Philosophy 25B

This course will focus on the major philosophers of the 17^th and 18^th centuries: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Kant. We will examine the metaphysical and epistemological views of these philosophers that arose as rejections of the Aristotelian philosophy of the Scholastic tradition. Particular attention will be given to the relation between philosophy and the scientific revolution as well as to philosophical theories of our knowledge of the external world, the relation between mind and body, the existence and attributes of God, and the nature of physical matter, causation, space and time. Readings will from primary sources (translations in most cases).