Current Courses
Fall 2012
PHI 100-B Concepts of the Person (II) Main Focus
An historical introduction to philosophy through readings and discussion on topics such as human identity, human understanding, and human values.
PHI 100.01
TUTH 1:00-2:20
H. Cormier
Who are we? What, if anything, makes us human beings special parts of the world? Is it our capacity to feel? To think? To live in society? In this course we will read and think about philosophical texts that try to help us see what people are and they are so valuable.
PHI 100.02
MWF 11:00-11:53
W. Mattingly
A course devoted to the critical philosophical study of our everyday understanding of selfhood and authenticity (“the idea that some things are in some real sense really you, or express what you are, and others aren't”). To accomplish this we will trace the historical development of these two interrelated concepts as they emerged out of pre-modern ways of thinking (Socrates, Augustine) to occupy a prominent place in modern rationalist, empiricist, and Romantic traditions (Descartes, Locke, Hume, Rousseau). We will then explore how this historical background has framed: (1) the problem of personal identity in twentieth-century analytic philosophy (Derek Parfit, Sydney Shoemaker, Bernard Williams - quoted above); and (2) the problem of authenticity first formulated by existentialist thinkers (Kierkegaard, Heidegger) and dubiously appropriated and repackaged more recently into “authentic lifestyle choices” by self-help and advertising industries competing for a share of the cultural marketplace. Our overarching aim will be to see how philosophy might help us to clarify, question, and rethink many of the common assumptions we have inherited from our culture and its intellectual history about what it means to be a self.
PHI 100.03
MF 1:00-2:20
T. Johnston
Philosophical Reflections on the Home. What is a home? What does it mean to feel at home? What role does the home play in our development and flourishing as human beings? Beginning with these questions we will engage in a philosophical analysis of the complex concept of the home. The class will be divided into four different areas, each pairing a philosophical concern with a space in the home: the threshold (politics), the kitchen (feminism), the closet (identity), and the basement (memory). Our goal will be to understand the ways in which we create, and are created by, the spaces we call home. In addition to key texts in the philosophical tradition, we will look at memoir, short fiction, poetry, film, architecture and cultural anthropology.
PHI 100.04
TUTH 5:40-6:50
E. Diaz
As the name of the course suggests, this semester we will be exploring the different ways thinkers have approached the question of what it means to be a person. We will find that often the concept of personhood is situated among the concepts of action, freedom, and other (as in other to the self). In fact, we might say, as a first approximation (one that we can broaden and dispute in class), that to be a person means having and exercising the capacity to act intentionally and with some degree of freedom among others who have this same capacity. This raises further questions. What is the source of action? What is the relation between thought and action? Can we get in touch with ‘the truth’ through thought? What does it mean to be a self among others? Is there an ultimate standard by which to judge action? What do we mean by ‘freedom?’ What counts as an action that has been intentionally performed? Are we at bottom rational (thinking) beings? In our attempt to answer these questions we will be looking at a variety of ways of both formulating and answering these questions.
PHI 101-G Historical Intro to Western Philosophy (II) Main Focus
An introduction to pivotal theories of the Western philosophic tradition. Readings may be drawn from ancient Greek medieval, and modern classics of philosophy. Topics may include philosophic theories of politics, morality, metaphysics, knowledge, anthropology, art, and religion.
PHI 101.01
TUTH 1:00-2:20
J. Edwards
This course introduces you to four fundamental problem areas of Western philosophy: (1) the question of justice (or morality) and the human good; (2) the idea of God and the problem of human freedom; (3) the question of the nature and the scope of human knowledge; and (4) the idea of law and the basis of state power. Our readings will be from the works of four key thinkers: Plato, Augustine, Descartes, and Thomas Hobbes. Our explorations will implicitly encompass many of the pivotal theories of the Western philosophical tradition. Once you have mastered the materials of this course, you will be in a position to take on most of the philosophy courses offered in the undergraduate curriculum.
PHI 101.02
TUTH 8:30-9:50
T. Holloway
Loosely following the work of the Michel Foucault in The Order of Things, Vincent Descombes has claimed (in 1979, and with hesitation) that the three figures in the Western philosophical tradition most influential for contemporary thought are Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud. This course will investigate and debate this claim by thinking about these philosophers as pivots in the history of the philosophical tradition. Our course will begin by reading selections from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Augustine's Confessions, and Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy. We will then turn to Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud to consider the ways in which they respond to, alter, and resuscitate traditional philosophical questions concerning politics, morality, religion, metaphysics, and subjectivity. Lastly, we will read the opening sections of Gilles Deleuze's 1980 work A Thousand Plateaus: Capital and Schizophrenia to consider whether these philosophers indeed influence or even herald a time very near to our own.
PHI 101.03
MW 4:00-5:20
H. Fluss
An introduction to pivotal theories of the Western philosophic tradition. Readings may be drawn from ancient Greek, medieval, and modern classics of philosophy. Topics may include philosophic theories of politics, morality, logic, metaphysics, knowledge, anthropology, art, and religion.
PHI 101.04
MWF 11:00-11:53
J. Strandberg
This introductory course aims at developing an understanding of the discipline of philosophy. During the semester we will read and analyze pivotal texts while contemplating the overall question "What is philosophy?" We will focus on the practice of reading, thinking critically, and writing about philosophical issues. Students will be expected to attend each class, do a quiz each week, take part in discussion, and write two longer assignments.
PHI 104-B Moral Reasoning (II) Main
A historical introduction to philosophy through inquiry into the formation justification, and evaluation of moral judgments. Students introduced to the major theories and problems of ethics, such as utilitarianism, Kant's categorical imperative, ethical relativism, egoism and classical conceptions of the good and virtue. Against this background students engage in discussions of contemporary moral issues.
PHI 104.01
TUTH 2:30-3:50
E. Mendieta
This class is designed to introduce you to some of the main Western ethical and moral traditions. We will study utilitarianisms, deontology (in its religious and secular variants), virtue ethics, as well as ethical aestheticism. All of these traditions will be studied and discussed in the context of three challenges: first, is the moral different from the good? second, are the passions an obstacle to morality? third, can we educate our moral imagination beyond what is rationally acceptable?
The objectives of this class are: 1. To learn what philosophy is and is not, and how moral or practical philosophy relates to the other subdisciplines of philosophy; 2. To familiarize you with at least five foundational figures of Western moral philosophy, and to read in their entirety five of their canonical text; 3. To learn to differentiate and distinguish among virtue ethics, moral intellectualism, eudaemonism (eudemonism), deontology, utilitarianism, moral nihilism, moral skepticism, and ethical aestheticism; 4. To learn about the history of moral philosophy; 5. To learn to formulate your own philosophical arguments about specific moral.
PHI 104.02
MW 4:00-5:20
D. McLeod
This course will focus on a series of fundamental ethical questions: what makes a person or action moral? Is there a universal ethical code? How do dominant forms of morality impact our lives? We will explore these and many other ethical questions through the writings of historical and contemporary philosophers. The theoretical tools we develop will be applied to contemporary moral issues such as the ethical treatment of animals, euthanasia, abortion, and the death penalty.
PHI 104.03
MWF 10:00-10:53
M. Hentrup
Do we really know what it means to live well? Can we be sure that the choices we are making are good ones? If ethics is self-evident and a matter of mere opinion, how is it possible to do the wrong thing? In order to shed light on such questions, this course challenges students to think critically about the conditions for ethics. To this end, the course will address the roles of reasoning, conviction, habit, character, and social influence in moral decisions. Students will be expected to engage core ideas in the history of philosophy through close textual analysis and to develop original philosophical essays on the basis of these readings.
PHI 104.04
TUTH 8:30-9:50
K. Wolfe
Is ethics a matter of following certain rules for right action, or of becoming a particular kind of person? Is ethical life exclusive to human beings, or can other animals act ethically as well? What role does deliberative choice play in ethical life, and, on the other hand, what role might our feelings, deep-seated values, and relationships to others have in our ethical conduct? In this class, we will look to both ancient and modern philosophy to address these questions among others in light of contemporary issues.
PHI 105-G Politics and Society (ll)
A historical introduction to philosophy through an analysis of political theories, theories of action, and styles of political life. Main themes will include the relation of the individual to the state, the scope of social responsibility, and the nature of human freedom.
PHI 105.01
TUTH 1:00-2:20
T. Hyde
Politics in the Classical Age of the Greeks. A close reading of Plato's Republic (supplemented with readings from Aristotle) that started political philosophy and Western civilization off, from the people who invented democracy, but often practiced tyranny, oligarchy or timocracy, and had seen it all. Mandatory reading—in-class quizzes, mandatory attendance—in-class handouts, two exams, two short papers.
PHI 105.02
MF 1:00-2:20
D. Susser
In this course we will survey contemporary and historical texts in order to investigate some of the most important debates in Western political philosophy. We will ask, what justifies the state? Are there alternatives to it? Who ought to rule, and what legitimizes that authority? What is freedom, and what is freedom’s place in democracy? What is equality, and have all groups historically faired equally well in democratic society? Students will be expected to attend class, read carefully, write short weekly reading responses, and complete two exams.
PHI 105.03
MW 5:30-6:50
B. Irwin
How should society be organized? What are freedom and justice, and how can they best be ensured by our political arrangements? What is the proper relation between the individual and the state? And how can - or should - we aspire to social equality? We will grapple with these questions through an exploration of Western political thought from ancient times through the present. Philosophers we will read include Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Karl Marx, Michel Foucault, and others.
PHI 105.04
TUTH 4:00-5:20
J. Jorjani
This course will examine the central political concept of the 20th century, that of Universal Human Rights – as defined in the 1948 declaration of the United Nations. Taking as our point of departure a reading of the UN UDHR and the accounts of the drafting debates in Paris from out of which it emerged, we will critically examine the coherence of certain of its core universal human rights, such as those asserting our entitlement to Freedom of Religion and Popular Sovereignty (i.e. Democracy). We will trace the philosophical genealogy of these ideas as well as examine the thought of philosophers critical of them. The course will culminate in a philosophical critique of the concept of human nature in general, with a special emphasis on how this concept is problematized by human biotechnology (which the UN is in the process of attempting to regulate).
PHI 108-B Logical & Critical Reasoning (II)
The principle aim of this course is to help a student acquire the skills of thinking, reading, and writing critically. The student develops a sensitivity to language and argumentation that is applicable to a wide range of situations and subject matters.
PHI 108.01
MW 2:30-3:50
G. Mar
In this course logical and critical reasoning will be viewed from a variety of perspectives. Frist, we shall examine critical reasoning as problem solving. The student will learn how to solve logic puzzles now commonly found on such standard examinations as the GRE and LSAT, but our primary goal will be to gain insight into problem-solving heuristic and the problem-solving process. Second, the student will learn about scientific reasoning. We shall deal with the demarcation between "pseudoscience" and science, forms of inductive inference, and models of scientific reasoning. Third, the course deals with critical reasoning as argument and rhetoric. The student will learn the art of explicating and evaluating arguments found in "real life" and how to expose fallacies and to compose persuasive arguments.
PHI 108.02
MWF 11:00-11:53
H. Mohamed
This course will focus on developing the principles of argumentation and good reasoning. The aim is to give students the tools that will enable them rationally to examine and evaluate their own convictions as well as the arguments and positions of others. The approach will concentrate both on the purely logical aspects (inductive and deductive reasoning, informal fallacies, etc.) and the “non-logical” factors (such as the role of social, cultural and historical context) that are involved in making and evaluating arguments. We will approach our subject-matter by exploring some controversial issues such as ESP (Extrasensory Perception), astrology, “the Mayan calendar”, and others. Students’ progress will be continuously gauged through structured reading, writing assignments and weekly to biweekly quizzes.
PHI 108.03
MW 5:30-6:50
K. Jobe
What is a problem? What sorts of things do we think are problematic? And how do we as individuals and groups go about solving our problems? This course will be an introduction to and experimentation with the various levels and methods of problem solving, from scientific reasoning to the domain of moral reasoning. Along with dealing with questions about truth, reason and the norms of discourse, students will be challenged to critically analyze problems as both an individual and a group member. Requirements for the course include logic homework, a group project, and a final research essay on the topic of the student's choice.
PHI 108.04
MF 1:00-2:20
J. Teague
This course aims to teach students how to evaluate arguments. The first half of the course will focus on the coherency of an argument. Students will learn to identify premises and conclusions and to determine whether the conclusion actually follows from those premises. Students will learn the tool of symbolic logic to make this activity easier when dealing with complicated arguments. The second half of the course will focus on acquiring evidence for an argument, specifically arguments concerning human experience and behavior. Students will survey methodologies from across the social sciences and evaluate the strengths and weakness of each. Grades will be based on bi-weekly quizzes.
PHI 110-B: Arts and Ideas (III) Main Focus
An introduction to the historical and comparative study of the various arts in relation to the philosophical ideas that prevailed at the same time. At least four significantly different historical periods of intense creative activity - such as ancient Greece, the Renaissance, the 18th or 19th century in the West, ancient China, T'ang or Sung dynasty China, Heian or Muromachi period Japan, and the contemporary age - are studied in terms of the interconnections between philosophical theorizing and artistic practice.
PHI 110.01
MW 2:30-3:50
N. Greene
This course will survey major philosophical ideas in four historical periods, using the following texts as touchstones: Aristotle’s Poetics; the Bhagavad Gita; Voltaire’s Candide; and Shadow and Act, by Ralph Ellison. Each text will introduce classical Greece, ancient India, the Age of Enlightenment in Western Europe, and the Harlem Renaissance, respectively. We will explore tragedy and comedy over the course of this semester, both theoretically and in artistic practices, beginning with Aristotle and ending with the blues.
Intermediate Courses
PHI 220.01 Introduction to Symbolic Logic (II)
MWF 12:00-12:53
G. Mar
This course is a self-contained introduction to the formal techniques of symbolic logic. It presupposes no prior knowledge of philosophy or mathematics. It does not aim at justifying results about logical systems. Instead the purpose of this course is to impart a skill—the ability to recognize and construct logically correct derivations. In the lectures, the concepts and heuristics involved in learning logic will be illustrated with puzzles, games, and word play.
We will be using the Kalish-Montague-Mar system of natural deduction. Students who succeed in this course tend to be the ones who work systematically on homework exercises in the accompanying computer workshop in the Logic Lab (Harriman 243) and complete them in a timely manner. Students who truly excel in the course tend to be the ones who learn to love logic, who reinforce their own learning by sharing their knowledge with others, and who get hooked on the aesthetic pleasures of solving a good logic problem.
PHI 247-G Existentialism (I)
TUTH 11:30-12:50
D. Allison
Readings in existential philosophy and literature with special emphasis on such themes as alienation, anxiety, nihilism, absurdity, the self, value death, and immediacy. Existentialist categories will be used to interpret contemporary life styles and culture.
Upper Division Courses
PHI 300-I Ancient Philosophy (I)
TUTH 8:30-9:50
T. Hyde
This course is primarily intended for philosophy majors to acquaint them with Ancient Philosophy and to teach them how to write an academic scholarly philosophical paper. The first half of the semester will survey a millennium of Ancient Philosophy, followed by an exam testing fact recall. The second half of the semester will involve a close reading of the Platonic dialogues that develop Plato’s theory of forms—on which there will be a final exam. During the second half of the semester, students will précis an article of their choosing from JSTOR, then summarize the relevant original texts, followed by writing a scholarly paper on those texts taking into consideration multiple possible readings, and finally come up with a thesis of their own position, hence writing a model philosophical paper.
PHI 308-I 19th Century Philosophy (I)
TUTH 2:30-3:50
D. Allison
The course will examine the principal texts of Friedrich Nietzsche in detail.
PHI 320-G Metaphysics (I)
TUTH 11:30-12:50
D. Dilworth
Study of the "first-tier" foundational categories of metaphysics in Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, and Peirce.
PHI 332-G Theories of Knowledge (II)
TUTH 10:00-11:20
J. Edwards
What is knowledge? What is it to know something—or anything at all? What is it to know that something is as we think it is and judge it to be? And, more generally, how does genuine knowledge differ from mere belief or opinion? The attempt to provide systematic and rigorous answers to questions like these is an endeavor that defines one of the main branches of philosophical inquiry: epistemology. Our focus in this course will be the problem of our sense-based knowledge of the natural world. Thus, our guiding task will be to understand what sense perception is, and what it involves. More particularly, we’ll be concerned to understand the roles that should be assigned to the senses and sensation in the account of our knowledge of sensible things. We’ll first examine a classic treatment of sense perception and knowledge that was given by a major ancient thinker: Plato. In the second half of the course, we’ll turn to an important modern view of sense-based knowledge generated by the assumption that “the mind knows not things immediately, but only by the intervention of the ideas it has of them” (John Locke). We’ll discuss the origins of this view as well as its significance for contemporary approaches to the question of knowledge. But we’ll be mainly concerned with an important thinker who subjected the modern view of ideas to radical criticism: Thomas Reid.
PHI 353-G Philosophy of Mind (II)
TTUTH 4:00-5:20
H. Cormier
Analysis of the major problems in the philosophy of mind, e.g. the mind- body problem, the problem of identity through time, the relation between thoughts and sensations, the problem of the knowledge of other minds.
PHI 370-G Philosophical Psychology (III)
MW 8:30-9:50
D. Welton
This course, designed for serious and advanced students in psychology and philosophy, will attempt to develop a viable theory of the whole person by exploring the bodily, psychological and spiritual dimensions of our existence. In particular we will take a look at five interrelated areas: (a) what is the relationship between the body as a neuro-biological organism and the body as it functions in our experience of the world; (b) what is the connection, if any, between the body and the mind; (c) does consciousness have a structure and, if so, how can we get at it; (d) what is the tie between the “head” and the “heart,” i.e., how do we understand emotions; and (e) what is love?
Course requirements: attendance at all classes, preparation of assigned readings, three examinations, plus a great deal of class participation. Prerequisites for the course will be enforced. If you are not a philosophy and/or psychology major, or not a junior (U3) who has already taken at least two courses in philosophy and one in psychology, you will have difficulty in this course.
PHI 377-Contemporary Political Philosophy (II)
TUTH 1:00-2:20
S. Khader
This course explores some of the central conceptual questions posed by the idea of human rights. It is not a course about the history of human rights violations or the real-world legal/political institutions that constitute the human rights regime. We will focus on the following questions:
- What does it mean to say something is a right? A human right?
- What are the objects of human rights? That is, what do we have human rights to? More specifically, can social and economic rights be said to be human rights in the same way political and civil rights are generally thought to be? Is there a human right to be free from poverty? To democracy?
- Can human rights be genuinely said to be universal? Do they enshrine a conception of the good life that is specific to Western cultures?
- Do human rights as they are currently conceptualized prioritize the protection of men's vital interests over women's?
- When is humanitarian intervention morally acceptable?
PHI 381-G Aesthetics (II)
TUTH 5:30-6:50
H. Silverman
What is artistic expression, meaning, culture? How are the arts situated and mediated in historical, political, cultural experience and understanding? In what way do the arts mediate and become the media themselves? What are the limits to what is called “art?” And does it even make sense to talk about “works of art” today? This course will focus on contemporary European aesthetic theory (since the early 20th century). Emphasis will be placed on the role of aesthetic theory in phenomenology, existentialism, critical theory, hermeneutics, poststructuralism, deconstruction, postmodernism, and continental feminist theory. The task will be to understand the writings of major theorists (such as Heidegger, Benjamin, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Dufrenne, Gadamer, Barthes, Foucault, Deleuze, Lyotard, Derrida, Kristeva, Perniola, Nancy, and Rancière), and to show how they relate to issues such as: the nature of the work of art and writing, problems of criticism and aesthetic understanding, strategies for reading and interpretation, the status of texts and textuality, questions surrounding the beautiful and the sublime, the role of re-presentation and the unpresentable in art, the differences between the avant-garde and the postmodern, and the role of the arts in contemporary society.
PHI 382-H Quantum Mechanics in Philosophy (III)
W 5:30-8:20
R. Crease and A. Goldhaber
This course explores the implications and influence, real and alleged, of quantum mechanics on fields other than physics. What does quantum mechanics mean, if anything, for philosophy, ethics, and social behavior? At the same time, we shall look into how social and cultural influences may have affected the way that quantum mechanics was formulated, and how it has evolved. We shall review the early history of quantum mechanics, and discuss some of the important debates at the founding of quantum mechanics. Students will not be expected to learn the mathematics in depth, only the introduction provided by the instructors aimed at non-science students. Besides readings, the course will also involve plays, films, and guest speakers. Students will be expected to work on a final project, to be presented in class.
PHI 384 Advanced Topics in Feminist Philosophy (III)
TUTH 10:00-11:20
S. Khader
Feminist theory has both critical and constructive aims. Its critical aim is to reveal androcentric biases in our existing ways of thinking about the world. Its constructive aim is to develop ways of thinking about the world that do not distort the realities of women and other oppressed people. In this course, we will examine three sets of questions that are central to feminist theory:
- How does oppression affect people’s capacities for autonomy and personhood?
- How do existing practices of scientific knowledge acquisition and justification serve the interests of the powerful? How might we change our conceptions of knowledge so that we might arrive at claims about reality that are not distorted by the interests of the powerful?
- What practices of knowing impede privileged women’s capacities abilities to understand and engage in liberatory struggles with women who are racially, economically, and/or colonially subjugated?
PHI 402 Analysis of Philosophic Texts (I)
TUTH 2:30-3:50
P. Manchester
PHI 420 Advanced Topics in Philosophy (I)
TU 3:50-6:40
B. Edwards
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born 300 years ago—on June 28, 2012 to be precise. To mark the occasion in Rousseau’s honor, we will devote this course to the famous question posed by the Academy of Dijon in its essay competition of 1754: “What is the origin of inequality among men, and is it authorized by natural law?” Our readings, of course, will focus on works by Rousseau (especially his Discourse on the Origins of Inequality). But we will also consider what a number of other major thinkers—namely, Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Spinoza, and Marx—have had to say about human inequality and equality.
PHI 435 Senior Seminar
W 2:30-5:30
E. Kittay
Caring about Care: This course will be an exploration of Care Ethics in both non-feminist and feminist forms. We will also look at philosophical treatments of the idea and the importance of care. We will explore its relationship to other ethical theories such as virtue theory. We will examine where the idea of a care ethics comes from, and if and how it is a contribution to ethical theory. We will consider how care ethics relates to the conception that is ordinarily contrasted with it, a justice-based ethics. We will end the course with a look at some practical concerns of care ethics and ask if a concern for care can reach beyond the intimate sphere where it is generally thought to operate. Of special interest will be the contributions of work in feminist care ethics to bioethics and to global justice. Readings will include works by Carol Gilligan; Nel Noddings; Joan Tronto; Michael Slote; Steven Darwall; Alisdair McIntyre; Harry Frankfurt; David Shoemaker; Eva Kittay; Sara Ruddick; Emanuel Levinas; Iris Young; Virginia Held; Fiona Robinson among others.
