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. 3 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.  This course will have unrestricted enrollment and no required discussion section.

PHIL UN3131 Aristotle. 3 points.

Not offered during 2017-18 academic year.

Prerequisites: One philosophy course or permission of the instructor.

Introduction to Aristotle's philosophy through analysis of selected texts.

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 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 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 G4471 Philosophy of Mathematics. 3 points.

Not offered during 2017-18 academic year.

Prerequisites: mathematical background, or familiarity with formal reasoning. The instructor's permission in borderline cases is required.

Topics: Mathematical reasoning and intuition, as illustrated in simple problem solving and historical examples. The source of mathematical validity. Views of mathematics of some major philosophers: Kant, Mill, Frege Russell, Wittgenstein. Realism and Constructivism. Hilbert's program. Mathematics as a formal deductive activity. Formal systems and the significance of Gödel's incompleteness results. Some more recent debates in the philosophy of mathematics.

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 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 UN3248 Darwin. 3 points.

Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection has been revolutionary, not just for scientists but for everyone who reflects on human nature and human destiny. The first aim of this course is to separate Darwin’s own theory from its scientific, religious, and cultural aftershocks, and to consider how its influence developed and changed over the century and a half since On the Origin of Species was published in 1859. After careful consideration of Darwin’s own life and historical context, we will read our way through the Origin, and then consider reactions to to it starting Darwin’s own day, proceeding through the “Modern Synthesis," and ending in our present moment. The final sessions of the course will explore Darwin’s impact on contemporary philosophical debates over faith, ethics, and scientific knowledge. 

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 UN3352 Twentieth Century European Philosophy. 3 points.

Prerequisites: one prior philosophy course.

Reading and discussion of selected texts by central figures in phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics, critical theory, and recent Continental philosophy. Authors may include Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Gadamer, Horkheimer, Adorno, Foucault, Bourdieu.

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 UN3685 Philosophy of Language. 3 points.

An upper division course in analytic philosophy of language. We will examine sense and reference, Tarski's theory of truth, and readings in classical and contemporary pragmatics. In the final weeks we will focus on definite descriptions and a close reading of Naming and Necessity.

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 UN3855 The Potential and Actual Infinite. 3 points.

This course examines the concept of infinity throughout the history of western philosophy, looking at how the puzzles that surround the concept led to the construction and defense of many different philosophical positions on the infinite. In particular, we will examine how many different historical figures have attempted (in many different ways) to draw a distinction between what is potentially infinite and what is actually infinite, and further, how this distinction is used in attempts to solve puzzles of the infinite. We move chronologically, starting with Zeno and Aristotle, through the invention of calculi of infinitesimals, to the development of set theory, model theory, and modern mathematical logic. We will also use the tools we develop in our historical investigation to address modern discussions in philosophy about the infinite, such as the debates about supertasks and the limitations of computation. This course has no prerequisites (although having taken Symbolic Logic may be useful), and it serves well as an introduction to philosophy of mathematics because of its chronological presentation. It also intersects with a wide range of topics in other fields, such as mathematics, logic, physics, computer science, religion, and artificial intelligence, which should make it of interest even to those who may not have a strong formal background.

PHIL UN3912 Seminar: Philosophy of Mind. 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.

Philosophy of Mind

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 UN3996 Supervised Senior Research. 3 points.

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

PHIL GU4455 Special Topics in Logic: Modal Logic. 3 points.

A logical treatment of necessity, possibility, and other intentional operators.

CSPH GU4802 Math Logic II: Incompletness. 3 points.

The course covers Godel's two theorems: (1) In any formal deductive system, which is adequate for doing a minimum of basic mathematics, there are statements that are neither provable nor disprovable.  (2) The consistency of any minimally adequate system is not provable within the system itself.  Those theorems are often regarded as the most philosophically significant results in mathematics, giving rise to foundational questions about human cognition.  Besides their philosophical significance, Godel's technique involved basic notions of computability, leading to the standard impossibility results in theoretical computer science, and to counterparts in complexity theory. The course aims at presenting Godel's proof in a transparent intuitive way, while adhering to the usual standards of rigor.  It also covers the basic notions of computable (or recursive) functions, and computably enumerable sets.  The plan is to discuss some philosophical questions that emerge from the results.  Also planned are undecidability results for some well-known systems - that is, the impossibility of deciding, by means of a computer algorithm whether a given sentence is a theorem. The course relies on detailed couse notes developed over the years.  It requires acquaintance with first-order logic, but will be technically self-contained; the required knowledge is provided as a chapter in the course notes.  Students who are good at it can get it by themselves, but should consult the instructor and get the required approval.

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).