Customer Reviews

Modern Philosophy: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Fundamentals of Philosophy)

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Franck's book is effectively "Modern philosophy for dummies". I am currently teaching a Modern Philosophy course and find this book superb for giving background to students with no philosophy background. His explanations are marvellously clear while also going surprisingly deep into the subject. My only beef is that he doesn't cover Kant. This book is a wonderful resource and I recommend it highly.

This is an excellent introduction to six great modern philosophers, and is also a superb teaching text. I am aware of no other textbook that comes close in its ability to help the introductory student to understand some of the (apparently) baffling and outlandish things that these philosophers say. Francks really does explain and motivate their views, though, and show why one might take them seriously even today. Rather unusually, Francks begins the discussion of Descartes, not by diving into the Meditations, but by setting out Descartes' views about science -- esp his material monism. Ultimately, this makes it much easier to understand Descartes' mind-body dualism and his method of doubt in the Meditations, and to see the latter as more than a hysterical and implausible reaction to the possibility of scepticism. This alone is worth the price of the book, but is the perfect pedagogical set-up for the treatments of Spinoza and Leibniz as well. Also, my students are really enjoying reading this.