Kurs-Information

This course will survey some of the main writings on human freedom by major figures in the late Scholastic and Early Modern period, from Francisco Suárez, through Descartes and Leibniz, to Émilie du Châtelet. We will explore topics such as the nature of metaphysical contingency and possibility, the relation between mental faculties of willing and knowing, and the continued importance of final (or end-directed) causation for freedom. More broadly, we will think about the various ways that philosophers in the period leading up to Kant theorized human agency and attempted to embed it within a broader metaphysical and physical picture of nature, as well as to reconcile it with acceptable theological commitments.