Syllabus: General Information

Course No. and Title: Philosophy 94, 'The Empiricists'
Class Meetings: Tu & Thr 12:00-1:45 in Porter 144

Instructor/Lecturer
Colin Koopman, Ph.D.
Office: Cowell Faculty Annex Room 104
Office Hours: Tues 2:30pm-3:30pm and by appointment
Email: cwkoopman@gmail.com

Teaching Assistants
Andrew Delunas
Email: adelunas@ucsc.edu
Sections: A (Mondays 3:30p) and C (Wednesdays 12:30p)

Sandra Dreisbach
Email: sdreisba@ucsc.edu
Sections: B (Tuesdays 8:30a) and E (Fridays 9:30a)

Matthew Frise
Email: mfrise@ucsc.edu
Sections: D (Thursdays 8:30a) and F (Thursdays 6:00p)

Course Description
This course provides an introduction to the history of the empiricist tradition in modern philosophy. We will focus on the three most important empiricists from the history of philosophy, namely the 17th and 18th century British philosophers John Locke , George Berkeley, and David Hume. We will focus primarily on their contributions to epistemology and metaphysics, but we will also consider the effects of their empiricisms on other topics of philosophical interest including ethics, politics, aesthetics, theology, and economics. We will conclude this course with a brief survey of 19th century, 20th century, and contemporary empiricisms in order to discern the lasting influence of the great works of modern empiricist philosophy. (Note: this is designated as a writing-intensive course and fulfills one-half of the requirements for general education code ‘W’; the other half is fulfilled by PHIL 91 or PHIL 93.)