Philosophy

PHIL UN1010 Methods and Problems of Philosophical Thought. 3 points.

Critical introduction to philosophical problems, ideas and methods.

PHIL UN2003 Philosophy of Art. 3 points.

This is an introductory course in the Philosophy of Art. We will consider questions including (but not limited to) the following: What is art? Should we try to define art? What is taste? What are the conditions for aesthetic judgement? What is an aesthetic experience? We shall also consider the topics of "public art", "fakes and forgeries,"art and technology" and the philosophical implications of speaking of an "artworld.

PHIL UN2100 Philosophy of Education. 3 points.

Drawing on classical and contemporary sources, this course will introduce students to a variety of texts that address the philosophical consideration of education, including its role in the development of the individual and the development of a democratic society. Readings from Plato, Rousseau, Dewey, and others.

PHIL UN2101 The History of Philosophy I: Presocratics to Augustine. 4 points.

BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Reason and Value (REA)., Recitation Section Required

Corequisites: PHIL V2111 Required Discussion Section (0 points).

Exposition and analysis of the positions of the major philosophers from the pre-Socratics through Augustine.  This course has unrestricted enrollment.

PHIL UN3252 Philosophy of Language and Mind. 3 points.

This course will provide an introduction to meaning, reference, understanding, and content in language, thought, and perception.  A central concern will be the question of the relation of meaning to truth-conditions, and what is involved in language and thought successfully latching on to reality.  If you have not already taken an elementary course in first order logic, you will need to catch up in that area to understand some crucial parts of the course.  All the same, the primary concerns of the course will be philosophical, rather than technical.

PHIL UN3264 19th Century Philosophy: Hegel. 3 points.

Prerequisites: PHIL UN2201 or PHIL UN3251

Examines major themes of Hegel's philosophy, with emphasis on social and political thought. Topics include Hegel's critique of Kant, the possibility of metaphysics, the master-slave dialectic, and the role of freedom in a rational society. Readings from Kant’s Third Critique help explain how Hegel's project develops out of Kant's transcendental idealism. Some knowledge of Kant's moral theory and his Critique of Pure Reason is presupposed. Prerequisite: at least one of PHIL UN2201, PHIL UN2301, or PHIL UN3251.

PHIL UN3411 Symbolic Logic. 4 points.

CC/GS: Partial Fulfillment of Science Requirement, Recitation Section Required

Corequisites: PHILV3413 Required Discussion Section (0 points).

Advanced introduction to classical sentential and predicate logic. No previous acquaintance with logic is required; nonetheless a willingness to master technicalities and to work at a certain level of abstraction is desirable. This course has unrestricted enrollment.

PHIL UN3551 Philosophy of Science. 3 points.

Enrollment limited to 40.

Prerequisites: one philosophy course or the instructor's permission.

Philosophical problems within science and about the nature of scientific knowledge in the 17th-20th centuries. Sample problems: causation and scientific explanation; induction and real kinds; verification and falsification; models, analogies and simulations; the historical origins of the modern sciences; scientific revolutions; reductionism and supervenience; differences between physics, biology and the social sciences; the nature of life; cultural evolution; human nature; philosophical issues in cosmology.

PHIL UN3601 Metaphysics. 4 points.

Discussion Section Required

Corequisites: PHIL V3611 Required Discussion Section (0 points).

Systematic treatment of some major topics in metaphysics (e.g. modality, causation, identity through time, particulars and universals). Readings from contemporary authors.

PHIL UN3701 Ethics. 4 points.

Prerequisites: one course in philosophy.
Corequisites: PHIL V3711 Required Discussion Section (0 points).

This course is mainly an introduction to three influential approaches to normative ethics: utilitarianism, deontological views, and virtue ethics. We also consider the ethics of care, and selected topics in meta-ethics.

PHIL UN3751 Political Philosophy. 3 points.

Six major concepts of political philosophy including authority, rights, equality, justice, liberty and democracy are examined in three different ways. First the conceptual issues are analyzed through contemporary essays on these topics by authors like Peters, Hart, Williams, Berlin, Rawls and Schumpeter. Second the classical sources on these topics are discussed through readings from Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Marx, Plato, Mill and Rousseau. Third some attention is paid to relevant contexts of application of these concepts in political society, including such political movements as anarchism, international human rights, conservative, liberal, and Marxist economic policies as well as competing models of democracy.

PHIL UN3752 Philosophy of Law. 3 points.

This course explores philosophical reflection on the relationship between law, society and morality. We discuss the nature of law, the nature of legal reasoning, the relationship between law and social policy, and central concepts in civil and criminal law. Readings are drawn from such sources as the natural law tradition, legal positivism, legal realism, and Critical Legal Theory. Readings will be supplemented by analysis of classic cases.

PHIL UN3840 The Nature and Significance of Animal Minds. 3 points.

Humans have a complicated relationship with other animals. We love them, befriend them and save them. We hunt, farm and eat them. We experiment on and observe them to discover more about them and to discover more about ourselves. For many of us, our pets are amongst the most familiar inhabitants of our world. Yet when we try to imagine what is going on in a dog or cat's mind--let alone that of a crow, octopus or bee--many of us are either stumped about how to go about this, or (the science strongly suggests) getting things radically wrong. Is our thought about and behavior towards animals ethically permissible, or even consistent, Can we reshape our habits of thought about animals to allow for a more rational, richer relationship with the other inhabitants of our planet? In this course, students will reflect on two closely intertwined questions: an ethical question, what sort of relationship ought we to have with animals?; and a metaphysical question, what is the nature of animal minds? Readings will primarily be be from philosophy and ethics and the cognitive sciences, with additional readings from literature and biology.  There are no prerequisites for this class--it will be helpful but certainly not necessary to have taken previous classes in philosophy(especially ethics and philosophy of mind) or in cognitive science.

PHIL UN3912 Seminar. 3 points.

Required of senior majors, but also open to junior majors, and junior and senior concentrators who have taken at least four philosophy courses. This exploration will typically involve writing a substantial research paper. Capped at 20 students with preference to philosophy majors.

PHIL UN3997 Supervised Senior Research. 3 points.

Supervised research under the direction of individual members of the department.

PHIL GU4100 Paradoxes. 3 points.

Various paradoxes, from many areas, including mathematics, physics, epistemology, decision theory and ethics, will be analyzed. The goal is to find what such paradoxes imply about our ways of thinking, and what lessons can be derived. Students will have a choice to focus in their papers on areas they are interested in.

PHIL GU4424 Modal Logic. 3 points.

CC/GS: Partial Fulfillment of Science Requirement

PHIL GU4561 Probability and Decision Theory. 3 points.

Examines interpretations and applications of the calculus of probability including applications as a measure of degree of belief, degree of confirmation, relative frequency, a theoretical property of systems, and other notions of objective probability or chance. Attention to epistimological questions such as Hume's problem of induction, Goodman's problem of projectibility, and the paradox of confirmation.

PHIL UN1010 Methods and Problems of Philosophical Thought. 3 points.

Critical introduction to philosophical problems, ideas and methods.

PHIL UN1401 Introduction to Logic. 3 points.

BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Quantitative and Deductive Reasoning (QUA).

Explicit criteria for recognizing valid and fallacious arguments, together with various methods for schematizing discourse for the purpose of logical analysis. Illustrative material taken from science and everyday life.

PHIL UN2108 Philosophy and History. 3 points.

An introduction to historical (from 1800) and contemporary themes in the philosophy of history. Themes include Historicism, Historicity, Universality and Particularity; the debate over Positivism; the historical nature of concepts and meaning; time and tense: Past, Present Future; the Temporality of experience; the nature of Tradition and Practice; Epistemic, Revolutionary, and Paradigmatic change; Memory and the writing of one’s history (Autobiography).  

PHIL UN2201 History of Philosophy II: Aquinas to Kant. 4 points.

Recitation Section Required

Corequisites: PHIL V2211 Required Discussion Section (0 points).

PHIL V2101 is not a prerequisite for this course. Exposition and analysis of the metaphysics, epistemology, and natural philosophy of the major philosophers from Aquinas through Kant. Authors include Aquinas, Galileo, Gassendi, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant.  This course has unrestricted enrollment.

PHIL UN2702 Contemporary Moral Problems. 3 points.

Questions about how people should act have historically been central to philosophy.  This course introduces students to philosophy through an examination of some important moral problems that arise in the twenty-first century.  The aim is not only to offer ideas for thinking through the issues covered, but also to provide tools for general moral reflection.  Topics covered will include: the legitimacy of asking migrants to abandon their traditional practices, responsibilities to distant people and to future generations, abortion and genetic testing of the unborn, the proper treatment of animals, and the permissibility of war and terrorism.

PHIL UN3251 Kant. 3 points.

Explores the connections between theoretical and practical reason in Kant's thinking with special attention to the Critique of Pure Reason and the project of "transcendental" philosophy.

PHIL UN3351 Phenomenology and Existentialism. 3 points.

Prerequisites: Two prior philosophy courses. Enrollment limited to 30.

Survey of selected works of Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty. Topics include intentionality, consciousness and self-consciousness, phenomenological and hermeneutical method, the question of being, authenticity and inauthenticiy, bad faith, death, and the role of the body in perception.

PHIL UN3411 Symbolic Logic. 4 points.

CC/GS: Partial Fulfillment of Science Requirement, Recitation Section Required

Corequisites: PHILV3413 Required Discussion Section (0 points).

Advanced introduction to classical sentential and predicate logic. No previous acquaintance with logic is required; nonetheless a willingness to master technicalities and to work at a certain level of abstraction is desirable. This course has unrestricted enrollment.

PHIL UN3685 Philosophy of Language. 3 points.

This course is a survey of analytic philosophy of language.  It addresses central issues about the nature of meaning, including: sense and reference, speech acts, pragmatics, and the relationship between meaning and use, meaning and context, and meaning and truth.
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PHIL UN3701 Ethics. 4 points.

Prerequisites: one course in philosophy.
Corequisites: PHIL V3711 Required Discussion Section (0 points).

This course is mainly an introduction to three influential approaches to normative ethics: utilitarianism, deontological views, and virtue ethics. We also consider the ethics of care, and selected topics in meta-ethics.

PHIL UN3857 The Public and the Private. 3 points.

In an era in which government surveillance, hacking, and social media regularly challenge the line between our public and private lives, exploring the nature of the public/private dichotomy is a pressing task.  In this course we will explore how philosophers in the Western tradition have understood the contrast between the public and the private beginning with the ancient ideal of the polis as the site of genuine human flourishing and freedom, we will go on to explore the way in which modern thinkers have problematized this ideal in the context of capitalism, mass culture, and modern pluralistic societies.  By engaging with thinkers such as Aristotle, Arendt, Dewey, Rawls, and Habermas, we will ask questions such as: what kind of freedom do we enjoy when we are in public with other people, and what kind of freedom do we enjoy in private? Are both equally valuable? What is the relationship between public opinion and a healthy democracy? How does capitalism and the mass medial affect the public sphere? What are the dangers of an impoverished public sphere? Is the very distinction between the public and the private gendered in pernicious ways?

PHIL UN3912 Seminar. 3 points.

Required of senior majors, but also open to junior majors, and junior and senior concentrators who have taken at least four philosophy courses. This exploration will typically involve writing a substantial research paper. Capped at 20 students with preference to philosophy majors.

PHIL UN3960 Epistemology. 4 points.

Discussion Section Required

Corequisites: PHIL W3963 Required Discussion Section (0 points).

What can we know? What is knowledge? What are the different kinds of knowledge? We will read classic and contemporary texts for insight into these questions.

PHIL UN3997 Supervised Senior Research. 3 points.

Supervised research under the direction of individual members of the department.

PHIL UN3998 Supervised Individual Research. 3 points.

PHIL GU4137 Non-Classical Logics. 3 points.

Not offered during 2018-19 academic year.

Prerequisites: one term of formal logic (V3411/G4415, Introduction to Symbolic / Formal Logic, or G4801, Mathematical Logic I)

An overview of the main extensions and alternatives to classical logic, including: many-valued logics, fuzzy logics, partial logics, free logics, inclusive logics, paraconsistent logics, modal logics, intuitionism. Prerequisite: One term of formal logic (V3411/G4415, Introduction to Symbolic/ Formal Logic, or G4801, Mathematical Logic I).

PHIL GU4431 INTRODUCTION TO SET THEOR. 3 points.

Basic set-theoretic operations and constructions. The axiom of choice. Infinitary arithmetic, ordinal and cardinal. Russell’s paradox, Cantor’s paradoxes, and other set-theoretic paradoxes. The continuum hypothesis. Axiomatic set theory. Other topics as time permits.

PHIL GU4491 William James's Principles of Psychology. 3 points.

The primary goal of this course is to give sufficiently advanced students an opportunity to read through, in its entirety, one of the most influential works in the history of psychology. Although James conceived his two-volume work as an exhaustive scientific account of the mind, its approach is vastly different from contemporary psychology--which, since his time, has generated many subfields and methodologies, and benefitted from advances in related fields, such as computer science, linguistics, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience, to name just a few. Apart from subsequent developments within the mind sciences, another major difference between James's pioneering work and current scientific work is that it is explicitly governed by some concerns that currently belong more to philosophy than to science. These include James's focus on the phenomenological dimensions of mind that are open to direct introspection, which are no longer regarded as reliable indicators of mental reality, and his interest in the ethical significance of his findings. Being a pragmatist, he could not help but regard a correct account of the mind as providing a basis for improvement of human life, and right action.

PHIL GU4900 Topics in Early Modern Philosophy. 3 points.

Open to undergraduates with previous work in the history of philosophy and to graduate students. Focuses either on an important topic in the history of early modern philosophy (e.g., skepticism, causation, mind, body) or on the philosophy of a major figure in the period (e.g., Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Gassendi, Conway).