This course provides an in-depth examination of selected themes and arguments of the rationalist movement of the 17th and 18th centuries, drawing from the work of philosophers such as Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Cavendish, du Chatelet, Conway, and Malebranche. Questions to be considered may include: What can we know about the world? What roles do reason and sensation play in knowledge? How is the mind related to the body? How are thought and perception related?