Philosophy 25B

This course will survey some of the major works of modern western philosophy, i.e. philosophy from Europe during roughly the 17th and 18th centuries. The Scientific Revolution had only recently kicked off and was developing rapidly during this time, and the philosophy we will be looking at was hugely affected by this phenomenon. We will be examining the two primary philosophical approaches ? now known as Rationalism and Empiricism ? that arose to deal with the pressing issues of the time; two questions, in particular, will be the focus of the course, one metaphysical and the other epistemological. The first asks about the basic structure of reality (about the nature of God, of mind, of material things, etc.) while the second asks how we as thinkers/perceivers relate to the world around us (do we know it?s out there at all? If so, how?).