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 |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | The aim of this course is to introduce students to the philosophies of some of the central figures in seventeenth century thought (Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley) as they strove to resolve key metaphysical issues (e.g. about the nature of reality, the identity of persons and things, causation, the nature of perception, and relations between with mind and the body) through a combination of logical reasoning and empirical observation and as they attempted to address the epistemological issue of the extent to which human reason and experience was capable of addressing these metaphysical issues. The main objective of the course is to give students a solid understanding of the philosophical questions that concerned seventeenth century thinkers, an understanding of the complexities of the debates, and of their continuing philosophical relevance today.
The course will be shared with the undergraduate version Reason and Experience: Seventeenth Century Philosophy (PHIL10150)
For courses co-taught with undergraduate students and with no remaining undergraduate spaces left, a maximum of 8 MSc students can join the course. Priority will be given to MSc students who wish to take the course for credit on a first come first served basis after matriculation. |
| Course description |
Seminar content:
1. Overview of rationalism and empiricism
2. Scepticism about sense experience and the validation of reason: Descartes
3. Rejection of innate principles and the validation of experience: Locke
4. Innatism and individual substances: Leibniz
5. Mechanism: Descartes and Locke on body, the primary-secondary quality distinction, and representative perception
6. Dynamics: Leibniz: activity, force, perception and motion
7. Language, Nominalism and real essences: Locke and Leibniz
8. Mitigated scepticism: Locke on our knowledge of God, morals and the external world
9. Berkeley's' Esse est percipi 'doctrine and the rejection of primary-secondary quality distinction
10. Berkeley's refutation of scepticism and atheism
11. Overview and Revision
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2015/16, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: 8 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| 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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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
2500 word assignment
Essay deadline: Thursday 21st April 2016 by 12 noon.
Word limit: 3000 words maximum (excluding references)
Return deadline: Friday 13th May 2016 |
| Feedback |
-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
- Formative feedback available:
- opportunity to submit a formative essay by the week 6 closing deadline
-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
- Students have the opportunity to submit a formative essay by week 6 deadline on Turnitin via Learn. The essay cannot be draft of summative essay but it can be on the same topic.
Formative essay deadline: Thursday 25th February 2016 by 12 noon
Return deadline: Friday 18th March 2016
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| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- understand the often sophisticated and frequently heated debates that raged in the seventeenth century on matters scientific, theological and philosophical.
- appreciate the inter-relation between the epistemological, metaphysical, ethical, scientific and theological positions discussed.
- evaluate critically the arguments offered both in defence of, and in opposition to, these positions.
- defend their own views on these issues and be able to develop and assess different interpretations of the texts studied.
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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) Available on the Past Masters database.
Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, tr. and ed. by Dan Garber and Roger Ariew (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989) . Available on the Past Masters database
Locke, An Essay concerning Human Understanding, ed. by Pauline Phemister (Oxford University Press, 2008). The edition by P. H. Nidditch is available on the Past Masters database
Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge / Three Dialogues, ed. by Roger Woolhouse (Penguin). Berkeley's Principles are also available in the Collected Works of Berkeley on the Past Masters database.
Additional primary sources:
Spinoza, Ethics, tr. & ed. by G. H. R. Parkinson (London: Dent, 1989). A translation by E.M. Curley is available on the Past Masters database.
Malebranche, Nicolas, Dialogues on Metaphysics and on Religion, ed. by Nicholas Jolley, tr. by David Scott (Cambridge University Press, 1997)
The full weekly reading list is available on Learn. |
Additional Information
| Course URL |
Please see Learn page |
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Additional Class Delivery Information |
Taught by Dr Pauline Phemister
The course has a 1 hour lecture and 2 x 1 hour tutorial teaching arrangement in place; students must go to ALL lectures and choose only ONE tutorial group. Students do not attend both shared tutorial groups. Courses may also have additional postgraduate-only tutorials. |
| 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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