PHI 231 The Age of Reason
In this course we will consider some of the major philosophical figures of the enlightenment era, with a focus on their philosophies of nature and their accounts of our acquisition of knowledge. These thinkers opposed medieval and Aristotelian conceptions of the world and formulated or reformulated many philosophical problems that persist today. Topics covered may include: skepticism, the mind-body problem, proofs for God’s existence, whether there are any innate ideas, the nature and existence of human freedom, the nature of perception, the status of color (sound, taste, etc.), the nature of the physical world, and the scientific revolution.