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Modern Philosophy 1 (PHH 5405) Spring 2014

1. Course description This class focuses largely on the philosophy of Leibniz. Before we get to Leibniz, we’ll spend a couple of week looking at the work of Descartes, reading parts of his Principles of Philosophy. After that, we will spend around four weeks looking at Leibniz’s 1686 ‘Discourse on Metaphysics’ and associated texts. For the second half of the semester, I want to look at a variety of later texts. Some of these are further systematic statements of Leibniz’s views (e.g., the ‘New System’, the ‘Monadology’), while others are engagements with other philosophers (e.g., the correspondences with Arnauld and Clarke). The main focus of these discussions will be on metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language. However, we will also touch on issues in philosophy of religion, natural science, epistemology, and moral philosophy. Throughout our discussion of these topics, we will have two main aims. One aim is historical: that you come to understand some of the views and arguments of Leibniz and other early modern European philosophers. The other is more skill-focused: to work on reading and understanding unfamiliar texts from an unfamiliar context. The class meets on Wednesdays, periods 8-10 (3:00-6:00pm) in 200 Griffin-Floyd. 2. Contact information Dr. Stewart Duncan Email: sdrd@ufl.edu Office hours: Tuesday, 2:00-3:00pm, Wednesdays, 1:30-2:30pm, and by appointment, in 330A

Griffin-Floyd Office phone: (352) 273-1808 Outside class and office hours, email will usually be the easiest way to communicate with me. In doing so, please use your ufl.edu email address.

There is a site for the class on the e-Learning system. To access this, go to https://lss.at.ufl.edu/, choose ‘e-Learning in Canvas’, and login. This will be the place to find the syllabus, announcements, grade information, and notes. It will also be the place to submit your papers. 3. Books and other readings Most required Leibniz readings for the course will be taken from the collection Philosophical Essays, which is translated by Ariew and Garber and published by Hackett [AG]. This is the one recommended book for the course. You do not absolutely have to have a copy of the book, as you can access its contents online (details below). Keep in mind, however, that you should be able to refer to the text in class.

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Our Descartes readings will be from his Principles of Philosophy. The standard English translation of the parts we will read is in volume 1 of The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, translated by Cottingham, Stoothof, and Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). The text of both volumes is also available on the Past Masters database, to which UF subscribes. If you are on the campus network, you can access Past Masters at http://library.nlx.com/xtf/search?browse-collections=true. From that page, you want to choose the ‘Continental rationalists’ collection. In that collection, you can find, e.g., ‘Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Philosophical Essays’ at the bottom of the left/navigation column. To access Past Masters from off campus, you will need to use the UF VPN (https://connect.ufl.edu/it/wiki/Pages/glvpn.aspx). All other assigned readings can be found on the Canvas site for the class, linked from the schedule page (which is itself linked from the home page.) I will only rarely explicitly assign reading from the secondary literature. However, you should be reading what people have said about Leibniz, particularly when working on papers. There are a great many things written about Leibniz. A good place to start looking at the secondary literature would be the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu), which contains several relevant articles. Beyond that, there are various useful search tools (Philosophers Index, the library catalog, Google Scholar, jstor.org, philpapers.org, etc), which will turn up many useful things to read. If you’re unsure where to begin, or how to choose between the many things available, please talk to me about it. 4. Assessment 4.1 Papers (75%) There will be three paper assignments. Each paper should be between 1800 and 2200 words long. The papers will each count for 25% of your grade for the class. Papers are due by 3:00pm (the start of class) on the following days: February 11th, March 18th, and April 15th. Papers are to be submitted on Canvas by those deadlines. Detailed paper assignments, and a description of the standards for paper grading, will be made available two weeks before each paper deadline. Any papers submitted late without a good excuse will be penalized two points (on a hundred-point scale) for every day they’re late. No papers will be accepted after the end of classes (more precisely, after 5:00pm on April 22th). If you fail to submit a paper, you will receive a grade of zero for it. Information on the standards for grading papers will be made available on the Canvas site at the same time as the instructions for the first paper.

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All papers will be submitted to Turnitin. 4.2 Final exam (25%) The final exam is scheduled for 7:30-9:30am on Wednesday April 29th in our usual classroom. See http://www.registrar.ufl.edu/soc/201501/finalexamsched.html. This class is in exam group 29A. The final exam will count for 25% of your grade for the class. Makeup final exams will only be given in those few circumstances that merit the awarding of an incomplete grade for the class. I will only give incompletes if the situation meets the conditions described in the CLAS incomplete contract: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/forms/incomplete-grade-contract.pdf. 4.3 Numerical grades and letter grades All assignments will be given a numerical grade. At the end of the semester, your overall numerical grade will be calculated, based on your grades for and the relative weights of the assignments. This numerical grade will be converted to a letter grade using the following scale.

Numerical grade (n) Letter grade GPA1 90 ≤ n ≤ 100 A 4.0 86.7 ≤ n < 90 A- 3.67 83.3 ≤ n < 86.7 B+ 3.33 80 ≤ n < 83.3 B 3.0 76.7 ≤ n < 80 B- 2.67 73.3 ≤ n < 76.7 C+ 2.33 70 ≤ n < 73.3 C 2.0 66.7 ≤ n < 70 C- 1.67 63.3 ≤ n < 66.7 D+ 1.33 60 ≤ n < 63.3 D 1.0 56.7 ≤ n < 60 D- 0.67 0 ≤ n < 56.7 E 0

4.4 Attendance Though there are no grades for attendance and participation, they are very important. I expect you to attend all classes, and to have done the relevant reading in advance. Requirements for class attendance and make-up exams, assignments, and other work in this course are consistent with university policies that can be found at:

1 Current UF policies for assigning grade points may be found at https://catalog.ufl.edu/ugrad/current/regulations/info/grades.aspx.

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https://catalog.ufl.edu/ugrad/current/regulations/info/attendance.aspx. That page also explains what are acceptable reasons for absence from class. 5. Academic honesty UF students are bound by The Honor Pledge which states,

We, the members of the University of Florida community, pledge to hold ourselves and our peers to the highest standards of honor and integrity by abiding by the Honor Code. On all work submitted for credit by students at the University of Florida, the following pledge is either required or implied: ‘On my honor, I have neither given nor received unauthorized aid in doing this assignment’.

The Honor Code (http://www.dso.ufl.edu/sccr/process/student-conduct-honor- code/) specifies a number of behaviors that are in violation of this code and the possible sanctions. Furthermore, you are obligated to report any condition that facilitates academic misconduct to appropriate personnel. If you have any questions or concerns, please consult with the instructor or TAs in this class. You should expect the minimum penalty for academic dishonesty to be a grade of E for the class (not just the assignment). All incidents of academic dishonesty will be reported to Student Judicial Affairs. Repeat offenders may be penalized by suspension or expulsion from the university. You should already have a good idea of what constitutes plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty. I will also review this when handing out paper assignments. If you have any questions about this, ask me before it’s too late. All papers submitted for the course will be checked using turnitin.com. 6. Other policies and information 6.1 Accommodations for students with disabilities Students requesting classroom accommodation must first register with the Dean of Students Office. The Dean of Students Office will provide documentation to the student who must then provide this documentation to the Instructor when requesting accommodation. 6.2 Classroom behavior You are expected to attend all class meetings, arriving on time and not leave early. Failing to do so will affect your ability to perform well in the class. Please remember that it is not enough to be merely physically present. You are expected to do all assigned reading in advance – which is not to say you should not revisit it again afterwards. You should also be paying attention, taking notes as appropriate, and participating in class discussions. My aim is to have a classroom atmosphere that is both serious and relaxed. Things will go well if you (i) come to class prepared, (ii) avoid behavior that is rude or distracts others, (iii) remember to treat

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others with respect in classroom discussions. You may use laptops and other electronic devices for purposes immediately related to the class – taking notes and checking texts would be the obvious examples. Unrelated use of laptops, phones, etc. is a distraction to you and those around you, and is not allowed. I may ask those using electronic devices in this way to switch them off, or in extreme cases to leave the classroom, or to cease using those devices for the rest of the semester. Unless you have explicit written permission, you may not make any audio or video recordings of the class or related meetings. 6.3 Evaluations Students are expected to provide feedback on the quality of instruction in this course by completing online evaluations at https://evaluations.ufl.edu. Evaluations are typically open during the last two or three weeks of the semester, but students will be given specific times when they are open. Summary results of these assessments are available to students at https://evaluations.ufl.edu/results/. 6.4 Contact information Contact information for the Counseling and Wellness Center: http://www.counseling.ufl.edu/cwc/Default.aspx, 392-1575; and the University Police Department: 392-1111 or 9-1-1 for emergencies. 7. Schedule and readings This schedule is also available on the Canvas page. That page also has links to the readings not in AG. Dates for assignments are provided above, and on the Assignments section of the Canvas page. Week 2 (1/14). Descartes, Principles, Part 1

• Part 1 of Descartes’s Principles, ‘The Principles of Human Knowledge’ (Past Masters) • It would also be helpful to read the prefatory material, such as Descartes’s Preface to the

French edition of the Principles Week 3 (1/21). Descartes, Principles, Part 2

• Selections from Part 2 of Descartes’s Principles, ‘The Principles of Material Things’ (Past Masters)

Week 4 (1/28). Leibniz against Descartes

• ‘Critical Thoughts on the General Part of the Principles of Descartes’ (Canvas) • Letters to Elisabeth and Molanus (AG 234-45)

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• ‘Discourse on Metaphysics’ (AG 35-68) with a focus on sections 1-7 Week 5 (2/4). Leibniz on truth and complete concepts

• ‘Discourse on Metaphysics’, with a focus on sections 8-16 • ‘Primary Truths’ (AG 30-4) • Perhaps chapter 3, ‘The Discourse on Metaphysics’ of Catherine Wilson’s Leibniz’s Metaphysics (Princeton University Press, 1989) (Canvas)

Week 6 (2/11). Leibniz against Cartesian physics

• ‘Discourse on Metaphysics’, with a focus on sections 17-22 • ‘A Brief Demonstration of a Notable Error of Descartes and Others Concerning a Natural Law’ (Canvas)

• Perhaps Carolyn Iltis, ‘Leibniz and the vis viva Controversy’ Isis 62:1 (1971), 21-35 (Canvas) • Perhaps Greg Brown, ‘“Quod Ostendendum Susceperamus”: What did Leibniz undertake

to show in the Brevis Demonstratio?’ in Albert Heinekamp (ed.), Leibniz’ Dynamica (Studia Leibnitiana Sonderheft 13) (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1984) 122–137 (Will be posted on Canvas)

Week 7 (2/18). Leibniz against occasionalism

• ‘Discourse on Metaphysics’, with a focus on sections 23-37 • Extracts from Malebranche’s work (Canvas) • Perhaps Don Rutherford, Natures, Laws, and Miracles: The Roots of Leibniz’s Critique of Occasionalism” in Steven Nadler (ed.), Causation in Early Modern Philosophy (Penn State University Press, 1993) 135-58 (Will be posted on Canvas)

Week 8 (2/25). Leibniz and Arnauld

• Extracts from Leibniz’s correspondence with Arnauld (AG 69-90) • I will also provide, on Canvas, some extracts from Arnauld’s letters to Leibniz

Week 9 (3/11). Leibniz’s first published system

• ‘New System of Nature’ (AG 138-45) Week 10 (3/18). After the ‘New System’

• ‘Note on Foucher’s Objection’ (AG 145-7) • ‘Postscript of a Letter to Basnage de Beauval’ (AG 147-9) • ‘Remark of the author...’ (AG 196-7) • Bayle’s article ‘Rorarius’ (Will be posted on Canvas)

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• ‘A Letter from M. Leibniz to the Editor, ...’ (Canvas) • Leibniz’s correspondence with Damaris Masham (Canvas)

Week 11. 3/25. Leibniz and Locke

• ‘Letter to Queen Sophie Charlotte of Prussia, On What is Independent of Sense and Matter’ (AG 186-92)

• Preface to the New Essays (AG 291-306) • The other texts in the Locke section of AG (AG 284-91)

Week 12 (4/1). Leibniz and De Volder

• Extracts from Leibniz’s correspondence with De Volder (AG 171-86) • Those extracts, which will be the focus of our discussion, will be supplemented with

additional readings, posted on Canvas. Week 13 (4/8). The Monadology

• ‘The Principles of Philosophy, or, The Monadology’ (AG 213-25) Week 14 (4/15). Leibniz and Des Bosses

• Extracts from Leibniz’s correspondence with Des Bosses (AG 197-206) • Those extracts, which will be the focus of our discussion, will be supplemented with

additional readings, posted on Canvas. Week 15 (4/22). Leibniz and Clarke

• Extracts from Leibniz’s correspondence with Clarke (AG 320-46) • Those extracts, which will be the focus of our discussion, may be supplemented with

additional readings, posted on Canvas.