When it comes to epistemological questions,
the two primary schools of thought are the empiricist school
and the rationalist schools.
The empiricists are well represented
by
- John Locke (British, 1632-1704)
- George Berkeley (Irish, 1685-1753)
- David Hume (Scotch, 1711-1776))
The rationalists are represented by
- René Descartes (French, 1596-1650)
- Benedictus de Spinoza (Dutch, 1632-1677)
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (German,
1646-1716)
In this course we are going to focus primarily
on the philosophers in the empiricist tradition, though someone in
class may choose to do their research project on René Descartes
or one of the other rationalists.
We will be looking first at some of the
main themes in John Locke's philosophy, then more briefly at the work
of George Berkeley and David Hume. Understanding what some of the
questions were that these three thinkers addressed is a necessary
prerequisite to understanding the work of one of the greatest and
most influential thinkers of the past two millennia, Immanuel Kant
(1724-1804).
Kant's work, as we will see, flows directly
out of the turbulent confluence of these two opposing (rationalist
and empiricist) philosophical traditions.
And out of Kant's thought flows that of
Arthur Schopenhauer (and others).
