The Birth Of The Modern Mind: The Intellectual History Of The 17th And 18th Centuries

Course Lecture TitlesIntroductionIntellectual History and Conceptual ChangeThe Dawn of the 17th CenturyAristotelian ScholasticismThe New Vision of Francis BaconThe New Astronomy and CosmologyDescartes's Dream of Perfect KnowledgeThe Specter of Thomas HobbesSkepticism and JansenismBlaise PascalNewton's DiscoveryThe Newtonian RevolutionJohn LockeThe Revolution in KnowledgeThe Lockean MomentSkepticism and CalvinismPierre BayleThe ModernsThe Generation of 1680-1715Introduction to DeismThe Conflict Between Deism and ChristianityMontesquieu and the Problem of RelativismVoltaireBringing England To FranceBishop Joseph Butler and God's ProvidenceThe Skeptical Challenge to OptimismDavid HumeThe Assault upon Philosophical OptimismVoltaireThe PhilosophesThe Triumph of the French EnlightenmentBeccaria and Enlightened ReformRousseau's DissentMaterialism & NaturalismThe Boundaries of the Enlightenment_____________Revolutions in thought (as opposed to those in politics or science) are in many ways the most far-reaching of all. They affect how we grant legitimacy to authority, define what is possible, create standards of right and wrong, and even view the potential of human life. Between 1600 and 1800, such a revolution of the intellect seized Europe, shaking the minds of the continent as few things before or since. What we now know as the Enlightenment challenged previously accepted ways of understanding reality, bringing about modern science, representative democracy, and a wave of wars, sparking what Professor Kors calls, "perhaps the most profound transformation of European, if not human, life."In this series of 24 insightful lectures, you'll explore the astonishing conceptual and cultural revolution of the Enlightenment. You'll witness in its tumultuous history the birth of modern thought in the dilemmas, debates, and extraordinary works of the 17th and 18th-century mind, as wielded by the likes of thinkers like Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, Pascal, Newton, Locke, Hume, Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau.And you'll understand why educated Europeans came to believe that they had a new understanding - of thought and the human mind, of method, of nature, and of the uses of knowledge - with which they could come to know the world correctly for the first time in human history, and with which they could rewrite the possibilities of human life.Disclaimer: Please note that this recording may include references to supplemental texts or print references that are not essential to the program and not supplied with your purchase.