Course Descriptions
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Department of Philosophy | |
| Spring
2005
Course Descriptions |
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| Course
Timetable |
PHIL 001-301 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY An introduction to such topics as our knowledge of the
An introductory survey of some central philosophical
An introduction to such topics as our knowledge of the
PHIL 001-304 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY An introduction to such topics as our knowledge of the
An investigation of some of the central questions about
RECITATIONS: PHIL 004-201 Friday -- 10:00-11:00 Staff PHIL 004-202 Friday -- 11:00-12:00 Staff PHIL 004-203 Friday -- 11:00-12:00 Staff PHIL 004-204 Friday -- 10:00-11:00 Staff PHIL 004-205 Friday -- 12:00-1:00 Staff PHIL 004-206 Friday -- 12:00-1:00 Staff An introduction to the history of modern philosophy through representative
texts and problems from the writings of Descartes, Hume, Kant, and Hegel.
Emphasis on metaphysics and the theory of knowledge, including questions
about the existence and attributes of mind, matter, and God, the limits
of human knowledge, and the possibility of human freedom.
RECITATIONS: PHIL 008-402 Friday -- 12:00-1:00 Staff PHIL 008-403 Friday -- 1:00-2:00 Staff PHIL 008-404 Friday -- 12:00-1:00 Staff PHIL 008-405 Friday -- 11:00-12:00 Staff PHIL 008-406 Friday -- 12:00-1:00 Staff PHIL 008-407 Friday -- 10:00-11:00 Staff This course examines the role of social contract doctrines in Western
thought and culture. We will focus on the political writings of the major
modern proponents of social contract theory: Thomas Hobbes, John Locke,
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and John Rawls. We will contrast their views with
the utilitarian tradition, as represented by the political and economic
philosophy of David Hume and Adam Smith. The relationship between social
contract doctrine and the theory of rational choice is also discussed,
as well as contemporary libertarianism. The course is designed to provide
an introduction to some of the main issues in modern political philosophy.
Discussion of several contemporary ethical topics such as limitations
on freedom of expression, civil disobedience, affirmative action, privacy
rights, treatment of animals, euthanasia, health care distribution, informed
consent, and obligations to future generations.
We all seem to believe in what we call a "self" that undergoes
experience. But what is it with which we identify ouselves? Is it a unique
and unified "thing" that is a subject of experience? Is it a
body, a soul or something else? Is this self revealed in experience in
any way? What makes us the particular persons that we are? How is this
personal identify preserved over time? This course will examine different
accounts of the self that deal with questions about the nature of the
self, its relationship to the body, personal identity and the phenomenology
of the self. Readings will include works by historical and contemporary
authors from Western and Asian traditions. We will critically examine,
discuss and write about different viewpoints concerning what we think
we know most intimately--the self.
RECITATIONS: PHIL 025-405 Friday -- 11:00-12:00 Staff PHIL 025-406 Friday -- 12:00-1:00 Staff An introductory course in the history and philosophy of science. Its
central focus is the development of the modern, scientific view of the
world. Upon completing this course, students will have a better sense
of the origin of such central scientific concepts as force, atom, evolution,
species, and law of nature. In addition, they will gain an elementary
understanding of key issues in the philosophy of science including the
relationship between theory and evidence, the nature of scientific explanation,
and the status of unobservable entities. Readings will be drawn from Aristotle,
Descartes, Newton, Darwin and a number of secondary sources. Although
primarily a reading and writing oriented course, there will be several
opportunities to engage first hand in the process of scientific discovery---in
astronomy, evolutionary biology, chemistry, and modern physics.
An introduction to 20th century continental European philosophy, focusing
on the origins and development of phenomenology and existentialism and
their influence on contemporary thought. The course will include an introdution
to the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and examine the subsequent development
of modern philosophic existentialism by critics of Husserl, with a special
focus on Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Finally, the important
influence of phenomenology and existentialism on contemporary trends in
French, German, and American philosophy will be explored, including Paul
Ricoeur's hermeneutics, Richard Rorty's neo-pragmatism and Jacques Derrida's
deconstruction, and other key figures of the tradition.
An examination of some central philosophical questions concerning the
nature of the self. In particular, we will focus on such questions as:
What is it to be a self? What is it to be the same self over time? (I.e.,
the problem of personal identity.) What is the relationship between the
self and its organic body? Could a self persist across a change of the
body, or the brain? Could a self survive the death of its body? What is
the relationship between being a self, a person, and a subject of of experience?
We will examine both historical and contemporary writings on these topics.
An examination of several metaphysical issues concerning the nature of
consciousness: What is the relationship between consciousness and the
physical properties of the brain? Is consciousness something non-physical
that emerges from the activity of brains? Or does consciousness reduce
to properties of the brain? Or should we understand the relationship between
consciousness and the brain in terms of some notion of supervenience?
In trying to answer these questions, we will examine several recent attempts
to explain consciousness in broadly naturalistic terms. We will also ask
whether the concept of the physical is itself well understood. Readings
will be largely contemporary, though we will consider some historical
sources as well.
RECITATIONS: PHIL 244-201 Friday -- 12:00-1:00 Staff This class will survey major positions and topics in contemporary philosophy
of mind. Questions to be addressed include: Is the mind identical to the
brain? Can there be a science of consciousness? What is a "representation"?
Are mental explanations like physical explanations? Are our minds computers?
Could advances in neuroscience give us reason to think that beliefs and
desires don't really exist?
This course examines some of the common problems in global justice. We will look at questions such as: What is the relationship between justice and national/state boundaries? Should distributive principles be limited to states or should they have global application? What is a just war? What is the difference between war and terrorism? Do states have the right (or even duty) to intervene in another state to protect basic human rights? What are human rights? Are they universal, or should they be limited by cultural considerations?
PHIL 273-401 ETHICS IN THE PROFESSION The course examines the distinctive moral problems professionals confront. We will compare and contrast the responsibilities of business leaders and advisors, lawyers, physicians, soldiers, police, and other professionals. We will examine conflicts of interest to find out what those conflicts reveal about professional responsibilities, and how they can be resolved. We will try to understand notions of loyalty, authority, honesty, and integrity as they function in professional life. We will explore the role of self-regulation in professional organizations, and consider the standards of conduct these organizations impose. Specific questions we may explore: What are the responsibilities of a financial advisor whose client insists on making an investment the client cannot understand? What are the responsibilities of a criminal defense lawyer who believes that her client is guilty and will commit more crime? What are the responsibilities of a psychiatrist whose patient reveals in confidence that he is likely to engage in a dangerous act? Can an auditor maintain independence and objectivity when financial incentives suggest an audit that favors her client?
PHIL 277-001 JUSTICE, LAW & MORALITY Monday, Wednesday --
1:00-2:00 RECITATIONS: PHIL 277-201 Friday -- 1:00-2:00 Staff This course will examine the relationships among law, morality and justice.
We will discuss, in general terms, the relationship between law and morality.
Our particular concerns will include how the judiciary has sought to draw
the line between areas of life that are properly regulated by public law
and realms that are not; and how western moral and political philosophers
have sought to draw that same line. The limits of privacy and accountability
for private life will be a major theme of the course. Readings will include
major Supreme course decisions and readings by John Stuart Mill and other
philosophers in the western tradition.
PHIL 325-301 TOPICS IN PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE: EXPLANATION For the last five decades, scientific explanation has been one of the
central topics in philosophy of science. In the first part of the seminar,
we will examine the major accounts of explanation beginning with Hempel's
classic treatment. We will also pay special attention to the accounts
offered by Salmon, Railton, Friedman, Kitcher, and van Fraassen. More
recently, philosophers of science has turned their attention to the explanations
given in specific sciences and this will be the emphasis of the second
part of the course. We analyze the historical and biological explanations
given in Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel and the chemical
explanations given in Mcgee's The Curious Cook.
PHIL 342-301 CONTEMPORARY METAPHYSICS Explorations of some issues concerning properties, qualities, holes,
truth, necessity and impossibility, the human mind and animal perception,
with a manuscript (by the teacher) and further readings from a recent
collection from Duns Scotus and William of Ockham (c.1300). There are
three short papers (3-5 pages), one 12-15 page paper on a book or problem
to be selected by the student with the teacher's advice, with a take-home
final exam based on the assigned readings. Seminar style discussions.
PHIL 376-301 JUSTICE How are the claims of liberty to be reconciled with the claims of equality?
What basic rights do individuals have? What are the requirements of economic
justice? What is the common good? These are the basic questions of the
democratic tradition in political philosophy. In this course we shall
consider the differing responses given to these questions by several philosophical
views, including Utilitarianism, Social Contract doctrines, Libertarianism,
and Marxist conceptions of justice.
PHIL 412-401 TOPICS IN LOGIC The course will examine the expressive power of various logical languages over the class of finite structures. A main theme of the course will be connections between the logical complexity and computational complexity of collections of finite structures. Additional topics will be drawn from model theory, proof theory, recursion theory, and set theory. Connections between logic and algebra, analysis, combinatorics, computer science, and the foundations of mathematics will be emphasized.
PHIL 423-301 PHILOSOPHY & VISUAL PERCEPTION The course starts with a discussion of theories of visual perception and their relation to philosophy. We consider a case study of the metaphysics of vision, by examining the metaphysics of color qualities. Then we survey visual theories from Ptolemy to Rock, with stops to include Ibn al-Haytham, Descartes, Berkeley, Helmholtz, and Koffka. We end by investigating selected philosophical themes, such as the interaction between seeing and knowing (or believing), the metaphysics of seeing, and the role of imagery in thought.
PHIL 425-401 PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Historically oriented survey and contemporary analysis of the basic concepts
and arguments in philosophy of science. An in-depth examination of the
nature of scientific theories, their confirmation and theory-world relations,
laws of nature and their role in unification and explanation, causation,
and teleology, reductionism and supervenience, values and objectivity.
Additional topics covered include arguments concerning scientific realism,
the ontological status of theoretical entities, the Quine-Duhem thesis,
Kuhn's paradigm shifts, Bayesianism, and the success of science.
PHIL 480-401 TOPICS IN AESTHETICS: CLASSICS OF TWENTIETH CENTURY AESTHETICS This semester we will examine a number of classics of twentieth-century
aesthetics. Texts will include R.G. Collingwood, The Principles of
Art, John Dewey, Art as Experience; Martin Heidegger,
The Origins of the Work of Art; Theodor W. Adorno, Aesthetic
Theory; Stanley Cavell, Must We Mean What We Say? and The
World Viewed; and Arthur C. Danto, The End of Art and The
Abuse of Beauty. Written work for the course will include one short
paper and one term paper.
PHIL 505-401 FORMAL LOGIC I This course provides an introduction to the fundamental ideas of logic.
Topics will include truth functional logic, quantificational logic, and
logical decision problems. PHIL 507-401 PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY A reading of greek of the fragments of the Presocratic philosophers,
together with an introduction to the modern scholarship on the Presocratics.
We will begin with the mythopoetic worldview presented by Hesiod's Theogony,
and follow its transformation above all in Heraclitus, Parmenides and
Empedocles.
PHIL 510-301 LATE PLATO: SOPHIST AND STATESMAN A careful reading (in English) of two late Platonic dialogues where
the figure of Socrates is replaced as chief speaker by a visitor from
Elea, a follower of Parmenides. Topics covered include metaphysics and
the problem of Not-Being (in the Sophist) and a new version of Plato's
political philosophy (in the Statesman), together with a new interpretation
of Platonic dialectic in terms of the method of Collection and Division.
PHIL 529-301 MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY First, some lectures and reading on general lines of Philosophy from
350 AD to 1300AD (e.g. J. Weinberg's Short History of Medieval Philosophy)
then class sessions will concentrate on some particular works, like Agustine's
Confessions (c.400), Anselm's Dialogues (c. 1050) Aquinas (c. 1250) (selections
from Summa theologica), and Duns Scotus (c. 1300) and Wlm Ockham (c. 1325)
on individuation. Each studnet will have to pick an additional work (e.g.
parts of Maimonides Guide for the perplexed, or Peter of Spain on logic,
etc.) for specialized study and a final term paper. there will be class
presentations in the form of professor's questions about particular readings.
This is a course for serious, industrious students.
PHIL 540-301 TOPICS IN PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE This year's topic is vagueness and related phenomena. Using the Sorites
Paradox as a test case, we will first critically review the major approaches
to the semantics and logic of vagueness, including supervaluationist semantics,
degree-theoretic approaches (e.g., fuzzy logic) epistemicism, and context-sensitive
semantics. Where we go from there depends in part on the interests of
attendees. Sample candidate further topics include: the psychology of
vague concepts, vagueness in ethical and legal language, the possibility
of vague objects and vague identity, indeterminate reference, intuitionism.
PHIL 564-301 POST-KANTIAN EPISTEMOLOGY This course will consider some of the main moments in the twentieth-century
reception of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. We will
begin by contrasting the neo-Kantian interpretation of Ernst Cassirer,
the phenomenological interpretation of Martin Heidegger (Kant and the
Problem of Metaphysics), and the pragmatic neo-Kantianism
of C.I. Lewis (Mind and the World Order). We will then examine
the analytical interpretations of Peter Strawson (Individuals and The
Bounds of Sense). Finally, we will examine the neo-pragmatic
neo-Kantianism of Wilfrid Sellars (Empiricism and the Philosophy
of Mind and Science and Metaphysics: Variations on Kantian Themes).
The course will be run as a seminar, with participants making oral
presentations and preparing a final research paper. Prior acquaintance
with the Critique of Pure Reason is a prerequisite. Undergraduates who
satisfy that prerequisite may request permission to enroll.
PHIL 576-301 SOCIAL NORMS The seminar will consist of weekly student presentations and discussions
of interdisciplinary material on the nature and dynamics of social norms.
The main text will be my new book, The Grammar of Society: The Nature
and Dynamics of Norms.
PHIL 578-301 TOPICS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY In this course, we will examine some of the central problems of global
justice through a close reading of Rawls's "The Laws of Peoples"
(LP). Using LP to guide our investigation, we will examine topics such
as: international realism, democratic peace, human rights, state sovereignty,
diversity and the limits of liberal toleration, global economic justice,
nationalism, and cosmopolitanism. We hope to get a better understanding
of these questions by reading LP and the growing literature inspired by
it as well as some of the important works in international relations theory
(both historical and contemporary) that informed Rawls's own work. In
turn, we also want to see if the challenge of global justice can tell
us anything about the goal and scope of political philosophy
PHIL 700-301 DISSERTATION WORKSHOP Registration required for all third-year doctoral students.
COLLEGE OF GENERAL STUDIES PHIL 002-601 ETHICS An investigation of some of the central questions about the nature of
morality: Are moral judgments objective and justifiable? Can moral disagreements
be resolved rationally? How are we to understand the idea of a good life,
and what is the relationship between a good life and morality? Readings
will be from both contemporary and historical sources, and will concern
both practical problems (e.g. abortion, euthanasia, or resource conservation)
and theoretical issues.
PHIL 003-601 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY A survey of classical Greek approaches to questions about knowledge,
the nature of the world, the sould, ethics, and politics. Will focus on
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.
PHIL 026-601 PHILOSOPHY OF SPACE & TIME A study of the historical introduction to the philosophy of space and
time from ancient greek conceptions to modern scientific theories. We
will especially focus on Zeno's Paradoxes of space, time and motion, on
Democritus' atomistic concept of empty space and Aristotle's topos, on
the development of cosmology from Aristotle-Ptolemy to Copernicus, Tycho
Brahe and Kepler. Then we will study the development of a new Worldview
in the XVI-XVIII centuries: Descartes, Galilei and Newton. Some lectures
will be devoted to the crisis of the mechanical worldview and the origin
of the modern science: theory of relativity, quantum mechanics and relativistic
cosmology. No previous physics or philosophy will be presupposed, and
only high school mathematics will be used.
PHIL 028-601 FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY What is sex equality? Issues to be discussed include: What is gender? What is the nature of sexual oppression? Could a modern liberal society include sexual oppression? What would sexual liberation require? these questions will be discussed through the issues of society's gendering of paid work, family responsibilities and sexuality, among others. DISTRIBUTION I: SOCIETY
A survey of contemporary positions and debates within the philosophy
of mind. We will consider many of the classic philosophical questions
about mind: What is the relation between mind and body? Are there immaterial
aspects to mind? What is consciousness, and is consciousness a purely
physical phenomenon? Do animals have minds? Is artificial intelligence
possible?
PHIL 430-640 MIND AND CULTURE Human beings are biological entities and their biology must surely constrain the way their minds work. At the same time, it is a biological fact of human psychological development that it is only completed through acculturation, that is, through the acquisition of learned, shared, historically contingent categories. In this seminar we will examine the interplay between biology and culture as they are expressed in human psychology, focusing on higher cognition and the emotions.
PHIL 578-640 PHILOSOPHY & POLITICS OF HUMAN RIGHTS Human rights are now a fixed part of our ordinary moral discourse. This
is particularly so in the international domain. Yet the notion of human
rights presents challenging and interesting conceptual and practical problems.
What is the justificatory basis of human rights? Are rights morally binding
independently of human sentiment? Do human rights presuppose a particular
conception of human nature? Are human rights universal, or is it the case
that what counts as a human right is influenced by the claims of history
and culture? If rights are indeed universal, how do we balance the protection
of universal human rights with the respect for national self-determination
and the principle of state sovereignty? How can the protection and respect
for human rights best be achieved in our world? That is, what kinds of
global institutions do we need? We will examine these philosophical and
political questions in this course. Authors we will read include historical
figures such as Locke, Bentham, and Kant, as well as contemporary writers
such as John Rawls, Michael Walzer, Richard Rorty, and Michael Ignatieff.
LOGIC, INFORMATION AND COMPUTATION
LGIC 010-401 IDEAS IN LOGIC AND COMPUTATION This course provides an introduction to the fundamental ideas of logic. Topics will include truth functional logic, quantificational logic, and logical decision problems.
LGIC 320-401 LOGIC II The course will examine the expressive power of various logical languages over the class of finite structures. A main theme of the course will be connections between the logical complexity and computational complexity of collections of finite structures. Additional topics will be drawn from model theory, proof theory, recursion theory, and set theory. Connections between logic and algebra, analysis, comtinatorics, computer science, and the foundations of mathematics will be emphasized.
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Oct 26, 2004 |
  
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