POLI 3609 Making the Modern Mind

Do not take this course if you previously took the Enduring Question course POLI1034 Making the Modern Mind: Morality. This course is class-restricted to sophomores, juniors, and seniors. The scientific revolution of the seventeenth century has long been seen as the birth of modernity. But for all its innovativeness, the seventeenth century found itself compelled to grapple with a host of long-standing (indeed ancient) questions, including, among others, the nature of the human being, the nature of the good, and the implications of scientific and mathematical progress for morality. This course will examine how three key seventeenth-century philosophers -- Descartes, Pascal and Leibniz -- engaged these themes, giving particular focus to their treatments of such topics as method, love, faith, virtue, grace, justice, and happiness.