Modern Philosophy and the Enlightenment

What this page covers

The resources follow the line from Descartes to Kant, with the wider Enlightenment alongside. Descartes is well served: the René Descartes mind map sets out the Meditations, the dreaming argument, the evil demon argument and the rebuilding of foundations. The Meditations on First Philosophy mind map goes meditation by meditation, including the waves of doubt that start with sensory deception.

Where to start

If Descartes is new to you, begin with the René Descartes mind map, then read one of the Descartes notes. One of them explains what a real distinction is: a technical term for the difference between substances. Next, move to the John Locke mind map, which introduces him as an influential Enlightenment thinker and a father of classical liberalism.

Then turn to the empiricists and rationalists. The flashcard deck Berkeley’s idealism asks about his attack on primary and secondary qualities. The Hume mind maps cover Hume's fork, belief and imagination, and the principles of association.

Kant and beyond

Kant has a run of flashcard decks. The summary deck describes him as bringing together empiricism and rationalism. Other decks cover his distinctions, the Transcendental Aesthetic and Logic, and critiques of his programme. There are also resources on Rousseau, Spinoza, Leibniz, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Nietzsche, Marx and Romanticism, so you can see how ideas moved on.

Using quizzes and maps together

Read a mind map first to see the shape of an argument. Then take a quiz. The quiz called Modern Philosophy mixes thinkers and ideas such as the tabula rasa, noumena and the gap between "is" and "ought". The quiz Descartes - The Meditations checks the detail. Wrong answers show you which map or deck to reopen.

Where it sits

This unit belongs to the History of Philosophy strand of the Philosophy subject. Choose one thinker, work through a map and a quiz, then make your own flashcards to fill the gaps.