The Search for Wisdom: Modern Paths. From the Copernican Revolution to the French Revolution 3700-KON210-AL
During the scientific revolution, the philosophy started the exert a decisive influence upon the history. As it was shown already by first historians of the French Revolution, it is not possible to understand the events from the end of the 18th Century (without which it is not possible, in turn, to comprehend the modern ideas of statuality, democracy, constitution, people and nation) without taking into account the socialization of “general ideas” (Tocqueville) elaborated by Enlightenment philosophers.
In order to grasp the great political, social, and cultural transformations that occurred in the early modern period, it is thus necessary to take into consideration the development of the modern art of thinking. In the first part of the course, we shall discuss the principles of mechanic philosophy – a scientific theory on the basis of which Descartes elaborated a new, rationalistic, conception of man, while Spinoza and Hobbes applied it to moral and political philosophy. Moreover, while contrasting the outcomes of Hobbes’s political doctrine, but without departing from his way of thinking, John Locke elaborated an anthropological and political theory upon which the democratic societies are still grounded.
In the second part of the course we shall bring our attention to the Enlightenment philosophy, which can be understood as a spiritual movement making use of (with cultural and political goals) philosophical doctrines with the task of shaping the life. We shall thus discuss Hume’s skepticism – a theory in which rationalism is overcome; Rousseau’s political theory; Kant’s attempt to solve the epistemological and political aporias of the early modern philosophy.
Type of course
Learning outcomes
The student has organized knowledge on the main trends in philosophical and social thought in a historical and contemporary perspective.
The student has basic research skills enabling the formulation of research problems from the humanities, philosophy, literature, and arts.
The student understands the importance of European cultural heritage.
Assessment criteria
Student's activity in lectures represents the first assessment criteria.
The exam shall be assessed according to following criteria: capacity of assimilation of topics analyzed during the lectures; expositions abilities.
Bibliography
Primary sources:
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F. Bacon, Szkice etyczno-polityczne, Warszawa 2003.
F. Bacon, Eseje, Warszawa 1959.
Bayle, Political Writings, Cambirdge 2000.
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D. Diderot, Wybór pism filozoficznych, Warszawa 1953.
T. Hobbes, Lewiatan, Warszawa 2005.
T. Hobbes, Elementy prawa naturalnego i politycznego
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T. Hobbes, Behemoth, or the Long Parliament, New York 1963.
D. Hume, Eseje z dziedziny moralności, polityki i literatury, Warszawa 2013.
D. Hume, Traktat o naturze ludzkiej, wiele wydań.
Kartezjusz, Rozprawa o metodzie, wiele wydan.
Kartezjusz, Geometria, Kraków 2015.
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Kartezjusz, Zasady filozofii, Warszawa 1960.
I. Kant, O wiecznym pokoju. Zarys filozoficzny, Warszawa 1992.
I. Kant, Dzieła zebrane. Tom VI. Pisma po 1781 roku, Toruń 2012.
I. Kant, Dzieła zebrane. Tom II. Krytyka czystego rozumu, Toruń 2013.
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J.J. Rousseau, Trzy rozprawy z filozofii społecznej, warszawa 1956.
J.J. Rousseau, Œuvres complètes, eds. B. Gagnebin, M. Raymond; Paris: Gallimard,1959–1995.
B. Spinoza, Etyka, Warszawa: PWN, 2008.
B. Spinoza, Traktat teologiczno-polityczny, wiele wydań.
B. Spinoza, Tutte le opere, Milano 2011.
Voltaire, Pisma przeciw Polakom, Warszawa 2017.
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Studies:
A. Biral, La societa’ senza governo. Lezioni sulla rivoluzione francese, 2 vol., Saonora 2009.
H. Blumenber, The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, London 1983.
N. Bobbio, Thomas Hobbes and the Natural Law Tradition, Chicago and London 1993.
O. Brunner, Land and Lordship: Structures of Governance in Medieval Austria, Philadelphia, 1992.
E. Cassirer, The Warburg Years (1919-1933), Essays on Language, Art, Myth and Technology, New Haven and London 2013.
E. Cassirer, Filozofia oświecenia, Warszawa 2010.
L. Dupre, The Enlightenment and the Intellectual. Foundation of Modern Culture, New haven and London 2004.
F. Fehér (pod red.), The French Revolution and the Birth of Modernity, Berkeley 1990.
M. A. Gillepsie, The Theological Origins of Modernity, Chicagoi and London 2008.
S. Graukroger, Francis Bacon and the Transformation of Early-Modern Philosophy, Cambridge 2004.
S. Graukroger, The Emergence of a Scientific Culture, Oxford 2006.
J. I. Israel, Radical Enlightenment. Phisolophy and the making of Modernity (1650-1750), Oxford 2001.
J. van Horn Melton, The Rise of the Public in Enlightenment Europe, Cambridge 2004.
J. van Horn Melton, Absolutism and the Eighteenth-Century Origins of Compulsory Schooling in Prussia and Austria, Cambridge, 1988.
W. R. Laird, S. Roux (eds.), Mechanics and Natural Philosophy before the Scientific Revolution, Dordrecht 2008.
J. Ritter, Hegel and the French Revolution, Oxford 1982.
P. Rosanvallon, Dobre rządy, Warszawa 2018.
E. Rosentstock-Huessy, Out of Revolution. Autobiography of Western Man, Oxford 1993.
D. Rutherford (red.), The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, 2006.
A. Sikora, Od Heraklita do Husserla
Q. Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric in the Phisloiphy of Hobbes, Cambridge 1996.
M. Sonenscher, Before the Deluge, Princeton 2007.
L. Strauss, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes, Chicago and London 1953.
A. de Tocqueville, O demokracji w Ameryce, Warszawa 1970.
A. de Tocqueville, Dawny ustrój i rewolucja, Warszawa 1970.
C. Taylor, A Secular Age, Harvard 2007.
E. Voegelin, From Enlightenment to Revolution, Duke 1975.
R. S. Westfall, The Construction of Modern Science. Mechanisms and Mechanics, London and New York 1977.
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: