Modern philosophies often take ideas from earlier philosophies and combine them to form new philosophies. Dr. David Rutherford, a professor from University of California, San Diego, will address philosophies in the 17th century as part of the Arts and Humanities Intellectual and Artistic Exploration Lecture series on Monday, April 4, at California State University, Fresno.
His lecture, “What’s Modern About (Early) Modern Philosophy” will begin at 1 p.m. in the Alice Peters Auditorium, 5245 N. Backer Ave. Admission is free.
The 17th century is often seen by philosophers as a period of sweeping intellectual change. The lecture will address questions such as, “How much is really new in early modern theories of nature, God and humanity?” and “What makes such views distinctively ‘modern’?”
Rutherford is the author of Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature (CUP, 1995), and editor and translator (with Brandon Look) of The Leibniz-Des Bosses Correspondence (Yale, forthcoming). His published articles have dealt with topics in the philosophies of Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Malebranche and Leibniz. He is writing a book to be titled “The Wisdom of the Moderns: The Science of Happiness in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy.”
The College of Arts and Humanities Lecture Series is a public service provided to the campus and community free of charge.
(Copy by University Communications student intern Jodie Mocciaro.)
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