School · 1561 CE–1804 CE
Early modern reason and critique
Thinkers working across Europe and Ethiopia reconsidered reason, method, faith, embodiment, political authority, and the limits of knowledge amid expanding print, confessional conflict, and empire.
Shared questions
- What can an individual knower establish through reason, experience, and disciplined doubt?
Internal disagreements
- Whether mind and body are distinct, how reason is limited, and which authorities deserve assent.
Key texts
- Meditations on First Philosophy · 1641 — Published with objections and replies from Hobbes, Gassendi and others, so the debate is part of the text.
- An Essay Concerning Human Understanding · 1689 — Locke revised the Essay through four editions, changing his account of personal identity as he went.
- Critique of Pure Reason · 1781 — The second edition of 1787 rewrote key sections, and the two versions are read against each other.