The Secret Codes of the Mind: From Medieval Philosophy to the Enlightenment. Part Two

A classroom-ready study of the philosophical transformation that made the modern world. From Descartes and Bacon to Hume and Smith, by way of Hobbes, Locke, Leibniz, and Pascal, students step into the great early modern disputes: what grounds knowledge, whether reason or experience holds final authority, what the mind is and what reality is made of, what keeps a person the same person through time, and what binds one event to another. These debates extend into morality, political authority, and the emerging science of human nature.

For instructors, the volume brings rationalism, empiricism, skepticism, political thought, and moral philosophy into one coherent sequence. Students follow the arguments as they pass from thinker to thinker and see how one position answers, revises, or challenges another. Discussion and comparative questions, essay and research assignments, and recommended primary and secondary readings make the book ready for direct classroom use. It can anchor a course in early modern or modern philosophy and supply substantial units for history of philosophy, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and political philosophy.