Topics will be illustrated with historical examples. Requirements include quizzes, short papers, and a final examination. A study of philosophical writings of John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume. Our focus will be on epistemology and metaphysics, including their theories of perception, thought, and knowledge and their solutions to the problems of the external world, causation, and personal identity. We will make excursions into philosophy of religion, ethics, and political hilosophy.
Some previous philosophy is desirable.
The grade will be based on two papers and a final. exam. The course will be mostly devoted to studying Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, one of the more difficult and influential texts in Western philosophy. At the end of the course we will devote some time to the examination of Hegel's philosophy and its relation to Kant. We will give particular attention to his views on the structure and rationality of intellectual history. Students are required to have taken a previous course in philosophy.