PHIL - Philosophy

Students cultivate their ability to distill and critically assess the barrage of argument and rhetoric with which they are confronted every day—on the Internet, in the media, on campus—and learn to subject their own thoughts to more rigorous, logical standards.

A first course in symbolic deductive logic. Major topics include (but are not limited to) the study of systems of sentential logic and predicate logic, including formal deduction, semantics, and translation from natural to symbolic languages.

An introduction to the main areas of philosophy through critical reflection on and analysis of both classical and contemporary texts. Focuses on central and enduring problems in philosophy such as skepticism about the external world, the mind-body problem, and the nature of morality.

Explores the philosophy of film through the viewing and discussionof several philosophically interesting films. Examines both the aesthetics of film and a variety of philosophical issues that particular films raise.

Covers perspectives of Eastern philosophy; specifically, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism. Includes views concerning the nature of ultimate reality, personal identity, morality, the afterlife, god(s), and the problem of evil.

Explores the concept of nihilism in the contemporary Western world and its relation to what might be considered a technological mindset in terms of a Nietzschean and Heideggerian interpretation. Students work through readings as well as relevant films because it may well be argued that contemporary cinema is a metaphorical mirror for our conception both of how the Western world is and how we imagine it should or might be.

Provides a clearer understanding of what technology is how it relates to knowledge and human life. Students read and discuss texts by Plato, Aristotle, Husserl, and Heidegger.

Examines the work of various high hop artists and philosophers. Topics may include authenticity, rebellion, identity, politics, and aesthetics, among others. Students develop understanding of relative philosophical themes and critically engage concerns through everyday experiences and art forms (such as hip hop).

Introduces students to controversial topics in analytic metaphysics. Possible topics include: universals, particulars, time, causality, persistence, modality, and realism.

A consideration of ethical issues and theories focusing on the foundation of moral value and the principles governing character and behavior. Designed to extend and develop the student's abilities in philosophical reasoning about ethics.

Explores the philosophical issues that arise in cognitive science, particularly issues concerning the nature of minds. Students consider the idea that the mind is a digital computer, then analyze alternatives, such as connectionism and dynamics.

An examination of the conceptual and moral issues that arise in connection with a variety of specific ethical issues. Topics vary according to the interests of the instructor, but among those commonly discussed are: abortion, war and violence, euthanasia, world hunger, human rights, and animal rights. The readings are typically drawn from recent philosophical articles on these topics, but earlier sources (important in the history of philosophy) can be considered as well.

A survey of recent movements in European thought, such as phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics, critical theory, continental feminism, and poststructuralism, with some attention to their 19th-century precursors. Selections from major philosophical treatises are supplemented with literary works.

Examination of the ethical issues that arise in connection with a variety of specific business contexts. Common topics include: advertising, environmental harm, employee-employer relationships, finance, capitalism, market failure, government regulation, work-life balance, and consumer rights.

This course is an introduction to the moral issues raised by our interactions with nonhuman animals and with the rest of the natural environment. The course will relate traditional moral theories to contemporary literature on the ethics of nature conservation and environmental protection. The course is intended as a first course in philosophy as well as a first course in ethics; therefore, questions concerning the nature of philosophical inquiry and the ways in which philosophical inquiry is different from inquiries conducted within other disciplines will also be addressed.

Non-Western philosophy (primarily Eastern but also indigenous and other non-Western sources) as a lens for understanding human behavior. Emphasis on relevance to contemporary life (including personal, social, and ecological problems and potentials), connections to empirical research, and application in (and illumination through) the arts. Methodologies based in contemplative science.

What is the nature of love? Is marriage a means of social control? Does pornography empower or oppress women? How is gender constructed? This course provides a systematic investigation of the development of Western philosophical perspectives on gender and sexuality from Ancient Greece to the 21st century. Topics include love, marriage, sexual perversion, promiscuity and monogamy, pornography, feminism, and sexual morality. Aims to promote critical reflection with regard to the ethical, political,and social implications for contemporary society.

Is there a general school of philosophy endemic to Latin America? Would it have to appeal to quintessential Western philosophical questions regarding knowledge, values, and reality? If not, why not, and would it then still count as philosophy? What difference do ethnic and national diversity, as well as strong political and social inequality, make to the development of philosophical questions and frameworks? Course explores a variety of historically situated Latin American thinkers who investigate ethnic identity, gender, and socio-political inequality and liberation, and historical memory, and who have also made important contributions to mainstream analytical and continental philosophy.

Inquiry into the science and philosophical background of approaches that fit under the rubric of Complementary, Alternative, and Integrative Medicine.

Provides a philosophical perspective concerning the revolution in the understanding of science that generated the so-called science wars. Introduces the changed philosophical understanding of science shared and presupposed in the fields of science, technology, and society.

A survey of what philosophers have said about the nature of science and scientific change. Emphasis is placed on whether science is best characterized as the gradual accumulation of truth or whether truth is irrelevant to scientific change.

Survey of ancient Greek philosophy of the Classical and Hellenistic periods. Begins with Socrates and the pre-Socratics, then undertakes an intensive study of Plato and Aristotle. Course then surveys the main developments that follow: Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Skepticism.

A study of the historical background and the present relevance of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz.

A critical study (based on original texts) of Locke, Berkeley, and especially Hume on the nature of knowledge, perception, causation, morality, religion, and political society.

Intensive study of Kant's philosophy, particularly his epistemology and metaphysics developed in his Critique of Pure Reason.

A study of some European philosophers of the 19th century, with particular attention to Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. (Formerly course 108.)

French phenomenology includes primarily the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Additional topics include the nature of consciousness and agency. Course includes discussions of French feminists' reactions to Simone de Beauvoir and Emmanuel Levinas.

Study of recent work in continental philosophy. Topics vary.

Study of classical American philosophers, specifically Emerson, Peirce, James, and Dewey, with emphasis on their views of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of religion. Some attention is also paid to recent pragmatic tendencies in American philosophy.

Examination of the beginnings and development of analytic philosophy, with primary interest in the reformulation of traditional philosophical problems beginning with Frege. Other figures studied include, but are not limited to, Russell, Carnap, Wittgenstein, Quine, and Sellars.

Studies the philosophical foundations of probability, induction, and confirmation. Different interpretations of probability studied, and solutions to various problems and paradoxes investigated. Students cannot receive credit for this course and course 214.

Study of formal methods commonly used in analytic philosophy. Emphasis is on developing the technical tools to enable one to read and do modern analytic philosophy. Applications of various formal tools to philosophical problems will also be discussed.

Introduction to basic set theory, recursive definitions, and mathematical induction. Provides a bridge between course 9 and courses 117 and 119. Strong emphasis on proving theorems and constructing proofs, both formal proofs and proofs in the customary, informal style used by mathematicians.

Investigations of non-classical logic. Studies several non-classical logics, such as various modal logics, multi-valued logics, and relevance logics. Investigates meta-theoretic results for each logic studied.

Surveys Stoic Ethics in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods, attending both to the theoretical writings of early Stoa (e.g., Zeno and Chrysippus) as well as to the therapeutic and protreptic writings of later figures (e.g., Seneca and Epictetus).

Detailed treatment of the semantics of first order logic and formal computability. Completeness, undecidability of first order logic and Lowenheim-Skolem results also proven. Nature and formal limits of computability and introduction to incompleteness also investigated. Students cannot receive credit for this course and course 219.

A sustained look at central problems in epistemology. Topics might include the problem of other minds, the nature of justification and knowledge, skepticism of the external world, the nature and limits of human rationality, the problem of induction. (Formerly Knowledge and Rationality.)

Survey of contemporary analytic metaphysics. Topics may include nominalism, metaphysical realism, and the ontological analysis of concrete particulars, including problems of modality and persistence through time.

Current theories of the nature and preconditions of language, the nature of meaning, and the nature of truth.

An examination of the traditional philosophical problem of other minds and related contemporary scientific issues concerning what it is to encounter a mind that is not one's own and is relevantly unlike one's own.

An examination of various topics that arise in thinking about science. Different philosophical problems, such as realism, instrumentalism, confirmation, explanation, space and time, and rational decision making are extensively discussed and criticized.

Examines philosophical concerns regarding the methods and assumptions of the social sciences. For example, must the methods of the social sciences differ in some important ways from those used by the natural sciences? Another issue concerns problems arising from studying groups where the very notion of rationality appears to vary from culture to culture or over historical periods.

Can developmental processes be reduced to gene expression? Does the history of life exhibit trends (e.g. increasing complexity)? How are we to understand key concepts such as fitness, species, adaptation, and gene? Is there such a thing as human nature? Course surveys these and other core philosophical topics in the biological sciences.

By reading the great philosophers of the times, students receive an introduction to philosophical writing on suffering, a foundation in the traditional treatment of suffering, and an assessment of traditional accounts of suffering.

Focuses on philosophical questions concerning the nature of mind. Central topics include the relation between mind and matter, and the nature of consciousness. Other topics typically explored include: artificial intelligence; animal consciousness and intelligence; and the relation between thought and language.

Looks at philosophical issues raised by current research on the nature of perception, cognition, and consciousness in psychology and cognitive science or neuroscience. Can there be a science of the mind? Could machines be conscious? Do animals have minds? How did the mind evolve? These and a host of related questions form the subject matter of this course.

A careful study of any one or a number of selected primary texts in the history of moral philosophy, with some emphasis on the relation to contemporary issues.

An examination of central issues in ethical theory including the nature of and justification for the moral point of view, the place of reason in ethics, the status of moral principles, and the nature of moral experience.

Intensive application of ethics through Ethics Bowl-style debate. Cases change annually. Students develop oral advocacy skills and are given the opportunity to compete for a position on the extracurricular Ethics Bowl team.

A study of selected classical and contemporary writings dealing with topics such as the nature and legitimacy of the liberal state, the limits of political obligation, and theories of distributive justice and rights. (Formerly Social and Political Philosophy.)

Topics in feminist philosophy, which may include: the nature of feminist philosophy, feminist approaches to philosophical issues, social and political philosophy, theories of knowledge, ethics, aesthetics, and science, technology, and medicine studies. Presupposes some familiarity with philosophy or feminist scholarship.

By using the historiography of the Holocaust as a case study, examines the epistemology and ontology of historical knowledge, i.e., how the past is known, and what about it there is to know.

Problems about form, meaning, and interpretation in art, as found in major aesthetic theories from the philosophical tradition, and also in a variety of encounters between recent philosophy and the arts.

Topics include conceptual-analytical and political-social issues. Selected topics may include: the ontology of race; race as real or constructed; scientific understandings of race; race and identity; and color-blind versus color-sensitive theories of justice and political policy.

Recent work in analytic philosophy of religion, concentrating on traditional theism. Topics include arguments for and against the existence of God, religious experience, miracles, the relation of faith and reason, and problems such as freedom and divine foreknowledge.

Discussion-based course centered on readings in philosophy. Readings change each term and are a mixture of books, chapters from books, and articles. Prerequisite(s): One philosophy course. Enrollment by permission of instructor.

Special topics. Format varies each quarter. Prerequisite(s): PHIL 9; and two from PHIL 100A, PHIL 100B, and PHIL 100C. Enrollment restricted to senior philosophy majors and by permission of the instructor.

Preparation of senior essay (approximately 25 pages) during one quarter. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

Under exceptional circumstances, a second senior essay continuing the work of the first essay is permitted but only when the first senior essay has been completed. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

Topics will vary each quarter and will focus on some major ancient Greek philosophical figure or work.

Explores autism and its implications for various fields of inquiry, especially philosophy. Previous familiarity with autism is not presupposed. Some background in philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and psychology recommended.

Studies the philosophical foundations of probability, induction, and confirmation. Different interpretations of probability studied, and solutions to various problems and paradoxes investigated. Students cannot receive credit for this course and PHIL 114.

Advanced introduction to topics in 20th century and contemporary analytic metaphysics. Divided into five main parts dealing, respectively, with issues about the nature of existence, properties, time, change and persistence, and material constitution.

Advanced introduction to issues in the philosophy of language—primarily concerning the nature of reference, meaning, and truth. Works from such 20th-century figures as Russell, Wittgenstein, Kripke, Lewis, and Putnam discussed. Topics include what it is for a sign or a bit of language to be meaningful, or for it to identify or represent something; what it is for a statement to be truthful; what it is to be a language; and how reference works when attributed to beliefs.

May focus on topics such as naturalized epistemology, probabilistic epistemology, theories of justification, a priori knowledge, memory, and virtue epistemology.

Considers topics central to philosophical questions about value: ethics, normativity, practical reason, relativism, skepticism, responsibility, motivation, emotion, and so forth. In some instances, the investigation will proceed through influential historical figures, ancient to modern.

A study of one or more topics in contemporary philosophy of mind.

Looks at philosophical issues raised by current research on the nature of perception, cognition, and consciousness in psychology and cognitive science or neuroscience. Can there be a science of the mind? Could machines be conscious? Do animals have minds? How did the mind evolve? These and a host of related questions form the subject matter of this course.

How does the mind come to be a thing which science can study? Readings focus on how diagnostic categories, for example, multiple personality disorder, attain scientific cachet and what issues surround the medicalization of the mind.

Investigation of various topics in philosophy of religion.

Explores the role, if any, that Darwinian theory and evolutionary biology should have on ethical theory. Topics range from classic work, including Darwin and classic expositors, to influential contemporary work on natural selection, in light of the best philosophical literature.

A research seminar to develop the skills of the profession with special focus on critical reading, constructing feedback, and philosophical research and writing. Must be completed by the third year. A substantial draft of a paper is required to enroll.

This colloquia series sponsors speakers each quarter. Students must attend all colloquia and are encouraged to form discussion groups after each lecture.

Provides training for graduate students in university-level pedagogy in general and in the pedagogy of philosophy specially, under the supervision of a faculty member.

Examines issues that arise with respect to constructing histories. Inter alia, these include: the traditional philosophy of history (e.g., Hegel and Marx); modes of explanation (including narrative); the reality of the past; and underdetermination in history.

Topics vary but the course focuses on major questions in contemporary ethical theory, or figures influential on contemporary moral philosophy. Examines different foundational ethical principles and arguments for those principles, contrasting accounts of moral action and moral motivation, as well as the epistemological and motivational role of emotions in ethical theory.

Philosophy of biology is one of the fastest-growing areas of philosophy of science. Course is designed to give seniors and graduate students an overview of many of the diverse topics currently under discussion in modern philosophy of biology and provide a foundation for further research, regardless of previous experience with the biological sciences.

What is our proper moral stance toward the natural environment? This question encompasses our ethical relations to individual non-human animals, to other species of living beings, and toward the biotic community as a whole. It leads us to consider the broader question: What makes anything at all worthy of our moral respect or even our moral consideration? How are we to understand the very idea of the environment, the distinction between the human world, and the natural world, and the relationships between them.

Careful study of any one of the main moral theories in the history of philosophy, with some emphasis on the relation to contemporary moral philosophy.

Considers the relevance of philosophical matters to the practice of science. Using quantum physics as a case study, explores historical and contemporary perspectives on issues such as those raised by the Schrodinger cat paradox, Bell's inequalities, and quantum erasers.

Focuses on philosophical writings and significance of a single major figure in the history of philosophy, ancient, medieval, or modern.

Focuses on philosophical writings and significance of a single figure in contemporary (20th- and 21st-century) philosophy. May include, but not be limited to, Russell, Whitehead, Wittgenstein, Husserl, Carnap, Murdoch, Quine, Irigaray, Derrida, and Davidson.

Introduction to the problems of contemporary analytic philosophy of mathematics. Do mathematical objects exist? Are mathematical statements true? How can we know? We will examine the historical background to contemporary debates and the positions which have been taken within them.

An examination of a topic in current philosophy of science. The material for the course is chosen from topics such as realism and instrumentalism, scientific explanation, space and time, the confirmation of theories, laws of nature, and scientific abstraction.

Historical study of philosophical theories of consciousness and self-consciousness. Problems include the relation of self and other, consciousness and body, and self-consciousness and ethical agency. Readings are from Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, followed by phenomenologists, poststructuralists, and analytic philosophy.

Directed graduate research and writing coordinated with the teaching of undergraduates.

Directed reading which does not involve a term paper.

Focuses on selected philosophical areas and/or specific philosophers. Students meet with the instructor to discuss readings and deepen their knowledge on a particular subject. Enrollment restricted to graduate students.

A seminar for graduate students arranged between students and a faculty member. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

Students submit petition to course sponsoring agency. Enrollment restricted to graduate students.

Enrollment restricted to students who have advanced to candidacy.