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The Modern Intellectual Tradition: From Descartes to Derrida

By: Lawrence Cahoone, The Great Courses
Narrated by: Lawrence Cahoone
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Publisher's Summary

What is reality? Ask yourself whether you can actually know the answer, much less be sure that you can know it, and you've begun to grapple with the metaphysical and epistemological quandaries that have occupied, teased, and tormented modern philosophy's greatest intellects since the dawn of modern science and a century before the Enlightenment.

These 36 lectures are the perfect introduction to the basics of modern and contemporary Western approaches to the philosophies of both reality (metaphysics) and knowledge (epistemology), right through the end of the 20th century. Led by Professor Cahoone, you'll partake in an engaging intellectual journey that encompasses prominent figures from all the major traditions of Western philosophy.

You'll explore the ideas behind modern philosophy's most important movements, including dualism, rationalism, empiricism, idealism, existentialism, and postmodernism. You'll plunge into the thought of some of philosophy's most important thinkers, including Descartes, Locke, Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Peirce, Nietzsche, James, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Rorty, and Derrida, learning how many of them were in fact considered radicals, their views appreciated far less in their own era than in later ones.

And you'll gain a clear sense of how each of these movements and thinkers fits into philosophy's broader progression, often pushing philosophy in dramatically new directions right up to the present day, as well as how philosophy is intimately related to a multitude of other disciplines.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2010 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2010 The Great Courses

What listeners say about The Modern Intellectual Tradition: From Descartes to Derrida

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Excellent foray into philosophy.

Professor Cahoone's lecture series is very approachable but provides deep insights into the philosophical traditions and thier ideas with a little history to give context.

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Excellent

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Modern Intellectual Tradition: From Descartes to Derrida?

Very high quality throughout, with careful attention to explaining concepts and jargon, and comparing ideas between the different thinkers.

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2 people found this helpful

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Brilliant. Just brilliant.

In this series Cahoone brings his considerable pedagogical skills and knowledge of philosophy to articulate the development of philosophy over the most recent several centuries. While there is clearly more he could cover this is nonetheless quite comprehensive. Personally it has grounded many of my own understandings of historical philosophy and introduced me to numerous contemporary thinkers beyond the Postmodernists. Wonderful. Thank you Cahoone!

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Excellent!

Comprehensive, clear, well paced, balanced, intelligent, and above all - constructive; that is, the overall theme that philosophy has an important role in human affairs came through convincingly.

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Challenging and Rewarding

Taught me stuff I had only heard about! The concepts require patience and repeated readings/hearings to understand. But, if one gathers even a fraction of what is being explained, it opens up vistas of learning that is not merely theoretical but observable is one's own life. Very rewarding.

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Hurts so good.

Strongly recommended. The lectures were a great introduction and summary to this enormous subject. Difficult concepts and terms were frequently explained with simpler, more digestible concepts. I enjoyed the format and pacing of the lectures. They are good enough that I would likely return to these lectures again in the near future to reinforce my learnings here.

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Good Place to Start

Was able to enhance my knowledge of this fascinating field. Well presented and a great overview. Once you’re done, you should know where to go next on your philosophical journey.

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Structured and flawed

A simple overview of different thinkers and concepts, but beware of over-simplification. I personally found it difficult to cope with his statement out of the blue and without qualification - "Basically, Marxism is dead." Is it? Still, it's easy to follow. If you need a few concepts outlined as an introduction to this sort of thing, it's good enough.

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So Much Information

I've struggled to retain any details, the length and breadth of material covered was of such a massive scope. Excellent though as a taster on many philosophers, enabling you to do tour own additional research into anyone you think you might like.

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