Modern Philosophy

Philosophy Since the Enlightenment

By Roger Jones.  Clearly written and coherently presented, Philosophy Since the Enlightenment offers an accessible overview of the last 350 years of Western philosophy.

This site contains sections on:

Readings in Modern Philosophy

Created and Maintained by J. Carl Mickelsen.  Extensive list of 35 modern philosophers.  The simplicity of presentation makes this site extremely easy to use.  

Contains many primary and secondary sources on the following: 

Early Modern Europe:  Philosophy

Site includes sections on:

Pomoerium:  Classic Philosophy Resources

The Birth of Modern Science

Excerpt:

One thing that happened during the Renaissance that was of great importance for the later character of modern philosophy was the birth of modern science. Even as in the Middle Ages philosophy was often thought of as the "handmaiden of theology," modern philosophers have often thought of their discipline as little more than the "handmaiden of science." Even for those who haven't thought that, the shadow of science, its spectacular success and its influence on modern life and history, have been hard to ignore...

 Nicolas Copernicus: Biography (1473-1543)

Excerpt:

Copernicus is said to be the founder of modern astronomy. He was born in Poland, and eventually was sent off to Cracow University, there to study mathematics and optics; at Bologna, cannon law. Returning from his studies in Italy, Copernicus, through the influence of his uncle, was appointed as a canon in the cathedral of Frauenburg where he spent a sheltered and academic life for the rest of his days. Because of his clerical position, Copernicus moved in the highest circles of power; but a student he remained. For relaxation Copernicus painted and translated Greek poetry into Latin. His interest in astronomy gradually grew to be one in which he had a primary interest. His investigations were carried on quietly and alone, without help or consultation. He made his celestial observations from a turret situated on the protective wall around the cathedral, observations were made "bear eyeball," so to speak, as a hundred more years were to pass before the invention of the telescope. In 1530, Copernicus completed and gave to the world his great work De Revolutionibus, which asserted that the earth rotated on its axis once daily and traveled around the sun once yearly: a fantastic concept for the times. Up to the time of Copernicus the thinkers of the western world believed in the Ptolemiac theory that the universe was a closed space bounded by a spherical envelope beyond which there was nothing.

Consequences of the Modernist Liberal Abandonment of Classical Conceptions of Practical Philosophy

This essay is only one of many on the Philosophy and Civil Society Website, a website about postmodern culture, based upon Bridges' book, The Culture of Citizenship- Inventing Postmodern Civic Culture.

Modern Philosophy After Kant

Excerpt:

Although pre-Kantian modern philosophy is easily (perhaps too easily) organized as a debate between Rationalists and Empiricists, modern philosophy after Kant presents a much greater tangle of influences. The Flow Chart of Modern Philosophy after Kant below attempts to produce some kind of organization and representation of schools and influences. Note that the Continental tradition spreads out into a least four major trends, which then begin to overlap with each other and, ultimately, with Anglo-American schools. The Anglo-American tradition, succeeding British Empiricism, exhibits relatively contentless and sterile doctrines, like "Pragmatism," then begins to adopt similar doctrines from the Continent, consistent with a native Scientism, like Logicism, Logical Positivism, and Linguistic Analysis, and then finally succumbs to a withering blast of Continental Nihilism from Existentialism and Deconstruction. A small Analytic remnant (people like Searle) is thus faced with a tide of skepticism, irrationalism, and obscurantism in a combined Anglo-American-Continental school of "Post-Modernism"--no attempt is made to comprehensively list representatives of this miserable movement.

Nicolas Malebranche
(1638-1715)

Includes sections:

Thomas Reid (1710-1996)

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834)

Excerpt:

Going against the writings of Godwin and Rousseau, Malthus, in his famous work, An Essay on the Principle of Population, opined that poverty and distress are unavoidable because population increases faster than the means of subsistence. As checks on population growth, Malthus accepted only war, famine, and disease but later added moral restraint, as well. His theory, at the time of its pronouncement, was most controversial; however, it has not held much currency in the past century, or so; this, because population levels have not come up to the levels expected. The reason, I think, is because of the introduction of inexpensive and readily available birth control procedures; and, of course, because of cultural changes. Malthus, in addition, did not consider the new technology which has increased food production and its distribution. Yet, the world  population increases.

Voltaire (1694-1778)

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Also included is a list of other sites on the WWW:

Modern Skepticism:  Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Since the publication of Popkin's History of Skepticism, the strong influence of Greek skepticism on modern philosophy is now an accepted fact. In this and other publications Popkin traces the impact of skepticism on modern philosophy from 16th century editions of Sextus Empiricus to its ultimate resolution in the writings of the "new Pyrrho": David Hume. With a half dozen publications of Sextus' writings in the 17th and 18th centuries, skepticism became a popular and important philosophical issue to the moderns. Many thinkers, particularly in France, carried the Pyrrhonian torch as passed to them through Sextus's writings. Included were Michel de Montaigne (who made specific use of the ten skeptical tropes of Aenesidemus), Pierre Charron, Petrus Gassendi (who is remembered for his critical letters to Descartes), Joseph Glanvill (who introduced Pyrrhonism to England), Walter Raleigh, Pierre-Daniel Huet, and, most significantly, Pierre Bayle. In his highly influential Historical and Critical Dictionary, Bayle wrote substantial entries on over two and a half thousand people -- from Adam and Eve to Spinoza -- and near two hundred entries on non-person topics. But he delivered his most influential skeptical arguments in the extended footnotes to his entries. Of particular importance were his entries on Eve, David, Pyrrho, the Manicheans, the Paulicans, Zeno, Pomponazzi, Xenophanes, Spinoza, Nicole, and Pellison.