Module Directory

This module will introduce students to debates that lay the foundation for modern philosophy. Starting with a close reading of Descartes' Meditations, we explore responses from key thinkers in the rationalist and empiricist traditions.

In the wake of Descartes's philosophy, the 'new philosophy' sets out to provide a foundation of the human project by stressing the power of human intellect unaided by divine revelation. The "Continental Rationalists", Spinoza and Leibniz, share Descartes conviction that the human mind could acquire substantive knowledge of the world on the basis of reason alone. Despite this shared conviction, however, there are profound differences between these individual philosophers. The "British Empiricists" thinkers, Locke and Hume, start from the shared conviction that knowledge of the world cannot be attained without recourse to sense experience. In the case of Locke, this leads to a more modest account of the scope of human knowledge; with Hume it leads to scepticism that throws the quest for knowledge into radical doubt.

We will more particularly focus on the following questions. What is the nature and limit of human knowledge? What role does human subjectivity have to play in the foundation of knowledge about the external world? What role, if any, does God play in knowledge? Does our common-sense view of the world have a philosophical foundation? Does sensory experience provide the only path to knowledge of the world, or can we gain knowledge through the exercise of pure reason? What is the relation between the body and the mind?

The aims of this module are:

• To introduce students to selected texts of some of the leading philosophers of the early modern period.


• To introduce students to core issues in metaphysics and epistemology and through the study of these texts.


• To give students some impression of how the texts and authors selected contributed to the theoretical framework underlying developments in philosophy.

By the end of this module, students will be expected to be able to:

• Summarise and expound in their own words theories and arguments from early modern philosophy.


• Expound and criticise commentaries on the traditional authors and texts.


• Expound and criticise some of the theories proposed by philosophers to cope with problems raised by selected authors.

Skills for your Professional Life (Transferable Skills)

By the end of the module, students should also have acquired a set of transferable skills, and in particular be able to:

1. Define the task in which they are engaged and exclude what is irrelevant.


2. Seek and organize the most relevant discussions and sources of information.


3. Process a large volume of diverse and sometimes conflicting arguments.


4. Compare and evaluate different arguments and assess the limitations of their own position or procedure.


5. Write and present verbally a succinct and precise account of positions, arguments, and their presuppositions and implications.


6. Be sensitive to the positions of others and communicate their own views in ways that are accessible to them.


7. Think 'laterally' and creatively - see interesting connections and possibilities and present these clearly rather than as vague hunches.


8. Maintain intellectual flexibility and revise their own position if shown wrong.


9. Think critically and constructively.

Incoming Study Abroad students must have already taken an introductory module in Philosophy at their home institution.

This module will be delivered via:

• One 2-hour lecture per week.
• One 1-hour discussion seminar per week, at which issues covered in the lecture will be discussed.

There will also be a Reading Week when no teaching will take place, exact week to be confirmed.