PHIL 151: History of Philosophy II
Spring Semester 2014 | Day | Burnaby
INSTRUCTOR: Dai Heide, WMX 5655 (dheide@sfu.ca)
REQUIRED TEXTS
- Roger Ariew and Eric Watkins (eds.), Modern Philosophy: An Anthology of Primary Sources. 2nd ed. Hackett. ISBN: 978-0872209787
- Margaret Atherton (ed.), Women Philosophers of the Early Modern Period. Hackett. ISBN: 978-0872202597
RECOMMENDED TEXT
- Vaughn and McIntosh (eds.), Writing Philosophy: A Guide for Canadian Students. 2nd ed. Oxford. ISBN: 978-0195446746
COURSE DESCRIPTION
The 17th and 18th centuries are among the most exciting in the history of philosophy. The enormous success of natural science in explaining natural phenomena without appeal to mysterious, unquantifiable forces or divine activity led to a period of genuine philosophical innovation as philosophers struggled to reconcile a new mechanistic and naturalistic scientific worldview with traditional metaphysical commitments as old as Plato and Aristotle and deeply entrenched in the religious milieu of the early modern period. In so doing, they were faced with profound questions. Some of them were old questions that required new answers, but some of them could not even have been formulated outside of their new context. Is the natural world entirely describable by mechanical laws? Is every state of affairs in the natural world strictly determined by these laws and the preceding states of affairs? Is there anything that underlies and explains the phenomena described by natural science or is matter all that there is? If nature is to be understood as essentially a deterministic mechanism, is the mind to be so understood, too? If not, can the mind impact the course of the natural world? Is there room for human free will on the modern scientific conception of the world? Are we justified in believing in God? What is it to be a human being in a mechanistic world? What is it to survive as the very same person over time?
Our primary aim in this course will be to examine what a range of the best minds of the 17th and 18th centuries had to say about these questions and some others. We will read selections from works by many or all of the following philosophers: Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, Rene Descartes, Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, Margaret Cavendish, Benedict de Spinoza, G.W. Leibniz, Mary Astell, Damaris Cudworth, John Locke, Isaac Newton, George Berkeley, David Hume and Immanuel Kant.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
- One-paragraph Response Papers -15%
- Midterm Exam- 25%
- Term Paper (5 pages)- 25%
- Final Exam- 35%
Term papers must be submitted to turnitin.com, which is a plagiarism-detection website.
Prerequisites: Philosophy 151 has no prerequisites and may be applied towards the Certificate in Liberal Arts and the Breadth-Humanities requirement.