Modern Philosophy (20137)
Degree/study:Degree in Humanities
Year: 3rd-4th
Term: 3rd
Number of ECTS credits: 5 credits
Hours of studi dedication: 125 hours
Teaching language or languages: catalan
Teaching Staff: Glòria Farrés
1. Presentation of the subject
This subject is about the modern philosophic thinking, from the Renaissance to the Illustration, and it will be focused on René Descartes, who creates, with the concept of method, a new criterion of value that is the basis of metaphysics and modern sciences. Through Descartes it starts the second voyage of the philosophic thinking: the truth is reduced to the certainty that a subject finds in the own conscience, and this will be the starting point of the subject philosophy that continues until the phenomenological movement of the 20th century.
2. Competences to be attained
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General skills |
Transferable competences |
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1. Critical analysis of texts. 2. Writing of philosophical comments. |
1. Understand deeply the Cartesian philosophy. 2. Consequences of the Cartesian thinking in the modern philosophy. |
3. Contents
INTRODUCTION (5%) 1 session
1. Renaissance and humanism. Crisis of the medieval foundations and birth of a new sensibility.
DESCARTES. LIFE AND WORK (60%) 8 / 9 sessions
2. The new sciences: Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo. Education Descartes stage in La Flèche (1598-1618). In view of the Aristotelian realism, the doubts emerge.
3. Research Descartes stage (1618-1625), when he broods the desire of writing an extremely ambitious work that supports sciences through metaphysics.
4. Collection and production in Holland and the last year in Sweden.
5. Discourse on the Method. Autobiography and essential intuitions. A work that marks a time.
6. Metaphysical meditations. 1st meditation. The doubt. It is needed to distinguish the being and the known object.
6. Metaphysical meditations. 2nd meditation. The cogito. The I think as a supreme judge.
7. The other meditations: God and the world. Restoration of a renewed world by the divine guarantee.
8. The Cartesian morals.
POST-CARTESIANISM AND ILLUSTRATION (35%) 4/5 sessions
9. The post-Cartesian rationalism: Spinoza.
10. The post-Cartesian empiricism: Hume.
11. Social and literary influence of Descartes in 17th and 18th centuries.
12. General vision of the Illustration. Culmination of the highest confidence in the possibilities of the reason to know and govern.
13. Descartes legacy in the 20th century.
Mandatory reading:
It will be mandatory to read during the course the Mediations on First Philosophy of Descartes.
*The full version with the sections: 4. Assessment, 5. Bibliography and teaching resources, 6. Methodology, and 7. Planning of activities is available in the original version.
4. Assessment
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5. Bibliography and teaching resources
5.1. Basic bibliography
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5.2. Complementary bibliography
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5.3. Teaching resources
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6. Metodology
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7. Planning of activities
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