This course will seek to assess ‘the meaning of modernity’ by examining its founding ontological commitments; by considering how these commitments are operative in modern conceptions of nature and scientific knowledge, politics and the state, and freedom and anthropology; and by evaluating their theological significance, especially in light of developments at the Second Vatican Council and in the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI regarding the meaning of the human person. The course will center largely on primary sources which may include Machiavelli, Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, Locke, Rousseau, Vico, and Newton.