Philosophy

PHIL BC1001 Introduction to Philosophy. 3 points.

Survey of some of the central problems, key figures, and great works in both traditional and contemporary philosophy.  Topics and texts will vary with instructor and semester.

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

Critical introduction to philosophical problems, ideas and methods.

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 UN2110 Philosophy and Feminism. 4 points.

Is there an essential difference between women and men? How do questions about race conflict or overlap with those about gender? Is there a "normal" way of being "queer"? Introduction to philosophy and feminism through a critical discussion of these and other questions using historical and contemporary texts, art, and public lectures. Focus includes essentialism, difference, identity, knowledge, objectivity, and queerness.

PHIL UN3252 Philosophy of Language and Mind. 3 points.

This course will survey the most fundamental issues about the nature of language and the nature of the human mind.  readings will consist of selections from Descartes, Locke, Frege, Wittgenstein, Chomsky, Quine, Davidson, Kripke, McDowell, Burge and some more recent writings.

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 Fichte 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 2201, 2301, or 3251.

PHIL UN3278 Nietzsche. 3 points.

Prerequisites: one prior course in the history of philosophy (either ancient or modern).

An examination of major themes in Nietzsche's thought.  Topics include the philosophical significance of Greek tradegy, the nature of truth, the possibility of knowledge, the moral and metaphysical content of Christianity, the death of God, perspectivism, eternal recurrence, and the power to will.

PHIL UN3353 European Social Philosophy. 3 points.

Prerequisites: one philosophy course.

A survey of Eurpoean social philosophy from the 18th to the 20th century, with special attention to theories of capitalism and the normative concepts (freedom, alienation, human flourishing) that inform them.  Also: the relationship between civil society and the state.

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 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 UN3856 Political Realism and Social Injustice. 3 points.

Rectifying injustice remains a central motivation for social and political thought. The aim of a theory of justice or injustice is often to guide us in dealing with the grave wrongs in our social world. But how should philosophy support the advancement of justice, and what do its moral ideals have to do with the political realities of power and conflict? Do we need an “ideal theory” of a perfectly just society to set the aims of social progress? Can we properly respond to racial and gendered injustices without understanding how they wrong people as members of social groups (e.g. as black Americans, women, etc.)? What limits do our theories face in helping us navigate real political decisions and problems? This course will examine different answers to these questions as well as their substantive consequences for addressing pressing injustices based on race and gender. Our investigations will emphasize the relations between political philosophy, social science, the social construction of identity, and real-world politics.

PHIL UN3867 Philosophy & Literature: Jane Austen & Moral Philosophy. 3 points.

In the 1790s, when Jane Austen was beginning to write fiction, there was much debate over the value and function of the novel. Some argued that novels were dangerous to their readers, inciting violent emotional responses and corrupting the imagination (especially in women and children, who were believed to be more sensitive to such stimuli). Others saw potential in this narrative form, arguing that novels could contribute to the moral and sentimental education of their readers. Adam Smith, for example, claims that “[t]he poets and romance writers, who best paint the refinements and delicacies of love and friendship, and of all other private and domestic affections, Racine and Voltaire; Richardson, Maurivaux, and Riccoboni; are, in such cases, much better instructors than Zeno, Chrysippus, or Epictetus” (Theory of Moral Sentiments III.3.14). And David Hume argues that there is a kind of moral philosophy that paints virtue and vice rather than anatomizing it. Such philosopher-painters, he says, “make us feel the difference between vice and virtue; they excite and regulate our sentiments” (Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding 1.1).
In this course, we will keep these questions about one possible function of literature in the back of our minds as we read through four of Austen’s novels. With each novel, we will focus on a specific ethical theme treated in and by that novel: with Sense and Sensibility we’ll focus on the role of the emotions in morality; with Mansfield Park we’ll focus on questions about moral education and virtue; with Emma we’ll focus on the difficulties of accurate discernment and judgment in moral matters; and with Persuasion we’ll focus on the relation between the individual and society and the complications caused by differences in gender, class, and social status. Each novel will be paired with selections from authors who were near contemporaries of Austen’s, including Samuel Johnson, David Hume, Jane Collier, Hannah More, Adam Smith, and Mary Wollstonecraft.
Two warnings/things to be aware of: first, this course will require a significant amount of reading; and second, in this course, we will be approaching literature with an interest in philosophical themes and questions. We will occasionally discuss formal and stylistic aspects of Austen’s novels (for example, her use of irony and of a technique referred to as “free indirect discourse”), but these sorts of concerns will not be our main focus

PHIL UN3997 Supervised Senior Research. 3 points.

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

PHIL GU4424 Modal Logic. 3 points.

CC/GS: Partial Fulfillment of Science Requirement

PHIL GU4490 LANGUAGE AND MIND. 3 points.

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 GU4675 The Direction of Time. 3 points.

A survey of the various attempts to reconcile the macroscopic directionality of time with the time-reversibility of the fundamental laws of physics. The second law of thermodynamics and the concept of entropy, statistical mechanics, cosmological problems, the problems of memory, the possibility of multiple time direction.

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.

Prerequisites: Required of senior majors, but also open to junior majors and junior and senior concentrators who have taken at least four philosophy courses.

In Fall 2017, the sections of this seminar offered are:

Section 14: Political Philosophy, taught by Michele Moody-Adams

Section 18: Analytical Philosophy, taught by Haim Gaifman

Section 19: Philosophy of Music, taught by Lydia Goehr

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 2017-18 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).