Postgraduate Course: Reason and Experience: Seventeenth Century Philosophy MSc (PHIL11142)
Course Outline
| School | School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Credits | 20 |
| Home subject area | Philosophy |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
Please see Learn page |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | The course will provide a critical overview of themes from seventeenth century philosophy from Descartes to Berkeley. Issues covered include the nature of material and immaterial substances; the self and its relation to its body and to the non-human world in general; attitudes regarding animals and other living organisms; inanimate bodies and the mechanical philosophy; epistemological scepticism; innatism; sense perception, imagination, intellect; the epistemological role of language and abstract ideas; and moral issues concerning freewill and determinism and the nature of God and theodicy.
Taught by Dr Pauline Phemister.
The course will be shared with the undergraduate version Reason and Experience: Seventeenth Century Philosophy (PHIL10150)
Formative feedback available:
- opportunity to submit a formative essay
-the course organiser will be available to discuss drafts and or plans of essays individually with students before submission (face-to face and via email)
- general advice in class
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Delivery period: 2014/15 Semester 2, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Learn enabled: Yes |
Quota: 5 |
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Web Timetable |
Web Timetable |
| Course Start Date |
12/01/2015 |
| Breakdown of Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 20,
Revision Session Hours 2,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
174 )
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| Additional Notes |
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| Breakdown of Assessment Methods (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| No Exam Information |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
| Students will gain an understanding of the often sophisticated and frequently heated debates that raged in the seventeenth century on matters scientific, theological and philosophical. They will come to appreciate the inter-relation between the epistemological, metaphysical, ethical, scientific and theological positions discussed. They will learn to evaluate critically the arguments offered both in defence of, and in opposition to, these positions. By the end of the course, students will be able to defend their own views on these issues and be able to develop and assess different interpretations of the texts studied. |
Assessment Information
2500 word assignment
Essay deadline: Monday 20th April 2015 by 12 noon
Word limit: 3000 words maximum
Return deadline: Tuesday 12th May 2015 |
Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
Provisional lecture plan
1. General introduction and substance monism, dualism and pluralism
2. Nature and Knowledge of the Self
3. Living nature
4. Mechanical nature and causation
5. Scepticism
6. Ideas and Perception
7. Language and communication
8. Mind and Body
9. Freedom and Determinism
10. God and theodicy
11. Revision
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| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
Primary sources
Descartes, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, tr. & ed. by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff and Dugald Murdoch, 2 vols (Cambridge University Press, 1984-85)
Spinoza, Ethics, tr. & ed. by G. H. R. Parkinson (London: Dent, 1989)
Malebranche, Nicolas, Dialogues on Metaphysics and on Religion, ed. by Nicholas Jolley, tr. by David Scott (Cambridge University Press, 1997)
Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, tr. and ed. by Dan Garber and Roger Ariew (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989)
Locke, An Essay concerning Human Understanding, ed. by Pauline Phemister. Oxford World¿s Classics (Oxford University Press, 2008)
Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge / Three Dialogues, ed. by Roger Woolhouse (Penguin).
Secondary sources
General Edited collections
Cover, J.A. & Mark Kulstad (1990). Central Themes in Early Modern Philosophy (Indianapolis: Hackett)
Desmond M. Clarke and Wilson, Catherine, eds. (2011). Oxford Handbook of Philosophy in Early Modern Europe (Oxford University Press)
Mercer, C & O¿Neill, O. (2005). Early Modern Philosophy: Mind, Matter, and Metaphysics (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
Pereboom , D. ed. (1999). The Rationalists: Critical Essays on Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield)
Journals
The most prominent journals for the articles in the History of Philosophy are:
British Journal for the History of Philosophy
Journal of the History of Philosophy
History of Philosophy Quarterly
Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie
Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy
Midwest Studies in Philosophy
There are also journals dedicated to specific philosophers of the early modern period:
Studia Cartesiana; Studia Spinozana; Studia Leibnitiana; The Leibniz Review; Locke Studies, Berkeley Studies
Empiricists
Woolhouse, Roger (1988). The Empiricists (Oxford University Press)
(Locke)
Anstey, Peter (2011). John Locke and Natural Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
Ayers, Michael (1993). Locke: Epistemology and Ontology (London: Routledge)
Dawson, Hannah (2011). Locke, Language and Early-Modern Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
Jolley, Nicholas (1984). Leibniz and Locke (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
Jolley, Nicholas (1999). Locke: His Philosophical Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
Lowe, E. J. (2005). Locke on Human Understanding (London: Routledge)
Mackie, John (1976). Problems from Locke (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
Martin, C. B. & Armstrong, D. M. eds. (1968). Locke and Berkeley: A Collection of Critical Essays (New York: Anchor Books).
Newman, Lex (2007). Cambridge Companion to Locke¿s ¿Essay Concerning Human Understanding¿ (Cambridge University Press)
Tipton, I. C. ed. (1977). Locke on Human Understanding: Selected Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
Uzgalis, Willliam (2007). Locke¿s ¿Essay concerning Human Understanding¿: A Reader¿s Guide (London
Woolhouse, R. S. (1971). Locke's Philosophy of Science and Knowledge (Oxford: Blackwell)
Woohouse, R. S. (1983). Locke (London: Harvester Press)
Yolton, John W. (1956). John Locke and the Way of Ideas (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
Yolton, John W. (1970). John Locke and the Compass of Human Understanding (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
(Berkeley)
Berman, D. (1994). George Berkeley: Idealism and the Man (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
Daniel, Stephen H. ed. (2007). Reexamining Berkeley¿s Philosophy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press).
Flage, Daniel (2014). Berkeley (Oxford: Polity)
Fogelin, R. J. (2001). Berkeley and the ¿Principles of Human Knowledge¿ (London: Routledge)
Foster, J. and Robinson, H. eds. (1985). Essays on Berkeley: A Tercentennial Celebration (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
Garrett, Aaron (2008). Berkeley¿s ¿Three Dialogues: a reader¿s guide (London: Continuum)
Muehlmann, R. G. (1992). Berkeley¿s Ontology (Indianapolis: Hackett)
Pitcher, G. (1977). Berkeley (London: Routledge)
Richmond, Alasdair (2009). Berkeley¿s ¿Principles of Human Knowledge: a reader¿s guide (London: Bloomsbury)
Stoneham, Tom (2002). Berkeley¿s World (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
Tipton, I. C. (1974). Berkeley: The Philosophy of Immaterialism (London: Methuen & Co.)
Urmson, J. O. (1982). Berkeley (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
Winkler, Kenneth (1989). Berkeley: an interpretation (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
Winkler, Kenneth (2005). Cambridge Companion to Berkeley (Cambridge University Press)
Rationalists
Cottingham, John (1988). The Rationalists (Oxford University Press)
Nelson. Alan, ed. (2005). The Blackwell Guide to Rationalism (Oxford: Blackwell)
Phemister, Pauline (2006). The Rationalists: Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz (Oxford: Polity)
(Descartes)
Broughton, Janet (2002). Descartes¿ Method of Doubt (Princeton: Princeton University Press)
Broughton, Janet & Carreiro, John eds. (2008). Companion to Descartes (Oxford: Blackwell)
Brown, Deborah J. (2006). Descartes and the Passionate Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
Carreiro, John (2009). Between Two Worlds: A Reading of Descartes¿s ¿Meditations¿ (Princeton: Princeton University Press)
Clarke, Desmond M., Descartes¿s Theory of Mind (Oxford University Press)
Cottingham, John, ed. (1992). Cambridge Companion to Descartes (Cambridge University Press)
Cottingham, John, ed. (1998). Descartes (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
Cunning, David (2010). Argument and Persuasion in Descartes¿ ¿Meditations¿ (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
Defletsen, Karen, ed. (2013). Descartes¿ ¿Meditations¿: A Critical Guide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
Frankfurt, Harry G. (1970). Demons, Dreamers and Madmen ((Indianapois: Bobbs-Merrill)
Gaukroger, Stephen (1995). Descartes: An Intellectual Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
Gaukroger, Stephen, ed. (2006). The Blackwell Guide to Descartes¿ ¿Meditations¿ ((Oxford: Blackwell)
Naaman-Zauderer, Noa (2013). Descartes¿ Deontological Turn: Reason, Will, and Virtue in the Later Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
Rozemond, Marleen (1998). Descartes¿s Dualism (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press)
Williams, Bernard (1978). Descartes: The Project of Pure Inquiry (London: Penguin)
Wilson, Catherine (2003). Descartes¿ ¿Meditations¿: an introduction (Cambridge University Press)
Wilson, Margaret D. (1978). Descartes (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul)
(Spinoza)
Garrett, Don (1996). Cambridge Companion to Spinoza. (Cambridge University Press)
Hampshire, Stuart (2005). Spinoza and Spinozism (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
James, Susan (2012). Spinoza on Philosophy, Religion, and Politics: The Theological-Political Treatise (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
Kashap, S. Paul, ed. (1972). Studies in Spinoza: Critical and Interpretive Essays (London: University of California Press)
Kisner, Matthew J. (2011). Spinoza on Human Freedom: Reason, Autonomy and the Good Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
Koistinen, Olli (2009). The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza¿s ¿Ethics¿ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
Koistinen, Olli & Biro, John, eds. (2002). Spinoza: Metaphysical Themes (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
LeBuffe, Michael (2010). From Bondage to Freedom: Spinoza on Human Excellence (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
Lloyd, Genevieve (1996). Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Spinoza and the ¿Ethics¿ (London: Routledge)
Lord, Beth (2010). Spinoza¿s ¿Ethics¿: an Edinburgh Philosophical Guide (Edinburgh University Press)
Nadler, Steven (2006). Spinoza¿s ¿Ethics¿: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press)
Popkin, Richard H. (2004). Spinoza (Oxford: Oneworld Publications)
(Malebranche)
Brown, Stuart (1991). Nicolas Malebranche: His Philosophical Critics and Successors (Assen: Van Gorcum)
Chappell, V. ed. (1992). Nicolas Malebranche (New York: Garland)
McCracken, Charles James (1983). Malebranche and British Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
Nadler, Steven (2000). Cambridge Companion to Malebranche (Cambridge University Press)
Nadler, Steven (1992). Malebranche and Ideas (Oxford University Press).
Pyle, Andrew (2006). Malebranche (London: Routledge)
Schmaltz, Tad M. (1996). Malebranche¿s Theory of the Soul: A Cartesian Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
(Leibniz)
Adams, Robert Merrihew (1994). Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
Arthur, Richard (2014). Leibniz (Oxford: Polity)
Broad, C. D. ((1975). Leibniz: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
Brown, Stuart (1984). Leibniz (London: Harvester Press)
Garber, Daniel (2009). Leibniz: Body, Substance, Monad (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
Hartz, Glenn (2006). Leibniz¿s Final System (London: Routledge)
Ishiguro, Hidé (1990). Leibniz¿s Philosophy of Logic and Language, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
Jolley, Nicholas (1984). Leibniz and Locke: A Study of the ¿New Essays on Human Understanding¿ (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
Jolley, Nicholas (1994). Cambridge Companion to Leibniz (Cambridge University Press)
Latta, Robert
Lodge, Paul, ed. (2004). Leibniz and his Correspondents (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
Look, Brandon, ed. (2011). Continuum Companion to Leibniz (London: Continuum)
Phemister, Pauline (2005). Leibniz and the Natural World: Activity, Passivity, and Corporeal Substances in Leibniz¿s Philosophy (Dordrecht: Springer)
Russell, Bertrand (1937). A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz, 2nd ed. (London: Allen & Unwin)
Rutherford, Don (1995). Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
Smith, Justin E. H. & Nachtomy, Ohad, eds. (2011). Machines of Nature and Corporeal Substances in Leibniz (Dordrecht: Springer)
Savile, Anthony (2000). Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Leibniz and the ¿Monadology¿ (London: Routledge)
Woolhouse, Roger S. (2010). Starting with Leibniz (London: Continuum)
Themes (selection)
Alexander, Peter (1985). Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles: Locke and Boyle on the External World (Cambridge University Press)
Allen, Keith and Stoneham Tom (2010). Causation and Early Modern Philosophy (London: Routledge)
Harrison, Peter (1992). ¿Descartes on Animals¿, Philosophical Quarterly, 42, 239-248
Jolley, Nicholas (1998). The Light of the Soul: Theories of ideas in Leibniz, Malebranche, and Descartes (Oxford University Press)
McRae, Robert (1965). ¿¿Idea¿ as a philosophical term in the seventeenth century, Journal of the History of Ideas, 26:2, 175-190.
Nadler, Steven, ed. (1993). Causation in Early Modern Philosophy (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University)
Nadler, Steven (2010). The Best of all Possible Worlds: A Story of the Philosophers, God, and Evil in the Age of Reason (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
Nadler, Steven (2011). Occasionalism: Causation among the Cartesians (Oxford Oxford University Press)
Popkin, Richard H. (1964). The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza (Assen: Van Gorcum)
Schiffman, Zacchary S. (1984). ¿Montaigne and the Rise of Skepticism in Early Modern Europe,: A Reappraisal¿, Journal of the History of Ideas, 45:4, 499-516
Smith, Kurt (2010). Matter Matters: Metaphysics adnd Methodology in the Early Modern Period (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
Wilson, Margaret Dauler (1999). Ideas and mechanism: essays on early modern philosophy (Princeton University Press)
Woolhouse, R. S. (1993). Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz: the concept of substance in seventeenth century philosophy (London: Routledge)
Yolton, John W. (1984). Perceptual Acquaintance from Descartes to Reid (University of Minnesota Press)
Yolton, John W. (1984). Thinking Matter: Materialism in Eighteenth Century Britain (Oxford: Blackwell)
Yolton, John W. (1991). Locke and French Materialism (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
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| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Pauline Phemister
Tel: (0131 6)51 3747
Email: p.phemister@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Lynsey Buchanan
Tel: (0131 6)51 5002
Email: Lynsey.Buchanan@ed.ac.uk |
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