Philosophy 211: History of Philosophy in the 17th and 18th Centuries

Handbook

The Agenda for modern Western philosophy was set in the 17th Century with the establishment of the scientific outlook on the world. This course begins a study of the great philosophical problems which were either invented or revamped early in this period, and which have been pursued ever since:-

Given the new notion of the human being as a mind or soul in a body, as promulgated by Descartes:

Given that the universe is (in the modern period) to be regarded 'scientifically:

These problems (and others) are studied in this course by close

consideration of a selection of the great classical texts of Western Philosophy: works by Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Kant.

By the end of the course you should be able to:

Teaching and learning:

One plenary session a week (usually about 40 people).
One seminar a week (10-15 in each group).
Two assignments.
Assessment by coursework and exam (or, depending on how many dissertations you are doing altogether, by coursework and dissertation.)

Preliminary Reading

A single volume history which you will find very useful to have by you throughout the course, but which can be read rewardingly at the outset is:

A nicer book to handle and use (pictures as well as a panel of authoritative writers):

Topics summary

Scholasticism

Descartes

Locke

Berkeley

Hume

Kant

Learning Resources

Central Texts

The course proceeds by close consideration of a selection of the great classical texts of Western Philosophy. The texts are:

Work Cheap editions Approx cost
Descartes, Rene : Discourse on the method & Meditations on First Philosophy, 1637, 1641 (Descartes’ Selected Philosophical Writings ed.Cottingham, Stoothoff & Murdoch, Cambridge, 1998, CUP; cheaper: the Penguin edition, Discourse on Method and the Meditations, translated and introduced by F.E.Sutcliffe) £7
Locke, John : An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1690. Everyman ed. London 1961 £7
Berkeley, George. : Principles of Human Knowledge, 1710 Penguin edition Ed R.S. Woolhouse, Harmondsworth, 1988 £7
Hume, David : An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1748 Ed. Eric Steinberg, 2nd ed. Indianapolis, 1993, Hackett. Or OUP Paperback. £6.
Kant, Immanuel : A Critique of Pure Reason Everyman ed. £7

These are the main resource for the course and need to have very frequent access to them.

However all these texts are also freely available (in easily 'searchable' form) on the Internet. I have put simple editions on our server, where their editors allow, as well as pointing to others on the course web pages. A pair of discs carrying the core texts is available for loan for those who have yet to handle the net easily.

I suggest two secondary works as likely to help you understand the texts, and to place them in context. I look on them as 'textbooks', backing up the lectures, together covering the course as a whole. They are:

Text   Approx cost
John Cottingham: The Rationalists, No 4 of History of Western Philosophy, Oxford, 1988, OPUS.   £8.
Roger Woolhouse: The Empiricists, No 5 of History of Western Philosophy, Oxford, 1988, OPUS   £7.

For copyright reasons these are not available on the Internet. They are in the library, but participants are recommended to buy their own copies.

In general, a different passage from a central text is set as the reading for each week (on the topic of the lecture and seminar) (see Topics and Reading Week by Week, below), and you are encouraged to draw on the relevant textbook as you encounter the need for help. A longer list (but highly select) of books is provided, and you are encouraged to turn to this to enrich your reading for their written assignments. You are also encouraged to go on to explore for yourselves the remainder of the library holdings

The assignments and assessment are designed so that it is possible for a sufficiently able student to achieve first class marks even though they restrict their reading to the central texts. (This is not difficult.)

Library

There are multiple copies in the Library of the central texts (though in a variety of editions).

The full holdings are not listed systematically for you - deliberately so that you have the occasion to develop independent library-use skills. Included are holdings of relevant research journals. You are encouraged to explore these.

The assessment design is such that if you make good use of the materials beyond the central texts and the textbooks you receive credit (with the implication that a wider reading base may compensate for or supplement other qualities of an essay - see Assessment Policy).

Bookshops

The campus bookshop is advised of the central texts, with cheap editions identified, and of the textbooks. It is also given a short list of other generally useful books and a longer list of books identified as for 'further and background' reading. It takes orders of course.

Waterstones have another branch in town. Hammicks is also in town. Blackwells and Amazon et al are currently providing a tremendously competitive service via the internet.

Web Site

There are web pages for the course. Get to them from the philosophy programme home page, or

http://www.lancs.ac.uk/users/philosophy/courses/211/211%20home.htm

Here are kept:-

Broadcast materials

There are broadcast materials that are highly relevant from time to time, and I will draw attention to these.

Departmental Seminar

Philosophy Society

Topics and Reading Week by week

Term 1

Week 1 Descartes: A new approach to acquiring knowledge.

Descartes: Discourse on Method Sections 1, 2

Descartes: Meditations Meditation 1

The Rationalists, Chapters 1 and 2.

Week 2 Descartes: I can at least be certain that I exist; and that God exists.

Descartes: Discourse on Method Sections 4

Descartes: Meditations Mediations 2 & 3

The Rationalists, pp. 78-84.

Week 3 Descartes: The mind is a ghost in a machine

Descartes: Meditations Meditation 2

Descartes: Objections and Replies, On Meditation 6. Cottingham ed. pp.143-150.

The Rationalists, Chpater 4.

Week 4 Descartes: What there is.

Descartes: Principles of Philosophy Part 2 (Cottingham ed. pp.189-199).

Week 5 Dearing Week - Introduction to Career Management

Week 6 Locke: Ideas as the atoms of the mind.

All Locke readings from An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

Week 7 Locke: The origin of our ideas; how reason works.

Week 8 Locke: Primary and secondary qualities; substance.

Week 10 Berkeley: Idealism: 'there isn't anything outside the mind'.

TERM 2

Week 11 Berkeley: Attack on the primary/secondary quality distinction.

Week 12 Berkeley: Positivism

Week 13 Hume: Knowledge

Week 14 Hume: Necessity.

Hume, Enquiry, V, I (Causality)

Week 15 Hume: External world

Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding Continued

Week 16 Hume: The self; religion

Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding Continued

Second Essay: to be handed in by the end of this week (5 pm Friday).

Week 17 Kant: rejection of mental atomism; Synthetic a priori; Copernican revolution; one project: what experience has to be like

Scruton: A Short History of Western Philosophy, Ch. 10.

Week 18 Kant: Time and Space

Week 19 Kant: The thesis of objectivity

Week 20 Kant: Conceptual frameworks; Kant in the context of Enlightenment philosophy; noumena and phenomena; the self.

Assignment 1

 

Please write a study defined according to the following formula:

"Set out as clearly and accurately as you can the arguments Descartes uses to demonstrate p. What is your response to them?"

Within this formula, please choose p yourself, e.g. the existence of God, that mind is distinct from body, or that matter is extension ...

The point is, I would like your first assignment to be an exercise in studying Descartes directly, but I am anxious for you to work on the topic which interests you most.

Aim for 2,500 words. Devote about two thirds of the study to exegesis and a third to critique.

To go on the title page of your essay you are asked to construct a 'synopsis'. This is a paragraph-length summary of the essay, reflecting its structure as well as its content. You should construct it by going through your draft a paragraph at a time and writing a single-sentence summary of each paragraph in turn. Preparing a synopsis helps you refine your sense of structure, and gives you practice in helping your reader follow your presentation.

A recent selection of Descartes' writings is: Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings, Translated by Cottingham, Stoothoff and Murdoch, Cambridge, 1988, CUP.

But there are plenty of others. The Penguin selection (also suggested to the bookshop) is cheaper. All the main texts are also on the net.

I really want you to engage with Descartes directly, so only reluctantly refer to the recommended commentary by John Cottingham, The Rationalists (see reading list).

To be handed in please (post-box in the Department foyer) by the end of week 5.

Assignment 2

For your second assignment the structure of the essay is left for you to devise (for the first it was given by saying you should expound Descartes for two thirds and develop a critique in the final third.) This time I am asking you to set yourself an interesting question related to our period and discuss it at least partly by drawing on the work of one or more of the philosophers we are reading.

The questions I suggest are also designed to encourage you to develop your thinking on much wider-ranging (more interesting?) questions than ones of detailed scholarship.

Another part of the exercise is to get you to identify and make good use of relevant and good reading. I am deliberately not listing items myself (apart from the works of our philosophers), but I expect you to seek some out (one or two will be enough) and make use of them in your discussion. (As part of the exercise also you should document your references systematically. Some notes on this are available from the office.)

Please provide a synopsis, as for the first assignment.

You are welcome to devise your own topic, but If you do, it would be safest to write the title down and show me beforehand. Please formulate it in the form of a tightly worded question.

 

By 5pm on the Friday of 7th week please. Length guideline 2,500 words. If you wish to seek an extension to the end of term this is likely to be agreed, but you will need to fill in a form with the reason beforehand.

 

 

 

Some Sources for Further Reading

 

 

Author/title  
   
Roger Scruton: A Short History of Modern Philosophy, London, 1984. Routledge
Roger Scruton, Kant, Past Masters. OUP.
Anthony Kenny, ed., The Oxford Illustrated history of Western Philosophy, Oxford, 1994. OUP
   
Anthony Kenny, Aquinas on Mind, 1994. Routledge
   
Margaret Atherton, Empiricists : critical essays on Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, 1999. Rowman & Littlefield,
Gerald Hanratty, Philosophers of the Enlightenment : Locke, Hume and Berkeley revisited., 1995. Four Court Press
John Cottingham: Descartes, Oxford, 1986. Blackwell
   
John Cottingham (ed): Descartes, Oxford Readings in Philosophy, 1998. OUP
Anthony Kenny: Descartes - a study of his philosophy, Bristol, 1995 (1st pub. 1968). Thoemmes
R.S. Woolhouse: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, London, 1993,. Routledge
S. Gaukroger: Descartes: An Intellectual Biography, Oxford, 1997. OUP
   
J.L. Mackie: Problems from Locke, Oxford, 1997. OUP
G.A.J. Rogers (ed) :Locke’s Philosophy, Clarendon.
   
David Berman, George Berkeley : idealism and the man, 1994. Oxford U.P.
   
Margaret Atherton, Berkeley's revolution in vision, 1990. Cornell U.P.
David Berman: George Berkeley, Oxford, 1994. Clarendon
   
Georges Dicker, Hume's epistemology and metaphysics : an introduction., 1998. Routledge
Terence Penelhum, Themes in Hume : the self, the will, religion, 2000. Clarendon
S.Copley & A. Edgar (eds): Hume: Selected Essays, , 1993. Oxford, World’s Classics
   
Peter Strawson: The Bounds of Sense, 196, London. Methuen

 

Policy on Assessment

Assessment for this course is based on two assignments, one in each of the two terms, and a 3 hour closed-book exam.

I set out the different skills and abilities the course is designed to develop for you in the table. Alongside I explain how these are assessed through assignments and exams.

How your developing skills are assessed

  Year 1 Years 2 & 3 MA
lucidity present simple philosophical ideas and arguments clearly avoid confusion in the presentation of more difficult ideas and more complex argumentation present most ideas and argumentation in the relevant literature without substantial obscurity
structure of presentation present a limited number of related arguments or considerations in a clearly structured way synthesise a wider range of ideas and arguments into a single coherently structured written presentation marshal variously sourced arguments and considerations into a sustained and well-organised statement
grasp of problem the beginnings of a grasp of some dimensions of the philosophical problems at issue grasp at least some of the main dimensions of a philosophical problem at issue in such a way as to support the beginnings of critical independent thought about it grasp the main dimensions of the problem at issue at such a level as to lend authority to the author's independent critique
critical awareness show an awareness that claims are open to test and evaluation maintain throughout a limited study the sense that claims are open to test and evaluation maintain throughout a substantial study an independent voice
coherence of argumentation work with the distinction between validity and invalidity in argument work with a sharp sense of validity and invalidity in relation to complex lines of argumentation present extended critiques or lines of argumentation which avoid logical confusion.
evidence of study show the benefits in one's writing of careful listening, reading and thought draw intelligently in one's own reading, writing and thinking on a range of challenging contributions made by others write with a knowledge and grasp of the main contributions made by others to one's topic
knowledge and grasp of relevant literature read and have a basic understanding of at least eight pieces of philosophical literature read and have a good understanding of at least some aspects of some challenging contributions to the problem at issue know and understand the main contributions to the problem at issue and develop some sense of overview
sense of relevance know the difference between points that are straightforwardly relevant and points which are irrelevant to a particular argument or issue work with a sense of relevance in relation to a limited project as a whole, both in choice of reading and in presentation of argumentation work independently with a well-developed sense of relevance in relation to an extended project

 

Assignments

The primary point of writing essays is to help you develop skills, not to test them. But they do play a central role in assessment on this course nonetheless.

They ask you to engage in a sustained bit of philosophising.

The first gives you a structure: it asks you to give a careful exposition of a position/line of argument and to follow this with a critique. The second does not specify a structure but invites you to address a problem, creating a structure which best suits it and your approach.

For the first essay, though the general area and format is set, you are asked to specify a particular question within that yourself. This is to maximise your freedom to choose a topic of real interest to you while fulfilling the learning objectives of the course. Allowing wide freedom of choice also spreads the load on the library so it is easier for you to find the reading you need.

The same reasons lie behind the design of the second essay. In this case you are simply are asked to choose a question from a list.

In each case you are asked to construct a 'synopsis' of the essay (to go on the title page). This helps you refine your sense of structure, and gives you practice in helping your reader follow your presentation.

The length guideline for each essay is 2,500 words.

Exam

We use exams to test for much the same capacities as are shown in essays, though with different emphases - see table. They test also your capacity to work under a very special kind of pressure (!). The University insists on your taking a minimum number of exams in your total assessment profile in part because they are thought to act as a check against plagiarism.

Across all your undergraduate programme as a whole, you are meant to develop a range of knowledge, some of it on restricted topics but deep-going and some of it shallower but relating to a wider sweep. If you are using this course to develop breadth, you should opt for the exam. If you are getting breadth elsewhere, as it were, you should consider writing a dissertation in lieu of an exam. (The University rules that you can be assessed via dissertations in up to four of your 16 units of assessment.)

If you opt for the dissertation you will not be assessed for 'coverage'.

A function of an exam, as we use it in this course, is to test for 'coverage'. It tests, among other things, the breadth of your knowledge of the subject. It does this by setting questions (12 in all) which range across the whole course, by requiring you to answer three questions, and by requiring you to choose those questions so as to display knowledge of at least three of the major philosophers covered by the course. This strategy clearly allows a good deal of latitude. It is designed so that you can choose within limits to specialise by, say, ignoring a figure that does not attract you. On the other hand you can only expect to fail if you 'specialise' too much.

 

Criteria for the award of marks on an essay, dissertation or exam answer.

Class 2 Division 1

 

There is

and normally

Particular strength under one of these heads is seen as compensating for weakness under another.

First

 

The work meets the criteria for a 2/1 and in addition shows at least some of:

Marks within this class may vary reflecting

Class 2 Division 2

 

and normally

distinguished from a 2/1 therefore by

and normally

THIRD

 

the majority of the text is clear enough to be understood

there is

and normally

Particular strength under one of these heads is seen as compensating for weakness under another.

Thus distinguished from 2/2 by some of

PASS

 

The work shows

So distinguished from 3rd by

FAIL

 

Work that fails to meet the criteria for a Pass.

The work will thus be characterised by all of:

or

NOTES

 

Every effort will be made to construe the work as relevant to the question set.

These criteria only come into play when the work is accepted as the student's own.

GLOSSARY

 

'critical', as in 'critical argument':

'critical awareness':

'material':