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In this part of the course, we look at three particularly important thinkers who shape the development of modern philosophy: Descartes, Hume and Kant. We will look, in particular, at the way in which their accounts of the nature of reason shape their treatments of the question of God, and how all this has a bearing on their view of human nature.
We begin with René Descartes, normally thought of as the father of modern philosophy, and focus especially on his book Meditations on First Philosophy. Not only does this book set the trajectory for questions about knowledge and certainty that came to preoccupy subsequent philosophers, it also sets the parameters for debates about the mind and the body which equally characterise modern philosophy. But alongside these topics, which are taught in undergrad philosophy courses across the world, runs another set of concerns: to demonstrate the existence of God, and the immortality of the soul. In our sessions we will examine the way in which these latter questions were, for Descartes, inseparable from the former.
David Hume is perhaps the most important and influential philosopher in the English language. In our session, we will look at how his ‘sceptical doubts’ about causation and induction informed his critical treatment of ‘natural religion’, i.e. the attempt to show that God exists on the basis of observations of the natural world. Hume wrote about religion more than any other single topic, and his book Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion is lively and thought-provoking – much more nuanced and interesting than some of the polemics against belief in God that it has inspired!
Finally we come to Immanuel Kant, who was spurred into philosophical action by Hume’s scepticism, and whose ‘Copernican revolution’ in philosophy shaped philosophy for the next century and beyond. We will examine the way in which Kant’s ‘critical’ philosophy both limited what could be said about the nature or existence of God (or, indeed, anything outside space and time), and yet, at the same time, claimed to open up a new way of reasoning about the existence of God: a ‘moral argument’ for the existence of God based not on theoretical, but practical, reason.
In each week of the course I will give a presentation, sketching out some of the key ideas from these thinkers. Then we will examine the texts together, to see what sense can be made of them. The outline below is subject to change, depending on how long it takes us to get to grips with the main ideas.
Readings will be available as scanned pdf chapters on the course guide page.
Further supporting readings may be uploaded as the course proceeds.
It will really help if participants have spent some time with the texts that we will be looking at prior to the session. A general pattern to use for working through, and responding to the readings, might look like this:
a. What seems to be the main purpose of this text?
b. What are the most important concepts?
c. What are the key moments in the reflection/argument? Where do the new ideas, or conclusions, or clarifications, come from? How do they arise?
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Stuart is the Theology Lead at LJC. He graduated with a degree in Literature and Theology from the University of Hull in 2000. From 2003-9 he studied Philosophical Theology part-time at the University of Nottingham, whilst continuing to work in the third sector with vulnerably-housed or homeless people, and young asylum seekers (as well as pulling pints in a pub). He was Lecturer at York St John University for almost a decade, before moving to London Jesuit Centre in 2021. He now lives in South East London, and spends as much time as he can in the woods.
