Philosophy 25B

The course will survey some of the main metaphysical and epistemological positions of five important early modern philosophers: Descartes, Spinoza, Berkeley, Hume and Kant. We will be concerned with their views regarding the structure of reality (the existence of God; the nature of the human mind and its relation to the body; the nature of bodies; causation) and with how we relate to the world around us (perception; the possibility of knowledge about the external world; induction). We will consider these views in light of the scientific developments of the 17th and 18th centuries, as reactions to Aristotelian doctrine, and in their own right.