Date

Topic

Reading    (Note: TGC = The Great Conversation by Norman Melchert (Eighth edition); TBA means To Be Announced later; page numbers for primary texts are from Bennett's versions)

August 23

Introductory Session

Descartes, Meditations 1 and 2 (in class)

Sept. 6

Descartes’ dualism, Elizabeth's criticism, and Hobbes’ materialism

TGC, Ch. 18 to p.412, Hobbes, Leviathan, Intro and Book 1, Chs. 1-6; Princess Elizabeth, correspondence with Descartes (pp. 1-8)

Sept. 13

Hobbes and Locke on the Social Contract: the philosophical rationalization of colonial conquest

Reduced assignment:

1. The pages in Melchert dealing with Hobbes’ and Locke’s moral and political theories
1. On Hobbes, pages 411-415 (This overlaps slightly with the reading from this week, because the moral/political argument starts with Hobbes’ discussion of human motivation in the section in Melchert’s book called “Mind and Motives.”)
2. On Locke, pages 424 to 426 (i.e., the section called “On Representative Government.”  If you have time the very brief section on “Toleration” would also be helpful.
2. A few pages from Hobbes’ Leviathan: In Bennet’s version
1. All of Book One, Chapter 13, pp. 56-59  (this text is not formatted in such a way that I can give you a link that goes straight to Chapter 13.  But you can click on Chapter 13 in the table of contents and get there quickly):
2. The first couple of pages of Chapter 14, page 59 and the first column of page 60. (Skip the rather long complicated discussion of the nature of promises and contracts that takes up the rest of the chapter on pp.60 to 65.)
3. In Chapter 15 read just the discussion of the 5th through 13th laws of nature on pages 70 and 71.  This gives a good representation of Hobbes way of thinking.
3. The following selections from Locke’s Second Treatise of Government:
1. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 (pp. 3-10)
2. Chapter 9 (pp. 40-41)
3. Chapter 11 (pp. 43-46)
4. If you had time to read all of Chapter 5 “Property” (pp. 10-18) that would be great, but it is rather long  in comparison to the other selections.  Read at least the first few pages (through section 35).
4. We’ll postpone reading most of the selections from Charles Mills’ The Racial Contract. For now, just read the Introduction (pp. 1-7).

That reduces the page count for the week substantially, though it is still a lot to think about.

[Original assignment. Read more if you have time.:
TGC 411-415;  Hobbes, Leviathan, Chs. 13-15(pp. 56-74),  17, 18, 21 (pp. 77-85, 96-102); TGC 424-426; Locke, Second Treatise of Government, Chs. 1-5, 7-11 (pp. 2-18, 26-46);

Mills,The Racial Contract(selections). Optional extra readings: Hall, "Race in Hobbes"; Bernasconi and Mann, "Locke, Slavery, and the Two Treatises".]

Sept. 20

1. Read the TGC boxes on Spinoza and Leibniz (In the 8th edition, pp. 477 and 478; In the 7th edition, pp. 434 and 436); This will give you a very concise overview of central themes in each man’s philosophy.

2. Read the cartoon version of Spinoza from Heretics by Steven and Ben Nadler. Steven Nadler is a distinguished scholar of early modern philosophy. His son Ben is a cartoonist. They teamed up to produce this excellent book.

3. Watch the School of Life video on Spinoza. (8 minutes) (I’m not sure, by the way, that the criticism of Spinoza at the end of this video is well-founded.)

4. Take a look at the first few pages of Spinoza’s book  The Ethics to get a sense of how Spinoza proceeds (his 'geometrical method'). (I mean “take a look” fairly literally.  You needn’t try to make sense of his deductions, unless it amuses you to do so.

5. Read the cartoon version of Leibniz

Optional (not required reading):
Selections from Leibniz:
1. The Monadology
2. The first five sections of the Discourse on Metaphysics (pages 1-3 in Bennett's version) and also sections 23 ( starts on page 16 -- in which Leibniz discussed the Ontological Argument, which we encountered in Meditation #5) and sections 30-33 (pages 20-23 -- with a bit more on the problem of evil and Leibniz's account of the relation of soul and body)
Other resources (not required reading):
For a lot more on Leibniz's metaphysics there is a good article in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
For a thorough discussion of his treatment of the problem of evil there is this from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
There is an hour long video on Spinoza and Leibniz in the BBC 'Great Philosophers" series, which begins here.

TGC 1st 13 pages of Chapter 19: 438-451 (8th ed.), 393-405 (7th ed.); Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Chs. 1-7

Oct. 4

Hume on God, soul, and freedom

1. TGC 451-458 and 462-464 (8th ed), 405-414 and 418-420 (7th ed.);

2. Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Sections 8-12 (most important: section 8 on “Liberty and Necessity”, Section 10 on “Miracles”, and Section 12 on “The Skeptical Philosophy”) ;

3. Some selections from Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion:

• Read from the bottom of page 10, column 1, where Cleanthes states the argument
  from design -- "Look round the world..." -- to the end of Part 2 (p.16).  This gives the main part of Philo’s critique of the argument.
• Part 5 (pp. 24-26) includes another of Philo’s criticisms.
• Part 7 (pp. 30-33) is another short section that includes one of Philo’s wittier criticisms (culminating in the idea that we might as well suppose that the world was spun into existence by a cosmic spider as that it was planned and created by an intelligent God).
• At the bottom of the second column of page 34 Philo begins a remarkable speech that seems to anticipate the theory of evolution by natural selection.  (“Philo went on: And this very consideration that we have stumbled on in the course of the argument suggests another hypothesis…”)  It runs through the first column of page 36.
• In Part 9 (pp. 38-40), Demea states and Cleanthes refutes the so-called cosmological or ‘First Cause’ argument.
• From the first column on page 44 to the end of section 11 (p. 53) Philo develops the so-called ‘problem of evil’ as an empirical argument against the existence of a God who is benevolent, omnipotent and omniscient.

Oct. 11

Hume on morality

First position paper due Monday, October 16, by 10 AM

1. TGC 458-462 (8th ed.), 414-418 (7th ed.);

2. Hume, Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Sections 1, 2, 3, and 9, plus appendix.

3. Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, Book II, Part 3, section 3, "The Influencing Motive of the Will" (pp. 215-218)

4. Treatise of Human Nature,,Book III, Part 1, section 1, "Moral Distinctions Aren't Derived from Reason" (pp. 234-242)

Oct. 18

Kant on knowledge

1. TGC, Chapter 20 (on Kant) pp. 465-479 (8th ed.) 422-436 (7th ed.)

2. Kant, Prolegomena through section 39 (that is, through page 44 in Bennett's version)

Oct. 25

Kant on God, soul, and freedom

1. TGC, Chapter 20, pp. 479-485 (8th ed.) 437-444 (7th ed.);

2. Kant, Prolegomena, sections 40-60 (to the end of the book, omitting the Appendix, but including the "Solution of the General Question....", i.e., through page 77.

Nov. 1

Kant on morality and freedom (again)

1. TGC Chapter 20, pp. 485-495 (8th ed.), 445-455 (7th ed.);

2. Kant, selections from Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals

Nov. 8

Enlightenment roots of racism

1. Andrew Valls, "Introduction" to Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy;

2. Charles Mills, "Kant's Untermenschen"

3. The introduction and some selections from Mills' The Racial Contract

Nov. 15

The woman question in early modern philosophy

1. TGC 555-561 (8th ed.) 521-527 (7th ed.)

2. Locke on "Conjugal Society" read just the first few pages of Chapter 7: Political or Civil Society" sections 77 to 83

2. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, discussion of the education of women (in the person of an imaginary "Sophie") from his book Emile

3. Kant, a few pages on marriage from the Metaphysics of Morals

3. Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women (selections from Bennett's version);

a. Response to Rousseau (read pp. 53-61)

b. Chapter 4 "The state of degradation to which woman is reduced by various causes" (Read at least to page 44.)

c. Chapter 13, "Examples of the harm done by women's ignorance" (This is the concluding chapter of the book.)

Nov. 22

Nov. 29

Hegel

1. TGC Ch. 21;

2. Hegel, The dialectic of master and slave (just read enough to get the flavor of Hegel's prose style. It won't take long.)

3. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, section 135) This brief selection contains Hegel's famous critique of Kant' moral philosophy;

4. Introduction to the Philosophy of History (in part); (This text is often recommended to beginning students of Hegel. Read as much as you can stomach.)

Dec. 6

Marx

1. TGC, pp.510-517;

2. Marx, Theses on Feuerbach (very short);

3. Marx, Preface to the Critique of Political Economy; (super short)

4. from The German Ideology (skip section 3 and read just the first bit of section 4 on Social Being and Consciousness. );

5. Marx,"Ruling Class and Ruling Ideas";

6. Critique of the Gotha Program, Part 1

7. The Communist Manifesto

Second position paper due by 10:00am on Monday, Dec. 11.