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Graduate Classes

Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau (Phil 105)

            Gerald Gaus

Philosophy of Psychology (Phil 109)

            Joshua Knobe

Early Analytic (Phil 114)

            Ram Neta

Advanced PPE (Phil 130)

            Geoffrey Brennan

Justice in Allocation of Health Care Resources (Phil 178)

            Rebecca Walker

Proto-Seminar (Phil 200)

           Marc Lange / Keith Simmons

Kant (Phil 220)

            Jay Rosenberg

Philosophy of Mind (Phil 240)

            William Lycan

Contemporary Moral Philosophy (Phil 260)

            Geoffrey Sayre-McCord

Colloquium Seminar (Phil 290)

            TBA

Predissertation Research Seminar (Phil 300)

            Keith Simmons

Kenan Summa Seminar - Plato (Phil 305)

            C.D.C. Reeve

Current Research Group Seminar (Phil 390)

            Tom Hill

Current Research Group Seminar (Phil 390)

            Marc Lange

 

Gerald Gaus

The theme of this course will be the social contract: we will consider Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau and stretch the period to include Kant, the last great Enlightenment contract theorist. This is a mixed undergrad/grad course: I’ll start the first half of each class with things I want to say, and then we’ll have something more seminar-like for the second half.

Readings will concentrate on primary works with some secondary material; the primary reading will be Hobbes’ Leviathan, Locke’s Second Treatise, Rousseau’s Social Contract as well as First and Second Discourses, and Kant’s Metaphysical Elements of Justice. We shall also consider interpretations by Jean Hampton, David Gauthier and others.

Assessment will be: class participation 20%, short paper 20%, term paper 60%.

This course will meet on Wednesday at 6:30-9.

Philosophy of Psychology (Phil 109)

Joshua Knobe

An investigation into some of the central questions in contemporary moral psychology. Are moral judgments based on reasoning or on emotion? Do we have an innate faculty of moral judgment, or is
our capacity for moral judgment entirely learned? How do people ordinarily determine whether or not an agent is morally responsible for a given behavior? The emphasis will be on ways in which experimental results from cognitive science can shed light on fundamental philosophical issues.

This course will meet on Tuesday at 12:30-3.

Ram Neta

Analytic philosophy began with two innovations. One was Frege's development of the predicate calculus. The other was Moore's refutation of idealism. This course will focus on the second of those two innovations, and examine the philosophical problem that it provoked -- the problem of understanding how the mind can come to know the external world. We will read G.E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, A.J. Ayer, Rudolf Carnap, and H.H. Price.

This course will meet on Wednesday from 6-8:30.

Advanced Philosophy, Politics and Economics (Phil 130)

Geoffrey Brennan

Working to integrate the approaches of philosophy, political science, and economics it will address foundational issues related to: Taxation, Human Nature, Globalization, and Time and Decision making.

As with the PPE Gateway course, it will meet for half the semester at UNC and for the other half at Duke. Seniors who would like to get the minor can ask permission to waive the Gateway Course requirement and, as long as they have the barious other distribuiton requirements satisfied, take this Capstone course and receive a minor. For information about the PPE minor go to: philosophy.unc.edu/ppe

Rebecca Walker

This course addresses the question of how health care resources ought to be distributed in order to meet the demands of justice. We will begin by looking at different general theories of distributive justice, such as libertarian and egalitarian theories, and will consider how those general views about distributive justice relate to the just distribution of health care. We will also be interested in looking at some cases of how resources are currently distributed and in current inequalities in health and health care. Relevant in this regard is the relationship of poverty, race, gender, and social hierarchy generally to health and health care inequalities. Some particular issues to be discussed in the course include: allocation “at the bedside” and broader (“macro”) allocation issues, the use of cost-effectiveness analysis and summary measures of health, issues surrounding whether there is a “right” to health care, and factors that separate out the distribution of health care from the distribution of other social goods.

Readings for this course will be largely, but not exclusively, philosophical in nature. This seminar will include both medical and philosophy students.

This course meets on Tuesday from 2:30-4:20.

Marc Lange and Keith Simmons

This course is an intensive seminar intended for all and only first-year graduate students in philosophy. Readings will be fairly short and on a variety of topics. The aim of the course is to develop basic professional skills such as careful reading, argument reconstruction, critical analysis, oral argumentation, and dialectic. An exercise is assigned every week; exercises and oral presentations are extensively critiqued. The two instructors work closely with each student.

This course meets on Thursday from 9:30-12.

Jay Rosenberg

An introduction to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.

This course will meet on Thursday at 3:30.

Philosophy of Mind (Phil 240)

William Lycan

This course will examine mind-body dualism. Topics will include: Characterizing "materialism" and "dualism" in the first place; varieties of dualism; arguments for dualism; recent "naturalistic" dualism.

This course will meet on Tuesday at 3:30-6.

Contemporary Moral Philosophy (Phil 260)

Geoffrey Sayre-McCord

On the Grand Scale of Graduate Courses (which ranges from 'general survey' at one end to 'narrowly focused research seminar' on the other) Contemporary Moral Theory will lean heavily towards the general survey end. The central objective of the course is to give participants a working acquaintance with a reasonable chunk of the most important work that has been done in moral theory during the twentieth century. Our aim will be to cover those works in contemporary moral theory that every graduate student in philosophy should have read before leaving graduate school. Those who plan to work in moral theory will of course need to read a great deal more; but after the course is over everyone in it should feel comfortable in all but the most specialized of discussions.

This course will meet on Monday's from 4-6:30.

Colloquium Seminar (Phil 290)

TBA

This course meeting will meet on TBA.

Predissertation Research Seminar (Phil 300)

Keith Simmons

Kenan Summa Seminar: Plato (Phil 305)

C.D.C. Reeve

An intensive study of Plato's Republic and of some of the best recent scholarship on it. Visitors to the seminar include, Zena Hitz, Angela Hobbs, Charles Kahn, Richard Kraut, Jonathan Lear, Mary Margaret McCabe, Gabriel Richardson Lear, Christopher Rowe, and David Sedley..

This course meets on Wednesday at 3:30-6.

Current Research Group Seminar(Phil 390)

Tom Hill

Weekly discussion of mostly recent essays on several topics to be selected in consultation with graduate students who plan to enroll. Possible topics relevant to my current work: torture, terrorism, moral particularism and the role of moral principles, and valuing and value related to environmental issues. There are six participants including auditors. The first main topic is moral particularism.

This course meets on Monday's 7-9:30 in CW 213.

Current Research Group Seminar(Phil 390)

Marc Lange

I've decided to devote the course to reading and to thinking about works by Bas van Fraassen. I suggest that we read through some or all of:

The Scientific Image
Theory Confirmation: Tension and Conflict
Empiricism in the Philosophy of Science
Belief and the Will
The Problem of Ulysses and the Sirens
Laws and Symmetry
Conditionalization, A New Argument For
The Empirical Stance

along with the book symposium in Phil Studies in The Empirical Stance the exchange with Teller and Fine celebrating the 20th anniversary of The Scientific Image the exchange with Rosen in Phil Studies the exchange with Psillos on abductive inference

Of course, the above may well be much too ambitious. I wouldn't want to rush through anything. And I've left out an enormous secondary literature, along with more technical papers on various topics. But the above would be more than enough to chew over and to give us a sense of how van Fraassen's views have evolved (or perhaps merely become more explicit).

I'd be interested in knowing if any of you would be tentatively interested in participating.

This course meets on TBA.