Philosophy 25B

This course will survey the ideas of five important philosophers of the 17th and 18th century – Descartes, Spinoza, Berkeley, Hume and Kant. We will consider how they pose and develop responses to important metaphysical and epistemological questions that form the basis of some of the main concerns of modern philosophy. These include questions about the nature of reality (Does God exist? What is the nature of the human mind? How does the mind relate to the body? Are there causal connections in the world?), as well as the relation between us and the world (What do we perceive? Can we come to know things about the world through perception? Are there things we can know to be true through reason alone? Are there limits on what we can know?) We will attempt to develop a historical understanding of the connections across the views we consider, as well as to philosophically engage with and respond to each in its own right.