PHIL 21: HISTORY OF EARLY MODERN PHILOSOPHY
PHIL 21: HISTORY OF EARLY MODERN PHILOSOPHY
FALL 2005
SECTION 01
MWF 11:00-11:50 DH-208
PROF. THOMAS PYNE MND-3030 278-7288
E-mail pynetf@csus.edu
PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT MND-3032 278-6424
FAX 278-5364
OFFICE HOURS: MW 3:00-4:00; By Appt.
CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION
Examines the major developments in Western philosophy after the Middle Ages, with emphasis on the period from Descartes to Kant. Attenton will be paid to the general historical and cultural setting witin which the philosophical theories developed. 3 units.
Satisfies General Education Area C1: World Civilizations
OBJECTIVES: - To provide a systematic introductory acquaintance with the philosophy and intellectual history of the ?Early Modern? Period: roughly, the years between 1600 and 1800.
- To explain how the ?crisis of rationality? which characterized that period can be seen to arise from developments that really began several centuries before.
- To show how the responses to this crisis provided by the philosophers Descartes, Hobbes, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant formed not only the thought of our own time, but our institutions as well.
- To display, by contrast with what went before, what exactly makes the ?Modern Age? modern ? and what might have happened instead!
TEXT: Walter Kaufmann & Forrest E. Baird. Modern Philosophy. 2nd Edition. Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1997).
REQUIREMENTS: Two exams at scheduled times (15% each)
Final exam (20%)
Two short papers (3-6 pages) (20% each)
Periodic reading quizzes (10%)
POLICIES: Class Meetings
Class meetings will begin at 11:00 with a calling of the roll. I will try to be on time; I expect you to try too. A pattern of late arrival may be counted as an unexcused absence.
Attendance
I expect attendance at every meeting. If you must miss class, please let me know in advance. If this is impossible (as sometimes it is), please give me a note by the next class. I will lower you a grade increment for every unexcused absence.
Exams
An exam will be administered on the date and time scheduled in the syllabus (unless I change it for pedagogical reasons). I will allow use of a one-page "cheat sheet.”
We will review the material for each exam briefly the class preceding, explaining what concepts and abilities the exam will test for. I welcome questions, even at times outside that review period.
There will be no makeup exams. Organize your life so that you can take the exams at the times and dates scheduled.
Papers
Follow the directions for argumentative papers found in the “Guidelines for Writing Philosophy Papers” at the Philosophy Department website. Go to the Main Page (), click on “Dept. Program and Requirements,” then click on “Guidelines…” Or go directly to:
Papers will be graded according to the “Grading Guidlines for Philosophy Papers.” Go to the same menu as for the paper guidelines, or go directly to:
To submit papers:
- Turn in at the class period on the due date;
- FAX or E-mail;
- Old-fashioned mail, making sure it arrives on time;
- Place in my box in the Philosophy Department (MND-3020) by 5:00.
Late papers will be lowered a grade increment for every day past the due date.
Keep a copy of your paper. If you still use an iron-age typewriter, make a photocopy -- it's cheap insurance.
Quizzes
The quizzes on reading assignments will be on the website a week before the assignment. Hand the quiz in (Scantron Form 815-E – the 15-question size) at the beginng of the class meeting for which the reading assignment is due. There will be no makeup quizzes. If there is a possibility you might miss a class, make arrangements to turn the quiz in beforehand.
Quizzes will be graded on a three-level system:
2 Full credit: Shows adequate understanding of the reading
1 Partial credit: Show an inadequate understanding of the reading
0 Not turned in.
Grades
Exams will be graded on the following scale:
A 100-94
A- 93-92
B+ 91-90
B 89-84
B- 83-82
C+ 81-80
C 79-74
C- 73-72
D+ 71-70
D 69-64
D- 63-62
F 61-
Papers will be graded by the criteria in the “Grading Guidelines.”
The course grade will be determined by the weighted average of the exams, papers, and quizzes.
SYLLABUS
[Reading assignments are italicized]
(Numbers in parentheses refer to pages in text)
Introduction
Week 1: 8/29 Introduction The Pre-Modern World
8/31 The Science of Antiquity
[Handout #1: Aristotelian Science
9/2 The Three “Middle Ages”
[Handout #2: Medieval History and Culture
Week 2: 9/5 Labor Day Holiday
The Crisis of Rationality in Science
9/7 Natural Philosophy
[Handout #3: Medieval Science]
9/9 Galileo and the Laws of Motion
[Handout #4: Galileo’s Mature Dynamics]
Week 3: 9/12 Newton, the Void, and The Crisis of Rationality in Natural
Philosophy
The Crisis of Rationality in Religion
9/14 What was at Stake Philosophically between Protestants and Catholics during the Reformation?
[Handout #5: Medieval Theology and the Reformation]
The Crisis Recognized
The “Rationalist” Response
9/16 Rene Descartes and the Reconstruction of Philosophy: Methodical
Doubt
[Meditations, I-II (19-28)]
Week 4: 9/19 Descartes: An Account of the Origin of Ideas
[Meditations, III (29-38)]
9/21 Descartes: Truth, Falsity, The Origins of Error
[Meditations, IV (38-43)]
9/23 Descartes: The Material Universe and the Mind
[Meditations, V-VI (43-57)]
Week 5: 9/26 Exam #1
9/28 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing
[Discourse 0n Metaphysics, Paragraphs 1-11 (249-256]
9/30 Leibniz: Minds and Reality
[Discourse, Paragraphs, 12-37 (256-37)]
Week 6: 10/3 Leibniz: An Idealist Metaphysics
[Monadology (284-292)]
10/5 Leibniz: Worlds, Entelechies, and Souls
[Monadology (284-292)]
The “Empiricist” Response
10/7 John Locke: A Different Account of the Origin of Ideas
[Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book I (all); Book II, Chapters 1-12]
Week 7: 10/10 Locke: Our Idea of Substance
[Essay, Book II, Chapters 23-37]
10/12 10/19 Locke: Our Idea of Identity
[Essay, Book II, Chapters 27 (208-214)]
10/14 Locke: Abstract Ideas and Essences
[Essay, Book III, Chapters 2-3 (214-220)]
First Paper due Friday, October 14.
Week 8: 10/17 Locke: The Limits of Knowledge
[Essay, Book IV, Chapters 1-9 (221-228]
The Crisis of Rationality in Politics
10/19 Thomas Hobbes: The Search for an Alternative Foundation for Political Legitimacy. The “State of Nature”
[Leviathan, Part I, Chapters 13-14 (82-86)]
10/21 Hobbes: The Social Contract
[Leviathan, Part II, Chapters 15-21 (86-103)]
Week 9: 10/24 John Locke: A Different Account of the State of Nature and of the Social Contract.
[Second Essay, Chapters 2-3 (240-245)]
10/26 John Locke: The Liberal State
[Second Essay, Chapters 2-3 (240-245)
10/28 Jean Jacques Rousseau: A Third Account of the Social Contract
[The Social Contract (494-502)]
Idealism vs Scepticism as Solutions to the Crisis
Week 10: 10/31 George Berkeley: The True Objects of Sensation
[Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, First Dialogue, pages 2-10]
11/2 Berkeley: Collapsing the Distinction between Primary and Secondary Qualities
[Three Dialogues, First Dialogue, pages 10-24]
11/4 Berkeley: The Impossibility of Material Substance
[Three Dialogues, 25-49]
Week 11: 11/7 Berkeley: The Refutation of Scepticism and Atheism
[Three Dialogues, 49-65]
11/9 Exam #2
11/11 David Hume: Still Another Account of the Origin of Ideas
[Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Sections I-III (349-359)]
Week 12: 11/14 Hume: Sceptical Solutions to Sceptical Doubt
[Enquiry, Sections IV-V (359-374)]
11/16 Hume: Causality and Necessary Connection
[Enquiry, Sections VI-VII]
11/18 Hume: “Sceptical Philosophy”
[Enquiry, Section XII, (417-425)]]
The Enlightenment Project: “Critical” Philosophy
Week 13: 11/21 Immanuel Kant: “…Dogmantic slumbers…”
[Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, “Introduction” (532-537)]
11/23 Kant: Judgments Analytic and Synthetic
[Prolegomena, "Preamble" 537-545]
11/25 Thanksgiving Holiday
Week 14: 11/28 Kant: The “A Priori Forms of Intuition,” or “How is Mathematics Possible?”
[Prolegomena, First Part of Main Transcendental Problem (545-553)]
11/30 Kant: The “Transcendental Deduction,” or “How is Science Possible?”
[Prolegomena, Second Part of Main Transcendental Problem (553-569)]
12/2 Kant: Transcendental Deduction (cont.)
Week 15: 12/5 Kant: The “Paralogisms of Pure Reason,” or “How is Metaphysics Possible?”
[Prolegomena, Third Part of Main Transcendental Problem (571-596)]
12/7 Kant: “Critical Philosophy”
12/9 Post-Modernism: Is the Enlightenment Project Over?
Paper #2 due Friday, December 9.
Final Exam: Wedneday, December 14, 10:15-12:15.
(Note earlier time!)
HAVE A GREAT SEMESTER!
Paper Topics
Paper 1 (Due Friday, October 14).
Choose one of the philosophers studied in the first part of the course:
Rene Descartes
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Write a brief paper that includes:
1. What, in your view, was the most important crisis of rationality they faced.
2. Why was it a crisis?
3. How did they respond to the crisis? (That is, what was their “philosophical” answer?)
4. Why did they respond that way? (That is, give their reasons.)
5. Do you think this response is a correct one? Why or why not?
Paper 2 (Due Friday, December 9.)
Choose one of the philosophers studied in the first part of the course:
John Locke
Thomas Hobbes
George Berkeley
David Hume
Immanuel Kant
Write a brief paper that includes:
1. What, in your view, was the most important crisis of rationality they faced.
2. Why was it a crisis?
3. How did they respond to the crisis? (That is, what was their “philosophical” answer?)
4. Why did they respond that way? (That is, give their reasons.)
5. Do you think this response is a correct one? Why or why not?
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