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Undergraduate Classes

Freshman Seminar (Phil 6F)

            William Lycan

            John Roberts

Main Problems (Phil 20)

            Annabella Zagura

            Andrew Johnson

            Grant Dowell

            Dorit Bar On

Introduction to Symbolic Logic (Phil 21)

            Mark Bauer

            Nicoletta Orlandi

Introduction to Ethics (Phil 22)

            Geoffrey Sayre-McCord

Great Works in Philosophy (Phil 24)

            David Miller

            Mark Phelan

Making Sense of Ourselves (Phil 26)

            C.D.C. Reeve

Applied Ethics (Phil 30)

            Elizabeth Foreman

            Christopher Kelly

Philosophy of Religion (Phil 32)

            Dean Pettit

HNRS (Paradoxes) -- (Honors 32H)

            Keith Simmons

Bioethics (Phil 34)

            Rebecca Walker

Bioethics -- Honors (Phil 34H)

            Douglas Long

Experience and Reality Honors (Phil 38H)

            Marc Lange

Ethics of Peace, War, Defense (Phil 42)

            Bernard Boxill

Philosophical Issues in Feminisim (Phil 46)

            Staff

Ancient Philosophy (Phil 56)

            Jason Bowers

Modern Philosophy (Phil 58)

            David Landy      

Social and Economic Justice (Phil 66)

            Jan Boxill

Logic (Phil 71)

            Michael D. Resnik

Philosophy of Mind (Phil 76)

            Douglas C. Long

Introduction to Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (Phil 84)

            Jerry Gaus

Symbolic Logic (Phil 101/Ling 104)

            Thomas Hofweber

Philosophy of Science (Phil 108)

            John Roberts

Love: Erotic and Otherwise (Phil 109)

            C.D.C. Reeve

Philosophy of Language (Phil 110)

            Dean Pettit

Philosophy of Law (Phil 113)

            Michael Corrado

Themes in Analytic Philosophy (Phil 116)

            Dorit Bar On

Contemporary Moral and Social Problems (Phil 120)

            Gerald Gaus

          

 

 

Minds, Brains, and Consciousness: Freshman Seminar (Phil 6F)

William Lycan

What are minds and how are they related to bodies? Most philosophers and psychologists nowadays reject the idea that minds are nonphysical ghost stuff, and contend that one's mind is entirely constituted by neural activity in one's brain. But that leaves a mystery: the subjective phenomenal qualities or feels of conscious sensory experiences as we know them from the inside, the "what it's like" of having those experiences. This course will explore answers to the question of how a mere lump of matter, however complex, could be conscious of such things as colors and smells and the hurtfulness of pains.

This course meets Monday and Wednesday from 3:30-4:45.

What is Time?: Freshman Seminar (Phil 6F)

John Roberts

What is time? Do the past and the future exist, or only the present? Is the Aflow of time@ an objective feature of reality, or is it just an illusion created by the way we humans experience the world, which is static and changeless in itself? Is it conceptually possible to change the past, and if not, then why not? Is time travel a logical possibility? In this course, we will examine both historical and contemporary attempts to grapple with these problems (and related ones), and will do some grappling on our own. We will consider philosophical literature from 2500 years ago to the present day, and will briefly consider the impact of Einstein's theories of relativity on these problems, produce arguments of their own, and collaborate in writing philosophical dialogues.

This course meets on Mondays and Wednesdays from 11-12:15.

Main Problems (Phil 20)

Staff

An introduction to the study of philosophy through the examination of major philosophical problems.

Introduction to Symbolic Logic (Phil 21)

Staff

.Introduction to the theory of deductive reasoning.

Introduction to Ethics (Phil 22)

Geoffrey Sayre-McCord

This course is an introduction to moral theory. We will be going straight to the classics -- a few of the best books ever written on moral theory: Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals and Mill's Utilitarianism.

We will be concerned primarily with two questions: (1) What really matters? and (2) What is involved in answering (1)? In general, worries about the second question arise from worries about the first; and answers to the second usually commit us to answers to the first. In fact, the questions are really far more entangled than they are distinct. So we won't be taking the questions in order; instead we will jump back and forth between the two. In coming to grips with these two very general questions we will focus on three fundamental, but slightly more specific, questions: (i) What does morality demand? (ii) Under what conditions are we responsible for our success or failure in living up to these demands? and (iii) What connection is there between our being moral and our living a good (satisfying, fulfilling) life? The first calls for a theory of morality, the second requires a theory of moral responsibility, and the third asks for an answer to an age old question: why should I be moral? We will, pretty much, be taking them in reverse order.

Initially, spaces in the course will be held for freshman. After freshman have had a chance to enroll, registration will be open to all.

This course meets on Monday and Wednesday at noon and requires enrollment in a Friday recitation section.

Staff

This course will be an introduction to some of the main problems in philosophy through a close study of four great philosophical works. In this course, we will read and discuss Plato’s Republic, Rene Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy, David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, and Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Transcendence of the Ego. Through our study of these influential works, we will grapple with four main philosophical topics: ethics (why should we be moral/what is the good life?), epistemology (what do we know and how do we know it?), the philosophy of religion (how/can we prove that God exists?), and the nature of the self (what is the nature of consciousness and the status of the self?). The goals of this course will be to gain an understanding of the problems that have been troubling thinkers for ages, to evaluate some of the solutions that those thinkers have offered, and to learn how one might go about trying to solve those problems oneself in a philosophical way.

This course meets on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 9:00.

C.D.C. Reeve

In this introductory course, we will explore the attempts made by a series of influential thinkers to understand who we are, what kind of world we live in, and how we should live our lives. As we will see,
these questions are more connected than they might first appear. Authors include: Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, St. Matthew, Nietzsche, Freud, and Rand.

This course meets on Monday and Wednesday at 12:00, and requires enrollment in a recitation section

Applied Ethics (Phil 30)

Staff

The purpose of this course is to provide an introduction to the nature of ethical reasoning. It addresses questions like the following: Do ethical claims appeal to objective standards, or is any opinion as worthy as any other? What is the meaning of moral concepts like duty, rights, equality, or justice, and how should we apply these concepts in the context of reasoning and talking about moral controversies? We will attempt to answer these questions by examining contemporary moral issues and arguments. Examples of issues we may discuss include: Do we have an obligation to obey the law? Is affirmative action justified? Do animals have rights? Should abortion or physician-assisted suicide be tolerated? Under what conditions is war morally justified? Should the rich be taxed to help the poor?

Our aim in this course is neither to try to answer these questions definitively, nor to ensure that every position on these issues is presented and discussed. We are less concerned with the conclusions of arguments than with the soundness of the reasoning that supports the conclusions. We will be discussing controversial issues, and one goal is to understand why some moral questions are controversial while other questions (e.g., Is it all right to abandon one’s baby if she cries too much? Is it a good thing that people volunteer to help the needy?) are not controversial. In this way we hope to achieve a better understanding of the nature of ethical reasoning, ethical arguments, and the claims that morality makes on us.

This course meets on Monday and Wednesday at 12:00 and requires enrollment in a recitation section.

Philosophy of Religion (Phil 32)

Dean Pettit

This course will be concerned primarily with a single question: Does God exist? Drawing on both historical and contemporary sources, we will address this question by a careful and critical examination of the traditional arguments for and against the existence of God. This project will confront us with fundamental issues about the grounds for knowledge, the scope of reason, the nature of God, the nature of reality, the basis of morality, and the meaning of life. In short, the course will introduce students to the enterprise of philosophy. Another central aim of the course is to help students develop the ability to clarify difficult conceptual problems and reason about them, to present their reasoning and critically assess the reasoning of others. No previous exposure to either philosophy or religious studies will be presupposed.

This course meets on Tuesday, and Thursday at 9:30.

HNRS (Paradoxes) (HNRS 32H)

Keith Simmons

Paradoxes have been a driving force in Philosophy since the 5th Century B.C. They force us to rethink old ideas and conceptions. Aristotle famously said that Philosophy begins in wonder - and he had in mind the kind of deep puzzlement that paradoxes generate.

In this seminar, we will study a wide range of paradoxes: Zeno's paradoxes about space, and time, and motion, Sorites paradoxes of rationality (Newcomb's paradox and the Prisoner's dilemma), paradoxes of belief (including paradoxes of confirmation, and the suprise examination paradox), logical paradoxes (Russell's paradox about classes and the Liar paradox about truth), and paradoxes about time travel.

As we explore these paradoxes, we will wrestle with some central philosophical questions: What is the nature of space, time and motion? Is the world a fully determinate place? What is it to act rationally? When is a belief justified? What is the nature of truth?

The paradoxes are not just important - they are fun too. They encourage us to think creatively, in new and suprising ways. In this seminar, you will be given the opportunity to tackle the paradoxes yourselves, through group discussions, oral presentations, and frequent written assignments. Philosophy is best viewed as a practice, as something that one does. By actively engaging with the paradoxes, both orally and in your written work, you will develop the intellectual skills that make philosophical progress possible.

This course meets on Tuesday from 2:00-4:30.

Rebecca Walker

This course will serve as an introduction to philosophical bioethics. Potential topics for this course include issues at the beginning and end of life, animal and human experimentation, allocation of scarce medical resources, ethical issues in the health care provider-patient relationship, and ethical issues associated with advancements in science and technology. While we will be interested in these topics, we will also be interested in themes that tie them together. These themes have to do with the different kinds of basic moral values we endorse and how they relate to one another. What makes something a part of our moral community? What obligations do we have to help other people? When does morally valuable human life begin and end? When we say something is "right to do" do we mean it is done from a good motive, a good character, or towards a good end? To think about these questions, we will also need some discussion of moral theory. Our method in this course will be to focus on analyzing the arguments made on the different sides of these moral issues as well as considering how background moral values, theories, and principles bear on the problems addressed. The course will focus on the development of analytical thinking, writing, and communication skills as well as well as a basic mastery of the topics covered. Evaluation will be based on short answer exams, essays, and discussion/participation.

This course meets on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 1:00.

Douglas Long

We will explore ethical questions that arise in the health care professions, concerning patients' rights to information and to refuse treatment, confidentiality, informed consent, abortion, euthanasia, physician assisted suicide, genetic screening, stem cell research, cloning, and experimentation with human subjects. Major ethical theories will be used as a framework for the discussion. We will read and discuss a variety of points of view on both the ethical and legal issues. Written work will include three brief papers and a final examination.

Marc Lange

Metaphysics is the study of the ultimate nature of reality. That's a pretty big topic! This course will acquaint you with some of the most important metaphysics concepts, ideas, and arguments. It presupposes no background in Philosophy. Topics will include: What makes it true that something that didn't happen *could* have happened? Is time travel possible? Is a statue (for instance) anything over and above the various molecules of clay (let's say) that compose it? Why is there something (a universe) rather than nothing at all? What does it mean to say that smoking *causes* lung cancer, and what does it mean to say that Jones's having smoked *caused* Jones to develop lung cancer? What is a "law of nature"?

This course meets on Monday and Wednesday at 3:30.

Bernard Boxill

The course will introduce students to some of the moral issues of war and peace. For example: Can war ever be morally justified? Can pacifism be morally justified? Can terrorism ever be morally justified? Can intervention ever be morally justified? Is there a moral duty to seek peace? Is the idea of a national interest a moral notion? What is Just War Theory, and what are its moral presuppositions? What are the moral rights of prisoners of war? Can it ever be morally justified to target civilians in war? Who has the moral and legal right to declare war? What are causes of war? What are the moral presuppositions of Realism and Liberalism in international affairs? Do the moral presuppositions of functioning democracies help to explain their alleged tendency not to fight one another? What are the ethical responsibilities of multinational corporations? What is the relation between global distributive justice and peace?

This course meets on Tuesday and Thursday from 11:00-12:15.

Staff

This course is a survey of feminist perspectives on topics such as the meaning of oppression, sexism and racism, sex-roles and stereotypes, ideals of female beauty, women in the workplace, pornography, and rape.

This course meets on Tuesday and Thursday at 3:30.

Staff

The aim of the course is to introduce you to Greek philosophy of the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. The focus this semester is on Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Politics, and the different answers they propose to the question of how we should live. While ethics and politics will, therefore, be center stage, metaphysics (What are we?), epistemology (What can we know?), and philosophy of mind (What motivates us?) will also have important roles to play

This course meets on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 9.

Staff

This course is intended as an introduction to a number of the major themes and figures of 17th and 18th century European philosophy. The primary objective is to provide a general understanding of the central problems of this period and the philosophical principles of its leading thinkers. Although the course will be "survey" some selection will be necessary. The issues covered will include: egoism and human motivation, knowledge and scepticism, mind and matter, substance and essence, the existence of God, personal identity, free will, and miracles. Among the philosophers whose work we will study are: Hobbes, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Kant.

This course meets on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 11:00.

Jan Boxill

The course will consist of readings and class discussions focusing on social and economic issues and their theoretical justifications. The first set of readings will examine classical political theories with a focus on justices and the common good. We will ask questions such as: What is the nature of justice? What is the justification and role of the state? What is the nature of rights? Why do we take rights seriously? Is there such a thing as "the common good"? Do the traditional theories of justice and rights accommodate everyone? The second set of readings will examine current social issues using the theories discussed. The isues we will address are: racism and sexism, affirmative action, capital punishment, business ethics, and the environment. We may not, and probably will not, be able to resolve these issues, but we should at least gain a greater understanding of the issues which should serve as beginnings to possible resolutions.

This course meets on Tuesday and Thursday from 11:00-12:15..

Michael D. Resnik

The topic for the Fall of 2005 will be theories of rational decision making by individuals and groups. The course will focus upon the logical and philosophical foundations of these theories. (This is a mathematics course with a philosophical component.)

This course meets on Monday, and Wednesday from 1:00-2:15.

Philosophy of Mind (Phil 76)

Douglas C. Long

This class will provide a fairly comprehensive understanding of mainly contemporary work in philosophy of mind. We will examine "solutions" to the mind body problem; the conflict between dualism and various physical accounts of mind, such as the mind-brain identity theory and functionalism; views on the nature of consciousness, including whether machines can think; behaviorism; knowledge of other minds, and self-knowledge. Several brief papers and a final examination.

This course meets on Tuesday, and Thursday from 3:30-4:45.

Introduction to Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (Phil 84)

Jerry Gaus

This introduction to PPE divides into six parts: (1) Rationality. We shall consider the relations between instrumental rationality, homo economicus and decision theoretical conceptions of rational choice, including different conceptions of the notion of a preference. (2) Efficiency. This part considers the ideas of marginal utility, Pareto comparisons, and internalities/externalities, and transaction costs. (3) Games. We turn to some of the more fun stuff here, including games of chicken, prisoner's dilemmas and cooperative games. We will examine games in both their strategic and extensive forms. Applications of game theory to public goods problems will be a main focus. Nash equilibria and subgame perfection are among the concepts discussed. We do a tiny bit of evolutionary game theory. (4) Axiomatic Social Choice Theory. We look at the ideas of an Arrovian social welfare function and a collective choice rule. Topics include Arrow's theorem and Sen's proof for the impossibility of a Paretian liberal. (5) The Economic Approach to Democracy. The theories of rationality, game theory and social choice theory are brought together to explain democratic politics. (6) Ethics out of Rationality? The course concludes with evaluation of attempts to derive moral norms out of constrained rational choice. We shall examine the attempts of Gauthier, Harsanyi, and Rawls.

This course meets on Monday and Wednesday at 4:00-5:15.

Symbolic Logic (Phil 101/Ling 104)

Thomas Hofweber

Symbolic logic as proven to be extremely influential in a variety of 20th century disciplines, like philosophy, linguistics, the foundations of mathematics, and computer science. This course is an introduction to the main topics and results in formal logic for graduate students. We will first cover the syntax and semantics of various formal languages, and the selection of proof systems for them. Then we will discuss and prove some of the central results in the meta-theory of first order logic: completeness, compactness, the Lowenheim-Skolem theorems, complete theories, notions inexpressible in first order logic, and some applications to first order mathematical theories, like non-standard models of arithmetic. Finally we will discuss the syntax and variety of semantics for second order logic, and finally, time permitting, a selection of intensional systems, like modal logic.

This course meets on Tuesday, and Thursday from 11:00-12:15.

John Roberts

This course is an introduction to the central issues in the general philosophy of natural science intended for graduate students in Philosophy. Topics covered will include confirmation, theory choice, explanation, reduction, laws of nature, and the realism-antirealism debate.

This course meets on Monday from 4:00-6:30.

C.D.C Reeve

A study of some seminal texts on love, both classical and contemporary, by authors such as Plato, soren Kierkegaard, Arthur Schopenhauer, Marcel Proust, Sigmund Freud, Anthony Giddens, and Harry Frankfurt.

This course meets on Monday from 3:30-6:00.

Philosophy of Language (Phil 110)

Dean Pettit

This course will survey some traditional topics in the philosophy of language (theory of meaning, truth-theoretic semantics, proper names, descriptions, demonstratives, attitude reports, indeterminacy, and vagueness) as well as some topics in the philosophy of linguistics (the nature of language and the proper conception of the study of language). A broad issue of the course will be how the latter issues might bear on the former (e.g., how our conception of language should inform the theory of meaning). Other large-scale issues of the course will be why language should be of philosophical interest at all and what the place of philosophy of language is within philosophy as a whole. In the heyday of philosophy of language it was thought that all of philosophy amounts to philosophy of language, because philosophical issues were thought to concern the analysis of concepts or the meanings of words (e.g., epistemology concerns the meaning of 'x knows that p'). Philosophy of language is, on this conception, the über-field of philosophy. A more recent (and modest) conception would have it that philosophy of language is merely a sub-field of the philosophy of mind (albeit an important and interesting one).

This course meets on Thursday from 12:30-3:00.

Michael Corrado

What limits should there be on the state's us of power to prevent undesirable behavior? We will discuss such traditional topics as the harm principle and the debate between deterrence and retribution. But the most difficult issue we will address is something that lies outside of the traditional debates about criminalization and punishment the issue of preventive detention. May the state lock a person up solely on the basis of his dangerousness without convicting him of a crime? If the answer to that question is Yes, then all the established limits on state's power to prevent crime-- for one example, that the state may not interfere with a person's freedom, in the name of preventing crime, unless he has been convicted of a crime-- come to very little, and we must rethink the anser to the underlying question. We will look at the sequence of Supreme Court cases in which doctrine of preventive detention has been worked out, from Salerno v. United States (1988) through Zadvidas v. INS (2001), and into the terrorist cases of the last two years.

This course will meet on Wednesday from 3:30-6:00.

Themes in Analytic Philosophy (Phil 116)

Dorit Bar On

The course will trace current treatment of certain themes to their origins in Logical Positivism. Among the themes: the relation of language to the world, the role of language in philosophy, external world skepticism, semantic verificationism, the idea that language is essentially public. We will eamine the extent to which contemporary treatments of these issues remain within the positivist tradition and some of the ways in which they depart from it. The bulk of the course will be devoted to variations on positivist themes which can be found in Quine, Davidson, and Dummett (other philosophers we may touch upon: Wittgenstein, Putnam, Rorty).

The course will be run as a "teaching seminar", which means quite a lot of time will be spent on presenting materials, primarily by me. However, I will aslo allow substantial time for student participation, through questions, disucssion periods and voluntary presentations of course materials. Background in analytic philosophy will be necessary, but I will not assume specific familiarity with the positivists or with Quine, Davidson, or Dummett. Auditors are welcome.

This course will meet on Monday from 4:00-6:30.

Gerald Gaus

Courses on moral problems often focus upon contentious moral issues, and sometimes take sides on the moral disagreements of our time: the permissibility of abortion or euthanasia, the value and protection of the environment, the merits of the welfare state, capitalism, Wal-mart, Gwen Stephani or the Buffalo Bills. In my view the crucial philosophical question is why such disagreements are endemic to our society and whether they undermine the possibility of a shared morality. Rawls tells us that this type of diversity is "the natural outcome of the activities of human reason under free enduring institutions." My aim in this course is to explore why free institutions reveal the deep diversity of human reason, and whether this diversity precludes a justified social morality and morally-informed political life. More specifically, we shall consider some sources of reasonable disagreement about morality, and, especially, proposals to cope with it coming from pluralists, Hobbesians, holists, deliberative democrats, epistemic democrats, Rawlsians and others.

This course will meet on Thursday from 6:30-9:00.