History of Philosophy from Descartes to Kant

he purpose of this subject is to enable you to gain a critical understanding of some of the metaphysical and epistemological ideas of some of the most important philosophers of the early modern period, between the 1630s to the 1780s.

This period saw a great flowering of philosophy in Europe. Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, often collectively referred to as “the rationalists”, placed the new “corpuscularian” science within grand metaphysical systems which certified our God-given capacity to reason our way to the laws of nature (as well as to many other, often astonishing conclusions about the world). Locke wrote in a different, empiricist tradition. He argued that, since our concepts all ultimately derive from experience, our knowledge is necessarily limited. Berkeley and Hume developed this empiricism in the direction of a kind of idealism, according to which the world studied by science is in some sense mind-dependent and mind-constructed. Kant subsequently sought to arbitrate between the rationalists and the empiricists, by rooting out some assumptions common to them and trying thereby to salvage and to reconcile some of their apparently irreconcilable insights.

Reading the primary texts is of great importance. For those taking Finals in 2007 and thereafter, paper 101 will have a new format. It will be divided into three sections and students will be required to answer at least one question from Section A (Descarters, Spinoza and Leibniz) and at least one from Section B (Locke, Berkeley, Hume). Section C will contain questions on Kant and students taking paper 112 may not attempt questions from this section. If you are offering 102 as well as 101, you should take care to avoid repetition of material across the examinations for these papers.

R.S. Woolhouse, The Empiricists; J. Cottingham, The Rationalists (both O.U.P. Opus series).