hobbes & descartes
Hobbes and Descartes
Connect materialism, nominalism, and representative perception to Hobbes; reconstruct doubt, certainty, God, innate ideas, and dualism in Descartes.
Hobbes is a derivative of the ancient materialists and ends up a total skeptic. Descartes is a derivative of Plato and Augustine and implants the Platonic approach deeply into modern philosophy at its outset. Hobbes denies consciousness. Descartes casts doubt on physical reality.
spinoza, leibniz, locke
Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke
Compare rationalist monism/idealism with Locke on ideas, experience, substratum, reality, ethics, and politics.
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berkeley & hume
Berkeley and Hume
Trace the course argument from empiricism and appearance/reality to idealism, nominalism, sensualism, entities, causality, and ethics.
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response
Sensory evidence, consciousness, concepts, validation
Explain sense perception, law of identity, concept formation, stolen concept, fallibility, onus of proof, and arbitrary assertion.
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phase problem
Why do Rationalism and Empiricism reach a skeptical crisis in the course narrative? Identify the decisive premises and test the proposed alternative against the strongest objection you can formulate.
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