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Instructor: Jon Miller

Enough time has passed that we can be confident of the status of the major philosophers of the seventeenth century.  Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke and others created philosophical systems that seem almost super-human in their ambition and complexity. They can be and are studied with enormous profit by those who are willing to put in the effort.

In this course, we will focus on Spinoza and Leibniz.  While their peers were also ambitious, Spinoza and Leibniz come across as breathtakingly bold.  They believed that they had divined the mysteries of the universe and ourselves. They presented their visions forthrightly and they advanced powerful arguments in support of their understanding of how things are.

Though Spinoza and Leibniz were deep and original thinkers, they did not philosophize in a vacuum.  They owed much to other thinkers, both in their day and those from more distant past. Before we get to Spinoza and Leibniz, we will devote some time considering the problems and ideas bequeathed by their predecessors to Spinoza and Leibniz.  In particular, we shall see how Descartes was instrumental in erecting the metaphysical and epistemological frameworks within which Spinoza and Leibniz operated.  In addition, it is important not to lose sight of how Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz and others in the seventeenth century were addressing questions of perennial interest.  We shall begin our course by posing such questions.

Once we are finished with those matters, we shall advance to Spinoza and Leibniz.  We will spend roughly five weeks on each philosopher.  In the case of Spinoza, we will read passages of his magnum opus, The Ethics.  Since Leibniz did not have a magnum opus, we will have to look at a variety of his writings.