Upper-Division

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.)

Introduction to phenomenology, either through a survey of philosophical positions grouped under phenomenology or through a study of the writings of one or more philosophers of the phenomenological tradition. Topics may include the nature of consciousness, agency, subjectivity, and intersubjectivity.

Introduction to the background and main themes of existentialist philosophy. Readings may include texts from authors such as Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Frantz Fanon, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Emil Cioran, Gabriel Marcel, Laurie Paul, and so on. What these philosophers have had to say concerning the issue of selfhood, self-making and self-choosing, and its relation to the meaning or truth of human existence is the central topic of the course. Themes may include freedom, responsibility, anxiety, authenticity, bad faith, the meaning of life, absurdity.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Surveys representative works by three iconic "Pittsburgh School" thinkers, Wilfrid Sellars, Robert Brandom, and John McDowell, and how the issues they pursue, and the way they approach them, forms a unique and important line of thought in contemporary philosophy. These constitute an important counterexample to any claim that the problems and approaches of continental and analytic philosophy cannot be fruitfully integrated, or that analytic philosophy remains fated to be ahistorical. Course examines how Kant and Hegel, and Heideggar as well, powerfully inform the philosophical writings of all three. Also investigates how Sellars articulates an original philosophical vision that his younger colleagues and intellectual heirs at Pittsburgh further develop and yet make their own.