The Birth of the Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Parts I & II (12 Audio Cassette Tapes in Two Volumes).

Chantilly, VA The Teaching Company, 1998. Audio Cassette Twelve Audio Cassette Tapes and a study guide in pamphlet form. The Tapes may have been played, but remain in excellent condition [Near Fine to Fine]. The 73-page pamphlet Study Guide shows only minor indications of use [About Very Good+]. All housed in heavy plastic clamshell cases, showing minimal wear [Near Fine]. Lectures by Professor Alan Kors, Ph.D. Overall, Very Near Fine. The Great Courses on Tape, Course No.445A. Audio Cassette. The dawn of Modernity, the 17th and early 18th century is generally a black hole in most people's education. We know vaguely about Newton and Newtonian physics. We've heard of Bacon and Descartes. Maybe we're familiar with Cartesian dualism, or the "cogito". We've heard of Locke, and know he had some sort of influence on our Founders. But much beyond some vague familiarity with the basics, few of us have any deeper understanding of this pivotal era. In fact, many Americans, in particular, have a far deeper knowledge of more remote antiquity (or speculations regarding those past ages). That fact is unfortunate, for the Early Modern Era is when many of our contemporary habits of thought first emerged. Like it or not, Post-Modernity is the child of Modernity. And we, in our various, often ungainly and unsuccessful ways, are attempting to deal with the mess bequeathed to us by our forbears. The emergence of the intellectual hegenomy of scientific thinking, the fragmentation of Christianity - and the religious world view - the consolidation of the modern political state - are all phenomena which appeared for the first time in this turbulant era of deep change. I have found no other source through which one can as quickly obtain a comprehensive and fairly deep understanding of this essential period. In a series of 16 knock-out lectures, one of the leading period authorities, Allan Charles Kors of the University of Pennsylvania, gives a detailed history of the major ideas of an era, and an understanding of which, I again emphasize, cannot be underestimated in its value for a balanced perspective on today's realities. While they are all remarkable, I must single out the lecture on Bacon as a masterpiece of its kind - the most lucid rendering of Bacon's thought in a brief format extant. My one critique is the omission of a lecture on Montaigne - whom I consider to be the seminal thinker of the epoch. All in all, however, a great investment, and a real bargain at that.