Courses / Module

• point out and describe the distinctive philosophical achievements of Descartes, Hobbes and Spinoza, Berkeley and Hume;
• identify the relations between these five thinkers, with particular reference to central concepts of common philosophical concern, such as substance, knowledge and nature, abstraction and general ideas;
• discuss and evaluate some of the central tenets promoted by these five philosophers and their contributions to the emergence of modern philosophical thought;
• discriminate between agreement with and deviance from conceptions of science in the transition from late medieval and Renaissance thought to the modern period;
• compare various methods of ‘old’ and ‘new’ metaphysics that are deployed in the development of early modern thought and are of relevance to the articulation of the philosophies of Descartes, Hobbes and Spinoza, Berkeley and Hume.

• Module Graded (numeric value) or Ungraded (Pass/Not Passed): Graded
• Continuous Assessment detail(s): 100% continuous assessment, broken down as follows 40% for a mid-term essay (c. 2,000 words) 60% for a final essay (c. 3,000 words)

• Pass standard: 40%
• Could the result of this module be capped? No
• Penalties: As set out in the student handbook.

• Are supplemental/resit registrations permitted? Yes
• Supplemental continuous assessment is allowed. The mark for the mid-term essay carries over.

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