SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURY THOUGHT READING LIST

Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626):

• The Advancement of Learning (1605)

• Novum Organum (1620): Preface; Plan; Book I: Aphorisms 1-3; 11-31; 36; 38-44 ('Idols of the Mind'); 46 [Ep]; Book II: 1-3; 11-13; 15-16.

Thomas Hobbes (1588 - 1679):

• Leviathan (1651)

René Descartes (1596 - 1650):

• Discourse on the Method for Rightly Conducting One's Reason ands Seeking the Truth (1637)

• Meditations on First Philosophy on First Philosophy (1641)

Pierre Corneille (1606 - 1684):

• "Of the Three Unities" (1660) [pp. 206-212 in Adams; pp. 367-378 in Leitch]

John Dryden (1631 - 1700):

• An Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668) [pp. 214-140 in Adams; pp. 381-383 in Leitch]

Baruch Spinoza (1632 - 1677):

• Ethics (1661-1675; 1677)

John Locke (1632 - 1704):

• An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
• Two Treatises of Government (1690)
• Letters Concerning Toleration (1689-1690)

Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636 - 1711):

• The Art of Poetry (1674) [pp. 242-252 in Adams]

Gottfried Leibniz (1646 - 1716):

• Monadology (1714)
• New Essays on Human Understanding (1704; 1765)

Giambattista Vico (1668 - 1744):

• The New Science (2nd Ed. of 1744) [pp. 290-297 in Adams; pp. 401-415 in Leitch]
• On the Most Ancient Wisdom of the Italians (1710)
• On the Study Methods of Our Time (1709)

Joseph Addison (1672 - 1719):

• Selections from The Spectator (1711-1712) [pp. 284-288 in Adams; pp. 419-425 in Leitch]

Edward Young (1683 - 1765):

• Conjectures on Original Composition (1759) [pp. 329-337 in Adams; pp. 427-437 in Leitch]

George Berkeley (1685 - 1753):

• A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710)

Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744):

• Essay on Criticism (1711) [pp. 274-282 in Adams; pp. 441-457 in Leitch]

Baron de Montesquieu (1689 - 1775):

• The Spirit of the Laws (1748)

Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784):

• Preface to Shakespeare (1765) [pp. 320-327 in Adams; pp. 468-480 in Leitch]
• "On Fiction" (1750) [pp. 317-319 in Adams; pp. 462-466 in Leitch]

David Hume (1711 - 1776):

• Of the Standard of Taste (1757) [pp. 307-315 in Adams; pp. 486-498 in Leitch]
• An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)
• A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-1740)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778):

• "Essay on the Origin of Languages" (1781)
• The Social Contract (1762)
• Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1755)

Etienne Condillac (1715 - 1780):

• Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge (1746)

Joshua Reynolds (1723 - 1792):

• Discourses on Art (1769-1790) [pp. 343-363 in Adams]

Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804):

• Critique of Judgment (1790) [pp. 376-393 in Adams; pp. 504-535 in Leitch]
• Foundation of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)
• "Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View" (1784)
• "What is Enlightenment?" (1784)
• Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783)
• Critique of Pure Reason (1781)
• Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime (1764)

Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797):

• A Philosophical Enquiry into our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) [pp. 299-306 in Adams; pp. 539-550 in Leitch]