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PHILOS 6A03

Early Modern Philosophy

Graduate

Fall 2025 · C01

Topics

  • Sept. 8: Course Introduction
  • Overview of Eighteenth century debates on reason, faith, morality, human nature
  • Discussion of course themes and structure
  • Sept. 15: Shaftesbury.
  • An Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit (Selections).
  • Sept. 22: Shaftesbury.
  • Sept. 29: Butler.
  • Fifteen Sermons (Selections)
  • Oct. 6: Butler.
  • Oct. 20: Hume.
  • Natural History of Religion (Selections)
  • Oct. 27: Hume.
  • Nov. 3: Rousseau.
  • Discourse on Inequality (Selections)
  • Nov. 10: Rousseau.
  • Emile (Selections)
  • Nov. 17: Cugoano.
  • Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery (Selections)
  • Nov. 24: Cugoano.
  • Dec. 1: Visit to the Rare Book Collection* / Oral presentation of the term paper's main argument
  • Dec. 5: Term paper

Readings

  • Fifteen Sermons & Other Writings on Ethics
    Joseph Butler · 2017 · Edited by David McNaughton · Recommended / optional
    Oxford University Press
  • The Natural History of Religion
    David Hume · 2007 · Edited by Tom L. Beauchamp · Recommended / optional
    Oxford University Press
  • Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, Vol. 2
    Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury · 2025 · Recommended / optional
    Liberty Fund
  • Emile, or Education
    Jean-Jacques Rousseau · 2025 · Recommended / optional
    Liberty Fund
  • Treatise on Tolerance
    François-Marie Arouet, Voltaire · 2000 · Recommended / optional
    Cambridge University Press
  • Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species
    Ottobah Cugoano · 1999 · Recommended / optional
    Penguin
Sources