Happiness and the Good in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy

Lectures daily at 10-12 and 13-15.

Content

Course content: Study of the history of early modern philosophy has been infected by two regrettable biases: 1) an overemphasis on theoretical philosophy (metaphysics and epistemology) at the expense of practical philosophy (ethics, politics); 2) an assumption that the concerns and methods of philosophy undergo a radical revision in the seventeenth century in conjunction with the emergence of modern natural science. The goal of this course is to rectify these biases by focusing on the ethical dimension of seventeenth century philosophy, emphasizing the way in which even its most forward-looking practitioners remain tethered to a conception of philosophy inherited from their predecessors, while at the same time rejecting certain key ideas about the operation of nature that anchored the theories of ancient and medieval thinkers.

Monday, April 19, (2+2 hours of lectures)

1. Introduction to the issues; Natural law theory and its transformation

Readings: Excerpts from Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, IaIIae; Suarez, Treatise on Law; Hooker, Of Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity; Grotius, On the Law of War and Peace

1. Gassendi and the Revival of Epicureanism

Readings: Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus; Principle Doctrines; Gassendi, Philosophiae Epicuri Syntagma

Tuesday, April 20, Thomas Hobbes (2 +2 hours of lectures)

1. Hobbes' doctrine of the good
2. Felicity and the "True Moral Philosophy"

Readings: Thomas Hobbes, De Cive; De Homine; Leviathan

Wednesday, April 21, René Descartes (2 +2 hours of lectures)

1. Descartes on virtue and happiness
2. The Passions of the Soul

Readings: Seneca, De vita beata; Pierre Charron, De la sagesse; Descartes, Discourse on the Method; letters to Elisabeth and Christina; Passions of the Soul

Thursday, April 22, Benedict de Spinoza (2 +2 hours of lectures)

1 and 2. The structure and aims of Spinoza's ethics

Readings: Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect; Ethics

Friday, April 23, Concluding remarks + round table discussion (2 +2 hours)

Total: 20 hours