HoP 468 Perchance to Dream: Descartes’ Skepti...

The period of political turmoil and experimentation in liberty that set the stage for philosophers including Grotius and Spinoza. 

An interview on the surprising comforts to be found in the philosophy of pessimism, focusing on Bayle but looking all the way forward to Schopenhauer. 

Ryan and Todd examine perhaps the founding text of modern Western philosophy--Rene Descartes' Discourse on the Method. They consider how Descartes articulates an egalitarian philosophy through his conception of radical doubt and examine the influence of this text of subsequent th ...  Show more

On René Descartes's Discourse on Method (1637), an overview of his work that distills his method, outlines his famous Meditations, presents a provisional (Stoic) ethics, and considers whether he wants to be a public intellectual. This is all meant as a prefac ...

In this first lecture, using Descartes famous argument for the claim “I think therefore I am’, we examine how to identify and evaluate arguments.