The Secret Codes of the Mind: From Medieval Philosophy to the Enlightenment, Volume IV, Part Two (Philosophy of the Modern Era), examines the transformation of European philosophy during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when inherited accounts of knowledge, nature, mind, political authority, and religious belief were subjected to new forms of rational and empirical inquiry. The volume begins with René Descartes and the search for certainty through methodological doubt, the cogito, the distinction between mind and body, and the attempt to establish secure foundations for knowledge. The discussion then turns to Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke, tracing new conceptions of philosophical method, experience, human nature, knowledge, and political authority. Leibniz and Pascal explore different powers and limits of reason: Leibniz through his metaphysics, the principle of sufficient reason, and his account of a rationally ordered world; Pascal through his confrontation with the boundaries of rational demonstration, religious faith, and the human condition. The concluding section examines David Hume and Adam Smith, exploring empiricism, causality, skepticism, moral sentiment, sympathy, human nature, and the philosophical foundations of social and economic life. Taken together, these thinkers reveal early modern philosophy as a sustained struggle over the sources and limits of knowledge, the authority of reason and experience, and the emerging modern understanding of the human subject and social order. ( direct link )