Date

Topic

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

Jan. 14

Introductory Session

Descartes, Meditations 1 and 2 (in class)

Jan 21

Descartes’ reboot of the search for knowledge

TGC Ch 13 (Includes the Meditations by Descartes)

Feb. 4

Descartes’ dualism and Hobbes’ materialism

TGC, Ch. 14 to p. 371, Hobbes, Leviathan, Intro and Book 1, Chs. 1-6; Princess Elizabeth, letters to Descartes (pp. 1-8)

Feb. 11

Hobbes and Locke on the Social Contract

TGC 370-375;  Hobbes, Leviathan, Chs. 13-15(pp. 56-74),  17, 18, 21 (pp. 77-85, 96-102); TGC 385-388; Locke, Second Treatise of Government, Chs. 1-5, 7-11 (pp. 2-18, 26-46)

Feb. 18

TGC 375-3825, 389-399; Locke,Essay Concerning Human Understanding, selections:

Book I, Of Innate Notions
---Chapter 1, Introduction
---Chapter 2, No Innate Principles in the Mind
---Chapter 4 Further Considerations on Innate Principles, just sections 8 and 9

Book II, Of Ideas
---Chapter 1, Ideas in General and Their Origin, sections 1-9
---Chapter 2, Simple Ideas
---Chapter 3, Ideas of One Sense
---Chapter 4, Solidity
---Chapter 5, Simple Ideas of Different Senses
---Chapter 6, Simple Ideas of Reflection
---Chapter 7, Simple Ideas of Both Sensation and Reflection
---Chapter 8, Further Considerations..., Sections 1-19
---Chapter 11, Of Discerning and Other Operations of the Mind, sections 1, 4, 6, 8. 9, 17
---Chapter 12 Complex Ideas
---Chapter 21, Power, Sections 1-29 plus sections 73-74
---Chapter 23, Complex Ideas of Substances, Sections 1-12, 30, 33, 35, 37
Chapter 27 Identity and Diversity, Sections 1-6, 9-10, 16-20, 22, 25

Book IV Knowledge and Opinion
---Chapter 1, Of Knowledge in General
---Chapter 2, The Degrees of Our Knowledge
---Chapter 3, The Extent of Human Knowledge, Sections 1-5
--- Chapter 10, Our Knowledge of the Existence of God, Sections 1-6
---Chapter 11, Our Knowledge of the Existence of Other Things

1^st paper due (instructions) ;

TGC Box on p.443;

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)

If you want more background on Leibniz and some help with his puzzling ideas , this Wikipedia article isn't bad. The following sections are especially relevant:

# 2.1 The Principles
# 2.2 The monads
# 2.3 Theodicy and optimism

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:

March 4

Hume on knowledge and causality

TGC 400-412; Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Chs. 1-7

March 11

March 18

Hume on God, soul, and freedom

TGC 412-421;Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Chs. 8-12 ; Also 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 3 (p.19)

In Part 4, Read Philo's reply to Cleanthes (pp. 21-23)

Read the first couple of pages of Part 6
Read the first couple of pages of Part 7

Read Part 9, in which Demea states the Cosmological Argument and Cleanthes replies.

Read the last few pages of Part 10 (start with Philo's speech on page 44) and all of Part 11 (on the problem of evil)

March 25

Hume on morality

TGC 421-428; Hume,Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Sections 1, 2, 3, and 9, plus appendix 1. Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, Book II, Part 3, section 3, "The
Influencing Motive of the Will" (pp. 215-218)
2. Treatise of Human Nature,,Book III, Part 1, section 1, "Moral Distinctions Aren't Derived from Reason" (pp. 234-242)

April 1

Kant I: on the idea of a Critique of Pure Reason and on Space and Time as forms of Sensible Intuition

TGC 426-436; Kant, Critique of Pure Reason through page 73 (the end of the Transcedental Aesthetic – p. 40 in Bennett’s version)

April 8

Kant II:  on the Categories of judgment and  their Transcendental Deduction

TGC 437-450; Kant, Critique of Pure Reason through page 168 (the end of the Transcendental Deduction –p.88 in Bennett’s version

April 15

Kant III: the refutation of idealism and the distinction between phenomena and noumena

TGC 442-444; Kant, Critique of Pure Reason,  pp.266-315 (section 4 of Chapter 2 and all of Chapter 3 in the Analytic –pp.123-143 in Bennett’s version) 2nd paper due (instructions)

April 22

Kant IV: The Ideas of Pure Reason: God, Soul, World and Freedom

TGC 444-452; Kant, Critique of Pure Reason,  a. The first section of the introduction called "Transcendental Illusion" pp. 155-157 in Bennett's version (B349-355)
  b.  The first two sections of the "Parologisms of Pure Reason", pp.175-182 in Bennett (B399-406;  A349-A361)
  c.  The third "Antinomy", pp.219-222 in Bennett (B472-479), and it's solution, pp.249-258 in Bennett (B560-585)
  d. Kant's discussion of the ontological argument for the existence of God, pp.272-276 in Bennett (B620-630).

April 29

From Hegel to Marx

TGC Ch. 17; Hegel, The dialectic of master and slave; Critique of Kant (Philosophy of Right sections 133-135); Introduction to the Philosophy of History, Chapter III (optional); TGC, pp.510-517; Marx, Theses on Feuerbach; Preface to the Critique of Political Economy; from The German Ideology (through section 4 on Social Being and Consciousness); "Ruling Class and Ruling Ideas";

May 6

Nietzsche

TGC Ch. 20; Read as much as you can of Twilight of the Idols, at least the Preface,  The Problem of Socrates , "Reason" in Philosophy,
How the "True World" Finally Became a Fable, Morality as Anti-Nature, and The Four
Great Errors  and in The Genealogy of Morals, read sections 5 and 6 of the Prologue and as much of the First Essay as you can.  3rd paper due by midnight on May 8.