This course traces themes in the epistemology and metaphysics of influential philosophers of the empiricist movement of the 17th and 18th centuries. Rejecting tenets of rationalism and spurred by the success of the new empirical sciences, these thinkers sought to ground factual and metaphysical knowledge in sensory experience. Topics include the nature and scope of knowledge, realism, idealism, naturalism, and skepticism. Other topics may include the nature of causation, personal identity, and free will.