Modern Philosophy, The Rationalist Tradition: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz. The Empirical Tradition: Locke, Berkeley, Hume. Reading:
Supplemental
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1vedej
Spinoza : The Apostle of Reason
Year: 1994 Written by Tariq Ali, Directed by Christopher Spencer, Henry Goodman as Spinoza. An excellent and quite accurate film on Spinoza. This film presents the life and thought of Spinoza against the turmoil of seventeenth-century Europe. A fascinating modern man, Spinoza challenged orthodoxy in both religion and politics, angering his traditional contemporaries. (The film is also on Youtube.)
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The Bryan MaGee conversations are helpful too. Here is the conversation on Spinoza, the introduction (first 10 minutes) also serves as a good introduction to Descartes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLZqMQdVCXA
Other Supplemental links:
https://www.iep.utm.edu/spinoza/
https://www.iep.utm.edu/leib-met/
https://www.iep.utm.edu/berkeley/
For research start with links above then move on to the Stanford Philosophy Encyclopedia and The IEP (search by the name of each philosopher on both sites), and ideally the philosopher directly.
Discussion (750-2500 words): Between rationalism (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz) and empiricism (Locke, Berkeley, Hume) which do you prefer and why? Use readings with quotes and citations.
It is probably easiest to pick a single philosopher from the reading and video and use that to build your argument.