If the content you are seeing is presented as unstyled HTML your browser is an older version that cannot support cascading style sheets. If you wish to upgrade your browser you may download Mozilla or Internet Explorer for Windows.
Revision 2 closed, replaced by current version.
Delivery mode: Individualized study.
Credits: 3 - Humanities
Prerequisite: 1 junior level philosophy course.
Centre: Centre for Global and Social Analysis
PHIL 342 is not available for challenge.
Philosophy 342: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Philosophy explores the ideas and arguments developed by a group of very influential Western thinkers in the Modern Era. The course focuses on the metaphysical and epistemological views of figures including Rene Descartes, John Locke, Baruch Spinoza and Immanuel Kant. Metaphysical questions concern the nature of reality. What is real? How can we tell the difference between reality and illusion? Are minds and brains made of different “stuff” or are they essentially the same things? Epistemological questions concern human knowledge. What is it for information to count as knowledge? How do we come to know things?
Philosophy 342 also looks at some pressing moral questions of the seventeenth and eighteenth century through the thoughts of, for example, David Hume and Immanuel Kant. Is there a difference between what is good and what is right? And from Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, questions about the best sort of society for human beings are explored. In the process of considering challenging material original to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the student will also be guided in the development of basic philosophical skills of critical analysis and synthesis.
The course consists of the following
Unit 1: Introduction to Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Philosophy: Metaphysics and Epistemology in the Modern Era
Unit 2: Rene Descartes and Thomas Hobbes: The Geometrical Method
Unit 3: John Locke and Baruch Spinoza on 'The Mind'
Unit 4: George Berkeley and Gottfried Leibniz: Idealists
Unit 5: David Hume and the Skeptical Challenge to Metaphysics
Unit 6: Immanuel Kant and the Rescue of Metaphysics
To receive credit for PHIL 342, you must complete all assignments and achieve a composite course grade of at least “D” (50 percent). The weighting of the composite grade is as follows:
Tutor-marked Assignment: Summaries | Tutor-marked Assignment: Short Essay | Final Exam | Total |
---|---|---|---|
20% | 40% | 40% | 100% |
To learn more about assignments and examinations, please refer to Athabasca University's online Calendar.
Philosophical Classics Volume III: Modern Philosophy, 5th ed., Forrest E. Baird and Walter Kaufmann, eds. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2007.
The course materials include study guide, and a course guide.