Stewart Duncan is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Florida. His research has largely focused on early modern discussions of materialism, and he’s currently working on Locke.
What are you doing in your own classroom to diversify the philosophical canon?
I should probably begin by saying that diversifying the canon isn’t really what I’m trying to do. On the other hand, I’m not teaching the undergraduate survey class in modern philosophy as just a sequence of seven figures from Descartes to Kant, and I do teach some work of early modern women, so maybe there are some connections.
One of the striking things about teaching seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European philosophy is that there’s just so much one could teach — so many texts by so many philosophers. Even in an undergraduate survey class, where there are a number of constraints, there’s surely not just one right way to do things, one perfect set of texts to consider.
That said, my first move away from the Descartes-Spinoza-Leibniz-Locke-Berkeley-Hume-Kant survey was not towards teaching more figures, but fewer. If you teach four main figures instead of seven (say, Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, and Hume) then you have more time to think about what they say in a little bit of detail, which is, I think, an improvement.
That catch with that approach is that it may do even less justice to the breadth, depth, and sheer quantity of philosophical discussion in the period than the seven figure survey does. So what I’ve ended up with is a hybrid approach: focus on four main figures, but then look at others as critics of those four.
What’s your favorite piece to teach and why?
Any number of philosophers can figure as those critics. I like teaching Thomas Hobbes as a critic of Descartes, as well as Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia. I have taught Margaret Cavendish as a critic of Descartes too, though I’ve moved away from that in the last couple of years. Still, if anyone’s interested, I have a webpage with five of the letters from her Philosophical Letters, which can work as a reading assignment for a class on Cavendish.
If I’m teaching Leibniz, then I like teaching his correspondence with Damaris Masham (though this does mean one has to teach Leibniz’s ‘New System’, as well as or in addition to other Leibniz texts one might like to focus on).
And I’ve taken to teaching a little bit of Mary Shepherd criticizing Hume as well — specifically, the first section of the third chapter of her Essay Upon the Relation of Cause and Effect, in which she discusses section 4 of Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, “Sceptical Doubts concerning the Operations of the Understanding”.
Looking over this as I write it here, the influence on my teaching of Margaret Atherton’s anthology Women Philosophers of the Early Modern Period seems really clear. I’m not following it as closely as I have done previously, but it was hugely helpful in thinking about and teaching some of the work of early modern women philosophers.
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This series of the APA Blog is dedicated to understanding what our fellow philosophers are doing in and out of the classroom to diversify the canon. If you would like to nominate yourself or someone else to write a post for this series, please contact us via the interview nomination form here.
Header image: Lady Damaris Cudworth Masham, findagrave.com
I’ve taught an early modern class each year for a decade. Unlike Stewart (hi Stewart!) I’m no expert in early modern — meaning, I don’t research or publish in the area.
I started out covering the “standard 7” plus a little Hobbes and Reid! But we’re on the quarter system, so I quickly realized that wasn’t feasible. I dropped Kant down to just a smidgen (we have another class that covers him in depth anyway), and ditched Hobbes. (Kept the little bit of Reid, as a foil for Hume.) Then after a few more years I decided someone else had to go, and (regretfully) cut Spinoza.
About five years ago I started including Elisabeth’s initial letters to Descartes — as is now pretty common, I think. A very minimal first step in the direction of diversification.
This year I’ve taken a larger step: I’m including a substantial chunk of Anne Conway (as well as Elisabeth).
I decided that in order to make this work, I needed to overhaul the whole class. So we’re focusing on a particular topic: the mind-body problem. The first half of the course focuses on Descartes and his direct critics: in the Objections & Replies (excerpts from all but the 1st), and Elisabeth’s letters. One thing I like about this is that it has enabled me to bring Hobbes back: in the 3rd Objections, and a bit of Leviathan for good measure. And Spinoza is back too: not a huge amount, but enough (I hope) to give the flavor of his view. Then we’ll spend more than a week on Conway, followed by a dash of Locke, a tablespoon of Leibniz and (right at the end) a pinch of Hume.
What I’m thinking of now is developing a couple of other “versions” of the early modern class, focused on different topics. Obviously there needs to be one focused on theory of knowledge. I think that one on God and free will would work well. And I’m hoping in each course to include substantial material from female figures. Like Stewart, Atherton’s anthology is currently my major guide in that project.