History of Philosophy in the 17th and 18th Centuries

Topics

Links to Sections in Presentations

DESCARTES

The 'form' of scholasticism
Method of doubt.
The Cogito
God: Descartes' Cosmological Arguments
Descartes and the Modern concept of the Mind
Substance

• Introduction to the module
• Descartes on Method
• Rejection of all that is uncertain
• Beliefs based on sense
• The possibility of insanity
• Dreaming
• The Evil Demon
• The Cogito
• The self as a thinking thing
• What makes the Cogito valid?
• God in Descartes' thought
• Descartes' cosmological argument
• The hylomorphic (form-based) account of perception
• The hylomorphic account of knowing
• The Modern rejection of hylomorphic framework
• Descartes' contribution to the Revolution
• The connection between mind and body
• Descartes' proof of the External World
• The notion of a fundamental type of thing
• What did Descartes mean by 'substance'?
• What is the significance of the distinction between a thing and a property?
• Is there a connection between what is independent and what is real?
• The term 'Ontology'
• Substance in Descartes
• What substances are there?
• The piece of wax
• Mental Substance
• Materialism
• Idealism
• Review Questions

LOCKE

• Locke's project
• Substance
• Locke's concept of the mind
  • The 'homunculus' criticism
• Empiricism
  • The origin of ideas
  • Knowledge and opinion
  • Locke's empiricist conception of reason
• The problem of generality
• Nominal essences
• Real essences
• Primary and secondary qualities

• Reason v Observation
• Locke's Biography
• Locke's project
• Substance: background
• 'Substance in general'
• Substance: replaced by the Modern idea of a 'thing'
  • What is a thing?
  • Constructing the idea of a thing from a set of ideas of qualities
• Locke's sharpening up of 'idea'
• Reason and the data of sense
• The origin of ideas
• 'Complex ideas' in Locke
• The homunculus
• Reason in Locke
• Locke's project: a reminder
• Outline discussion:
  • The problem of generality
  • Outline of Locke's account of generality
• The problem of generality in more detail
• Categories
• Is there a philosophical problem concerning categories?
• - For empiricism
• - Porphyry's problem
• Plato on generality
• Locke on generality
• Note on Berkeley on generality
• Is there a problem about categories today?
• Nominal essences
• Real Essences
• Primary and Secondary Qualities
• Review questions
• The primary/secondary qualities distinction continued
• Locke's picture of the mind
• Continuing identity of a person
• Locke's conception of the human being - the punctual self
• Locke's theory of meaning

BERKELEY

Berkeley's attack on Locke's distinction between primary and secondary qualities
Immaterialism
Berkeley's attack on Locke's account of abstraction.

• The new question
• Descartes' answers
• Malebranche's answers
• Berkeley's answers
• Berkeley's argument against Locke
• Berkeley's general argument
• Berkeley's position
• Berkeley's Strategy
• Berkeley's attack on Locke's distinction betweeen primary and secondary qualities
• Reprise: Locke's arguments
• Berkeley's arguments
• Continuity among sensible objects
• Berkeley's attack on Locke's account of abstraction
• Berkeley's account of natural science
• Berkeley on substance
• Existence of other spirits
• Review questions

HUME

The empiricist perspective on knowledge
Causality and necessity
The self
Hume's attack on the possibility of Miracles
Hume's attack on the teleological argument
The problem of induction
Laws of nature
The external world

• Empiricism comes to fruition
• The nature of causality
• The idea of necessity
• Implications
• Hume on Necessity
• Reprise of Hume on causality
• Internal sense as a source of our idea of necessary connection?
• Analytical necessity
• The empiricist perspective on knowledge: Hume's Fork
• The Self
• Possible construal of Hume
• Attack on the possibility of miracles
• Attack on the teleological argument
• The external world
• Hume's scepticism deriving from his rejection of'necessary connexions' between things
• Review questions

KANT

What concepts must we have in order to think at all?
Time and Space
Conceptual Frameworks
Phenomena and Noumena
The self

• Rejection of the atomic conception of mentality
• The synthetic a priori
• 'Cognitive apparatus'
• Kant's project
• Time
• Space
• Closer consideration of arguments - time
• Space and Time as forms of intuition
• Target: The thesis of objectivity
• Causality and objectivity
• Some more theses paving the way to the objectivity thesis
• The temporality thesis
• The thesis of the necessary unity of consciousness:
• The thesis of objectivity
• Conceptual Frameworks
• Noumena and phenomena
• The Self