geoff pynn

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Assistant Professor
Department of Philosophy
Northern Illinois University
g pynn @ niu . edu

spring 2010
philosophy 322: modern philosophy

This course is a survey of European philosophy from 1641 to 1787, focusing primarily on metaphysics and epistemology.

Syllabus (pdf)
Syllabus (online section YE1) (pdf)

Course paper instructions (pdf)

Test 1: Essay Questions (pdf)
Test 2: Essay Questions (pdf)

Handouts

Descartes Outline
Handout 1: Scholasticism and Mechanism
Handout 2: The First Meditation
Handout 3: The Second Meditation
Handout 4: The Third Meditation
Handout 5: The Cartesian Circle
Handout 6: The Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Meditations
Handout 7: The Descartes-Elisabeth Correspondence

Spinoza
Handout 8: Introduction to the Ethics
Handout 9: Spinoza's Proof of Substance Monism
Handout 10: More on Spinoza's Metaphysics
Handout 10a: God and Purpose
Handout 11: Spinoza's Philosophy of Mind

Leibniz
Handout 12: Leibniz's Optimism
Handout 13: The Predicate Containment Principle
Handout 14: Freedom and Determinism
Handout 15: Leibniz on Substance
Handout 16: Mind and Body in Leibniz

Locke
Handout 17: Locke's Empiricism
Handout 18: Locke on Bodies
Handout 19: Personal Identity

Berkeley
Handout 20: Berkeley's Immaterialism
Handout 21: Berkeley's Arguments for Immaterialism

Hume
Handout 22: Hume's Empiricism
Handout 23: Hume's Skepticism I: Unobserved Matters of Fact
Handout 24: The Idea of Necessary Connection
Handout 25: Hume's Compatibilism
Handout 26: Hume's Skepticism II: The External World
Links to visual illusions:
Rotating snakes and other autonomous motion illusions, by Akiyoshi Kitaoka
Color illusions, by Akiyoshi Kitaoka
Checkershadow illusion, by Edward Adelson

Supplementary Readings

Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, Correspondence with Descartes (pdf)
Lady Damaris Masham, Correspondence with Leibniz (pdf)
Gottfried Leibniz, Supplementary texts (pdf)
George Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, secs. 34-59, 135-156 (pdf)
George Berkeley and Samuel Johnson, Letters (pdf)