PHIL 201 - Modern Philosophy

This course aims to provide a broad but thorough – rigorous and fun – introduction to the history of modern European philosophy (roughly 1600 to 1800). We will read and discuss central works of major figures such as Descartes, Hobbes, Newton, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley and Hume. In addition, we will ‘expand the canon’ by including study and discussion of an equal number of important but neglected women philosophers of the period, such as Elizabeth of Bohemia, Margaret Cavendish, Gabrielle Suchon, Émilie Du Châtelet, Catharine Cockburn, Anne Conway, Mary Astell, as well as the African-German philosopher Anton Amo and enslaved African American poet Phillis Wheatley. We will occasionally ‘pull back’ from the texts to discuss the metaphilosophical question whether the women philosophers approached philosophy differently from the ‘bachelors of science’, the historiographical question why these women were ‘disappeared’ from the history of European philosophy, and the pressing political question why women and people of color remain underrepresented in academic philosophy. Occasionally (4 Credits)