PHI 3344 From Medieval to Modern Philosophy
The changes in the understanding of philosophy and philosophical activity from the time of Europe’s recovery of Aristotle (ca. 1200) until the conclusion of the first phase of the Scientific Revolution (ca. 1700). It explores the differences among and between the scholastic philosophers and the early modern empiricists and rationalists. Thinkers to be studied will include figures such as Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, René Descartes, and Benedict Spinoza. Topics to be investigated include the changing conceptions of the natural world, differing accounts of the human being and of human knowledge, alternative understandings of the divine, different interpretations of moral-political action, the changing relations between philosophy and science, and the competing accounts of the relations between philosophy and religious faith.
Offered
Fall