The Birth of the Modern Mind: The Intellectual History of the 17th and 18th Centuries

De: Alan Charles Kors, The Great Courses

Narrado por: Alan Charles Kors

Revolutions in thought (as opposed to those in politics or science) are in many ways the most far-reaching of all. They affect how we grant legitimacy to authority, define what is possible, create standards of right and wrong, and even view the potential of human life. Between 1600 and 1800, such a revolution of the intellect seized Europe, shaking the minds of the continent as few things before or since. What we now know as the Enlightenment challenged previously accepted ways of understanding reality, bringing about modern science, representative democracy, and a wave of wars, sparking what Professor Kors calls, "perhaps the most profound transformation of European, if not human, life."

In this series of 24 insightful lectures, you'll explore the astonishing conceptual and cultural revolution of the Enlightenment. You'll witness in its tumultuous history the birth of modern thought in the dilemmas, debates, and extraordinary works of the 17th and 18th-century mind, as wielded by the likes of thinkers like Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, Pascal, Newton, Locke, Hume, Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau.

And you'll understand why educated Europeans came to believe that they had a new understanding - of thought and the human mind, of method, of nature, and of the uses of knowledge - with which they could come to know the world correctly for the first time in human history, and with which they could rewrite the possibilities of human life.

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

©1998 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)1998 The Great Courses

Simply the Best

I have listened to dozens of Teaching Company courses. All of them are excellent but this one is simply outstanding. The professor is not incredibly knowledgeable, he teaches in an enthusiastic yet evenhanded style that makes the material compelling. Highly recommended.

Too Much Religion

True, the lectures cover history, and religion was part of the period, but it does not belong in a lecture series on enlightenment since it was THE obstruction, and an intellectual dead end. Otherwise there is a lot of good stuff here. He clarifies what ontology and epistemology are, no small task, since I had found no clear explanations anywhere yet.
Narration-wise, you will need to get used to the Jersey City accent (I just pictured an loving but overbearing Jewish aunt behind it)...

exceptional presentation of complex subtle ideas.

Nothing is lacking. I wish every person under 30 would listen to this work! We need more deep thought.

loved the book. gave me eye opening moments

must read specialy if you are/were not a philosophy or history major ... for it provides a great insight about human evolution u would miss otherwise

Clear and complete

It's a clear, accessible and complete vision of the history of western thinking in the XVII and XVIII centuries. I found it very helpful.