PHIL 383 Modern Philosophy: Descartes to Kant
As Luther broke with the Catholic Church in the opening years of the sixteenth century, Copernicus dared to proclaim that the earth was not the center of the universe. The stage had been set for an intellectual revolution; in virtue of the burgeoning success of scientific inquiry, paired with a renewed confidence in rationality, human beings began to perceive themselves as the "masters of the universe." "Modernity" was ushered in as a previously unquestioned obedience to Church and God slipped away. In this class, we will carefully examine four philosophers who helped to shape this dramatic and rich moment in history: Descartes, Leibniz, Hume and Kant (as well as a number of relatively unknown women philosophers).