nd edition. Hackett, 2009.
Various supplementary readings, available here.
Recommended
Norman Melchert. The Great Conversation, Volume II: Descartes through Derrida and Quine, 6th ed. Oxford, 2010. (The full text, including both volume 1 and volume 2, is only marginally more expensive.)
Jeffrey Tlumak. Classical Modern Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction. Routledge, 2006.
Class notes are here.
Assignments and Grading:
Your responsibilities this course include the following, with their contributions to your grade calculation in parentheses:
Attendance and Participation
Readings
Panel Presentation (10%)
Two papers (20%, 25%)
Midterm and Final Exams (20%, 25%)
Attendance: While there is no direct reward or penalty to your grade for attendance, I expect students to come to class prepared to discuss the assigned reading. I prepare carefully for classes and I expect you to be there in body and mind, asking questions and thinking.
Readings: As this course is a broad survey, there is a lot of assigned reading. I have divided the readings into three categories: primary, secondary, and tertiary readings.
You are responsible for completing all primary readings, which cover all the central topics in the course. Exams will be based on the primary readings. To assist you with the readings and to help prepare you for the midterm and final examinations, I will post reading guides, lists of questions, for all of the primary readings.
The secondary readings, consisting mainly of further primary sources, will be useful in illuminating the primary readings. I will sometimes refer to the secondary readings in class. You should try to complete as many of the secondary readings as you reasonably can.
The tertiary readings are mainly from the secondary sources (Melchert and Tlumak) and are optional.
Panel Presentation: Each student is required to participate in one in-class panel presentation. Panels will be organized around specific themes. I will distribute more specific guidelines, as well as a sign-up sheet, in class. I welcome, indeed encourage, you to use your presentation topic as a theme for your second paper.
Papers: Each student will write two short papers. The first paper, 4-6 pages on any theme from the Objections and Replies to Descartes's Meditations, is due on Thursday, February 12. The second paper, 5-8 pages on any topic in the material from Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, or Hume, is due on Thursday, April 30. I will distribute more details about the each paper in class.
Exams: The midterm exam will be given in class on Thursday, March 12, just before spring break. The final exam will be given at the appointed exam time, Thursday, May 14, at 2pm. Both exams will be based on questions from the Reading Guides, though the final exam may also include a short essay topic.
On Grades: Grades on assignments will be posted on Blackboard, along with a running total, which I call your grade calculation. Your grade calculation is a guide for me to use in assigning you a final grade. There are no rules binding how I translate your grade calculation into a letter grade. The Hamilton College key for converting letter grades into percentages is not a tool for calculating your final grade. I welcome discussion of the purposes and methods of grading, as well as my own grading policies.
The Hamilton College Honor Code will be strictly enforced
Office Hours
My office hours for the Spring 2015, term are 10:30am - noon, Tuesdays and Thursdays. I may be available to meet at other times by appointment. My office is 202 College Hill Road, Room 210.
Schedule:
Note: The readings listed in each row are to be completed before class.
Part I: Descartes
Class | Date | Topic | Primary Readings | Secondary Readings | Tertiary Readings |
1 | January 20 | Early Modern Philosophy and the Scientific Revolution | Rosenthal, "Philosophy and Its Teaching" | Galileo, “Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany" | Melchert, Chapter 12 |
2 | January 22 | Sense Experience, Method, and Doubt | Discourse on Method, Parts 1 and 2 (AW
25-33) Meditations on First Philosophy, through Meditation One (AW 35-42) |
Montaigne, Apology, §7 (AW 4-13) | Melchert
319-327 Tlumak 1-22 |
3 | January 27 | The Cogito and Certainty | Meditations Two and Three (AW 43-54) | Bacon, from New
Organon (AW 16-20) Galileo, from The Assayer (AW 21-24) |
Melchert
327-332
Tlumak 22-38 |
4 | January 29 | Freedom, Mathematics, Science | Meditations Four through Five (AW 54-61) | Readings on the Ontological Argument | Melchert
332-336 Tlumak 38-68 |
5 | February 3 | The External World and The Mind-Body Distinction | Meditation Six (AW 61-68) Discourse, Part 5 (AW 33-34) |
Spinoza, from Descartes's Principles of Philosophy (AW 93-98) | |
6 | February 5 | Descartes and His Critics | Descartes, "Arguments... Arranged in
Geometrical Fashion" (AW 72-75) Themes in the Objections and Replies |
Leibniz, Letters (AW 99-105) | Melchert 356-359 |
Part II: Hobbes and Spinoza
Class | Date | Topic | Primary Readings | Secondary readings | Tertiary Readings |
7 | February 10 | Materialism | Hobbes, from Leviathan (AW 114-136) | Melchert, 361-371 | |
8 | February 12 Paper 1 is due |
Monism, Parallelism | Spinoza, Ethics, Part I (all, especially the appendix) and Part II (P1-P13), (AW 144-172) | Letters to Oldenburg and to Meyer (AW 137-143) | Melchert 438 Tlumak 77-88 Singer, "The Spinoza of Market Street" |
9 | February 17 | Knowledge and Freedom | Spinoza, Ethics, Part II (P14-end) and Part V (AW 172-195) | Tlumak 88-95; 100-102 |
Part III: Leibniz
Class | Date | Topic | Primary Readings | Secondary Readings | Tertiary Readings |
10 | February 19 | Monads, Truth, Minds, and Bodies | The Monadology (AW 275-283) Discourse on Metaphysics §1-§25 (AW 224-240) "A New System of Nature" (AW 269-274) |
Malebranche, from The
Search After Truth (AW
200-223) Letters to Arnauld (AW 248-264) |
Tlumak 133-141
Melchert 440 |
11 | February 24 | Theodicy, Necessity, and Freedom | Discourse on Metaphysics
§25-§37 (AW 240-247) from Theodicy 405-417 |
"Primary Truths" (AW
265-268) |
Tlumak 133-138; 159-163 |
12 | February 26 | Space and Time Panel Presentation 1: Minds and Bodies I |
Newton, Selections (AW
284-293) Letters to Clarke (AW 294-303) |
Tlumak 164-171 |
Part IV: Locke
Class | Date | Topic | Primary Readings | Secondary Readings | Tertiary Readings |
13 | March 3 | Against Innate
Ideas, For the Primary/
Secondary
Distinction |
Essay Book I, Chapters I-II
(AW 316-322); Book IV, Chapters I-II (AW 386-405) Book II, Chapters I-IX (AW 322-339) |
Boyle, "Of the Excellency..." AW (308-315) | Melchert 372-381 Tlumak 106-110 |
14 | March 5 | Identity and the Self Panel Presentation 2: Arguments for God's Existence |
Essay, Book II, Chapter XXVII (AW 367-377) | Essay, Book II, Chapters IX-XXIII (AW 337-367) | Tlumak 110-122 |
15 | March 10 | Abstract Ideas | Essay, Book III (AW 377-386) | Leibniz, Preface to the New
Essays (AW 422-433) Essay Book IV, Chapters X-XVI (AW 405-421) |
Tlumak 122-128 |
March 12: Midterm Exam
Spring Break
Part V: Berkeley
Class | Date | Topic | Primary Readings | Secondary Readings | Tertiary Readings |
17 | March 31 | Three Arguments for Idealism | Principles, §1-33 (AW 447-453) Three Dialogues, Dialogue 1 (AW 454-474) |
Melchert 385-395 | |
18 | April 2 | Against Abstract Ideas Panel Presentation 3: Innate Ideas and the Tabula Rasa |
Principles, Introduction (AW 438-446) Principles §86-100 Three Dialogues, Dialogue 2 (AW 475-484) |
Principles §34-84 | Tlumak, Chapter 5 |
19 | April 7 | Mathematics, Science, Skepticism and Atheism | from On Motion (AW 504-508) Principles, §101-156 |
Three Dialogues, Dialogue 3 (AW 484-503) |
Part VI: Hume
Class | Date | Topic | Primary Readings | Secondary Readings | Tertiary Readings |
20 | April 9 | Impressions, Ideas, Facts, Relations | An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, I-IV (AW 533-548) | Bayle, "Pyrrho" (AW 512-516) | Melchert 397-409 Tlumak, 193-199 |
21 | April 14 | Causation and Induction | An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, V-VII (AW 548-564) | Tlumak, 199-205 | |
22 | April 16 | The Self and Free Will | from A Treatise of Human Nature
Book I, Part 4, Section 6 (AW 525-532) An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, VIII-IX, XII (AW 564-576, 593-600) |
Reid, Selections (AW
641-653) An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, X-XI (AW 576-593) |
Melchert 409-415; 423-425 Tlumak, 208-221 |
Part VII: Thematic Panels
Class | Date | Topics |
23 | April 21 | Panel Presentations Minds and Bodies II; Abstract Ideas and Uses of Language; |
24 | April 23 | Panel Presentations The Existence of the External World; Free Will and Determinism |
25 | April 28 | Panel Presentations 10-11: The Self; Laws of Nature |
Part VIII: Kant
Class | Date | Topic | Primary Readings | Secondary Readings |
26 | April 30 Paper 2 is due |
The Synthetic A Priori and Forms of Intuition | Critique of Pure Reason, Prefaces, Introduction, and The Transcendental Aesthetic (AW 717-737) | Melchert 426-447 Tlumak, 244-257; 291-303 |
27 | May 5 | Apperception, the Application of Concepts, and the Transcendental Deduction | Critique of Pure Reason, from the Transcendental Analytic (AW 737-756) | Tlumak, 258-268; 303-312 |
28 | May 7 | The Limits of Reason | Critique of Pure Reason, The Antinomies, On the Ontological Argument (AW 792-800; 819-823) | Melchert 447-450 Tlumak, 285-291; 320-330 |
Final Exam: Thursday, May 14, 2pm-5pm