Lecture (LEC)

• COLL (CASE) A&H Breadth of Inq

• COLL (CASE) A&H Breadth of Inquiry credit

Topic: Descartes, spinoza, & leibniz

This course is an intensive investigation into the work of three philosophers of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries: René Decartes, Benedict de Spinoza, and Gottfied Wilhelm Leibniz. Traditionally referred to as the "Continental Rationalists," these philosophers are often understood to be united in their commitment to the existence of innate ideas and the view that reason, rather that experience, is the source of human knowledge. Another, perhaps deeper commitment that they might be understood to share is that the world is maximally intelligible, even if it cannot be wholly understood by finite minds such as our own. Our aim will be to understand and assess the work of these philosophers, by studying works include Descartes' Mediations on First Philosophy, Spinoza¿s Ethics, and Leibniz's Monadology. Questions considered will include: What can we know? Does God exist? What is the relationship between the mind and the body? What is causation? Does everything have an explanation? What are the limits of metaphysical theorizing? And what is the ultimate nature of reality?