We will be reading some of the canonical texts of the early modern period: Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley and Hume, along with a number of works by highly influential, but lesser known, thinkers (including Bacon, Boyle, Bayle, Reid and others). The aim will be to understand some of the intellectual environment of the period and to explore the interplay of ideas at work in the development of some of the most important philosophical texts in the history of philosophy.