Admission requirements
Admission to this course is restricted to first-year students in the BA Plus-traject of the BA Philosophy. These students must also attend the corresponding tutorial.
Description
A lecture course introducing some of the key figures, problems and themes in the philosophy of Enlightenment from Descartes to Kant. Attention will be given to the broader context of cultural modernity, experienced as a break with the past, and the demands for stability and orientation that emerged as the unified world-views of religion and metaphysics fell apart. Against this background, we will concentrate on the concept of reason developed in theories of knowledge and morality proposed by thinkers such as Descartes, Spinoza, Pascal, Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Kant. Key problems and themes to be studied include: the problem of foundations, the problem of subjectivity and reflexion, perception, innate ideas, the mind-body problem and the problem of freedom and determinism. Consideration of the two main streams of Enlightenment thought, Rationalism and Empiricism, will culminate in Kant’s attempt at a synthesis that would ground natural science while saving human freedom.
Course objectives
Course objectives will be made available on Blackboard at the start of the course.
Time table
See Collegeroosters Wijsbegeerte 2012-2013, BA Wijsbegeerte, BA Plus-traject, eerste jaar.
Mode of instruction
Lectures (hoorcollege) with time left over for discussion (2 hours) and tutorial (2 hours).
Assessment method
Regular assignments (10%)
Mid-semester take home exam (40%)
Final take home exam (50%).
Blackboard
Weekly use for announcements, assignments, course documents (lecture notes, overheads etc.), exams and course information.
Reading list
Reader with excerpts from primary and secondary literature.
Descartes, R., Meditations on First Philosophy , Ed. Cottingham (CUP 1996). ISBN: 0 521 55818 2.
Spinoza, Ethics , ed. & transl. Parkinson (OUP 2003). ISBN: 0198752148
Registration
Please register for this course on uSis.
See Inschrijven voor cursussen en tentamens
Aanmelden à la carte en contractonderwijs
Not applicable.
Contact information
Remarks
Lectures will be in English, although Dutch can be used for exams and contributions in class.