Spring Courses 2008
http://courses.uiuc.edu/cis/schedule/urbana/2008/Spring/PHIL/index.html
PHIL 101 – Introduction to Philosophy (Roth, M.; Estrada, D.; Horn, E.; Plebuch, U.; Revelins, A.; Swenson, J.)
PHIL 101 – Introduction to Philosophy – Discovery Section (Korman, D.)
PHIL 102 – Logic and Reasoning (Maher, P.; Weinberg, S.; Goodlin, B.; Morasch, N.; Rukgaber, M.)
PHIL 103 – Logic and Reasoning – QR II (Wengert, R.)
PHIL 104 – Introduction to Ethics – ACP (Neely, E.)
PHIL 104 – Introduction to Ethics – ACP – Transition Program Section (Krzyzewski, C.)
PHIL 105 – Introduction to Ethics (Albrecht, I.; Horn, E.; Schaaf, E.; Thomason, K.)
PHIL 105 – Introduction to Ethics – James Scholars Program Section (Albrecht, I.)
PHIL 105 – Introduction to Ethics – Unit One Section (Kukla, T.)
PHIL 106 – Ethics and Social Policy – Discovery Section (Mohr, R.)
PHIL 107 - Introduction to Political Philosophy (Wagner, S.)
PHIL 109 – Religion & Society in West II (Same as ANTH 109, RLST 109, SOC 109 – See RLST)
PHIL 110 – World Religions (Same as RLST 110 – See RLST)
PHIL 191 – Freshman Honors Tutorial (IND – ARR)
PHIL 199 – Undergraduate Open Seminar (IND – ARR)
PHIL 201 – Philosophy in Literature (Wagner, S.)
PHIL 202 – Symbolic Logic (Melnick, A.)
PHIL 202 – Symbolic Logic – Chancellors Scholar/CHP Honors Section (Wengert, R.)
PHIL 203 – Ancient Philosophy (Sanders, K.)
PHIL 206 – Early Modern Philosophy (Weinberg, S.)
PHIL 210 – Ethics (Sussman, D.)
PHIL 214 – Biomedical Ethics (Wallace, J.)
PHIL 316 – Engineering Ethics (Same as ECE 316 - See ECE) (Hillmer, P.)
PHIL 318 – Scientific Thought II (Same as HIST 366) (Maher, P.)
PHIL 351 – Thinking and Reasoning (Same as PSYC 351 – See PSYC) (Cummins, D.)
PHIL 380 – Current Controversies (Neely, E.)
Topic: Normativity and Community
PHIL 390 – Individual Study (IND – ARR)
PHIL 401 – Philosophy and Film (Same as CINE 401) (Schroeder, W.)
PHIL 412 – Classical Modern Philosophers (Schroeder, W.)
Topic: Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit
PHIL 419 – Space, Time, and Matter – ACP (Same as PHYS 419 - See PHYS)
PHIL 420 – Space, Time, and Matter (Same as PHYS 420 - See PHYS)
PHIL 421 – Ethical Theories (Varden, H.)
PHIL 422 – Recent Developments in Ethics (Sussman, D.)
PHIL 423 – Philosophy of Art (Himmelmann, B.)
PHIL 426 – Metaphysics (Korman, D.)
PHIL 435 – Social Philosophy (Mohr, R.)
PHIL 436 – Philosophy of Law and of the State (Varden, H.)
PHIL 439 – Philosophy of Mathematics (Same as MATH 439) (McCarthy, T.)
PHIL 444 – Topics in Recent European Philosophy (Himmelmann, B.)
Topic: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Philosophical Anthropology
PHIL 492 – Thesis (IND – ARR)
PHIL 501 – Seminar on the History of Philosophy (Melnick, A.)
Topic: Kant
PHIL 521 – Seminar on Contemporary Problems (McKim, R.)
Topic: Philosophy of Religion
PHIL 525 – Seminar on Philosophy of Mind (Roth, M.)
Topic: Consciousness
PHIL 583 – Individual Topics (IND – ARR)
PHIL 590 – Directed Research (IND – ARR)
PHIL 599 – Thesis Research (IND – ARR)
GENERAL DESCRIPTIONS OF PHILOSOPHY 101, 102, AND 105
*PHIL 101 – INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY 3 hours
This course provides a general introduction to philosophy through the study of examples of philosophical writings by representative figures in the history of the subject. Although the specific content of the course varies from section to section, any section may be expected to provide useful background for most of our advanced courses. It is also a good course for a person who wishes to take only one course in philosophy.
*PHIL 102 – LOGIC AND REASONING 3 hours
Philosophy 102 is an introduction to reasoning. While there may be some variations among sections – perhaps a different text, perhaps a different selection of examples – they will all be courses in informal logic, stressing practical problems and methods. The course is intended to help the student learn to follow and analyze other people’s arguments (e.g., in editorials, textbooks, and legal cases). It should also improve the student’s ability to develop, present, and defend his or her own arguments. In the course of the semester, the student will be introduced to some of the basic laws of reasoning, and also to some of the most common fallacies which occur in reasoning. Less emphasis will be placed on the theory of logic, however, than on working through and learning to deal with actual examples involving reasoning.
*PHIL 105 – INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS 3 hours
This course examines the ways that selected ethical theories or conceptions of morality help or hinder the rational discussion of concrete moral issues and problems. Typically, the moral issues discussed are those that arise in connection with topics such as sexual conduct, the taking of human life, abortion, just punishment, civil disobedience, and distributive justice (how benefits and burdens should be shared in a community).
In discussing issues of this sort, students will encounter philosophical topics such as freedom, justice, the nature of community, rights, what a person is, the nature of responsibility, and the relation of law and morality. Among the ethical theories considered are various versions of contractarianism, utilitarianism, and the natural law ethics.
*SEE COURSE SCHEDULE FOR TIMES AND MEETING LOCATIONS OF ALL SECTIONS.
PHIL 101 – INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY 3 hours
*DISCOVERY SECTION
35416 D (Discovery) 1:00 – 1:50 M W F 329 GH Korman, D.
We will critically examine a number of claims that are ordinarily taken for granted: that we have minds, knowledge, and free will, that there are objective matters of fact, that God exists (or at least might exist), and that we ourselves exist. All of these assumptions are subject to significant philosophical challenges. We will see whether those challenges can be overcome. The texts for the course are Boghossian's Fear of Knowledge and Perry and Bratman's Introduction to Philosophy.
PHIL 103 – LOGIC AND REASONING – QR II 3 hours
35443 AL1 9:00 – 9:50 M W 112 CA Wengert, R..
Students may not receive credit for both Philosophy 103 and 102.
An introductory logic course that concentrates on investigating how the formal mathematical structure of statements, as well as the structure of the relationships among such statements, reveals the logical force of arguments that we use everyday. Philosophy 102 takes a less formal, less mathematical approach to the same material. This course satisfies the Quantitative Reasoning II requirement. There will be a large number of exercises, mostly done on-line using the iLrn system which is provided as a service with the text book.
Text: Hurley, A Concise Introduction to Logic, 10th edition, Wadsworth, Thomson, 2008.
Note: You may either buy the text, which includes the on-line access card, or just purchase the on-line access card and read the on-line pdf version of the text.
Grading:
Homework: 40%
Midterm 20%
Final 30%
Discussion Participation: 10%
Pluses and minuses will NOT be used in grading.
PHIL 104 – INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS – ACP 3 hours
41132 AL1 1:00 – 1:50 T R 213 GH Neely, E.
The purpose of this course is to provide students with a basic foundation in ethics. We examine fundamental theoretical issues in ethics (such as whether there are any objective moral principles and whether morality sometimes requires people to act against their own self-interest) and consider three major ethical theories: utilitarianism, deontological (or
duty-based) theories, and virtue theories. The philosophers commonly associated with these theories are Mill, Kant, and Aristotle respectively, but we will also consider modern criticisms and reformulations of their ideas. Although there is a large theoretical component to this class, we will also be examining ethical dilemmas in real life; in addition to reading articles in applied ethics, students are encouraged to consider how to apply the theories to other real life ethical issues that interest them.
This course satisfies the Advanced Composition requirement, hence there will be a substantial writing component to it.
PHIL 106 – ETHICS AND SOCIAL POLICY 3 hours
*DISCOVERY SECTION
45790 D (Discovery) 10:30 – 11:50 T R 329 GH Mohr, R.
This course is about justice. The course will criticallyexamine the values that govern the web of relations that exist between the individual person and societalstructures. The course will compare and contrast conservative and liberal understandings of the relation between citizen and government. We will begin with a careful look at the general social, ethical, and legal systems presented in two classics of Western Civilization: Plato’s Republic and John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty. The former presents a conservative world-view, the latter a liberal one. We will then shift from theoretical issues to applied ones looking at the ethical, social, and legal issues involved in three contemporary social controversies: abortion, lesbian and gay rights, and affirmative action.
PHIL 107 - INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 3 hours
35458 A 10:30 - 11:50 T R 311 GH Wagner, S.
An introduction to the ethical study of political organization and action, with special attention to the concept of human rights. We’ll start with some landmark expressions: the Magna Carta, Charter of the Forest, and Large Petition; founding documents of the American and French revolutions; the Communist Manifesto; the Economic Bill of Rights (Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt); the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; perhaps a few others (e.g., Tom Paine on agrarian rights, or the Port Huron statement). In each case we’ll look for the underlying ethical and empirical assumptions about human beings, and start debating some of the most controversial proposals.
From there we’ll move to more systematic study of the foundations of ethical reasoning and of the connections among democracy, human rights, and property/capital. Although we will not read the classics (Plato, Hobbes, Rousseau, …), our lectures and discussions will bring in many of their key ideas. The classical background also sets the critical agendas of philosophers Walker and Irigaray.
Textbooks:
Moral Understandings: A Feminist Study in Ethics
by Margaret Urban Walker (Oxford Univ. 2007, pp. 328).
Democracy Begins Between Two
by Luce Irigaray (Routledge 2001, pp. 208).
The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons for All
by Peter Linebaugh (Univ. of California 2008, pp. 376).
Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance
by Noam Chomsky (Holt 2004, pp. 304).
Further readings will be available through photocopy or on the internet.
Your grade will depend principally on one mid-term and one final paper, each of roughly 7-8 pp. I will also assign a number of short homeworks to help with the readings and facilitate class discussion.
PHIL 201 – PHILOSOPHY IN LITERATURE 3 hours
39134 A 9:00 – 10:20 T R 217 GH Wagner, S.
Eight plays by Shakespeare, plus a post-colonial riff on The Tempest by Aime Cesaire. The plays, in order of reading: Othello, Measure for Measure, Twelfth Night, The Tempest—together with Cesaire’s A Tempest and the poems of Notebook of a Return to My Native Land—Anthony and Cleopatra, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet. In each case we’ll read a scholarly edition of the play plus a little mainstream criticism. We will also watch a handful of Shakespeare movies: sometimes filmed plays, sometimes adaptations, e.g. Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood. —Supplementary reading: Stephen Greenblatt, Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare. Although the reading list is short (as measured by total lines), the content is extremely rich. So this is a course for people who want to engage intensely with these captivating texts.
We’ll mix discussion and lecture roughly evenly. I’ll emphasize philosophical questions of ethics and mind, but we are reading the texts as literature—freely pursuing any question that makes sense to us, regardless of whether it is obviously philosophical. Feminist themes—conceptions and expressions of male and female, of gender identity—will receive attention, along with language (as an expression of self and of political relations) and power.
You will write two interpretive-creative papers, plus a few short homework assignments as bases for discussion.
PHIL 202 – SYMBOLIC LOGIC 3 hours
35461 C 2:30 – 3:50 T R 311 GH Melnick, A.
We shall try to determine what valid or cogent reasoning is by seeing how to construct an ideal reasoner (someone who could produce any valid arguments and who would produce only valid arguments). We shall have to construct a language for the reasoning to proceed in and rules to
determine which reasonings are to be produced. Some mathematical background is helpful, although the only prerequisite is simply not being averse to abstract symbolism. The grade will be based on regular homework assignments, a take-home midterm, and a take-home final.
PHIL 202 – SYMBOLIC LOGIC 3 hours
*CHANCELLORS SCHOLARS-CHP HONORS SECTION
35462 H (Chancellors Scholar-CHP Honors) 11:00 – 11:50 M W F 212 Honors House Wengert, R.
Restricted to students in the Campus Honors Program
An introduction to proofs and models as used in perhaps the most fundamental formal system, first-order logic. Students will learn what counts as a proof (syntax) and what must be included in order to adequately present a proof. Students will concentrate even more on what makes the formal statements true (semantics) and how one could use this to show that various purported proofs do not hold. We shall spend a good deal of time translating between our formal language and our natural language.
We shall use the book by Jon Barwise and John Etchemendy, Language Proof & Logic (CSLI publications, 1999), which comes with a CD-ROM containing four computer applications - Tarski's World (Model Theory comes alive), Fitch (Get help constructing formal proofs), Boole (Makes creating truth-tables less tedious) and Submit (Sends your answers to GradeGrinder to be checked). Most exercises will be submitted over the net. These programs are wonderfully interactive and often just plain fun. The programs will also be available at CCSO sites.
Book Warning: You must, I am sorry to say, buy a new copy of the book, not a used one, since the book comes with an ID number which will be your unique number to identify you to GradeGrinder. The book is distributed by Chicago University Press. More details about the book and programs is at http://www-csli.stanford.edu/hp/LPL.html
The graded problems will constitute the bulk of your grade; there will be a mid-term and a final. Class participation will also contribute to your grade.
This course satisfies the quantitative reasoning I campus general education requirement http://www.provost.uiuc.edu/gened/qr.asp
PHIL 203 – ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 4 hours
35463 N 10:30 – 11:50 T R 253 MEB Sanders, K.
This course is an introduction to philosophy in ancient Greece. We shall concentrate on three figures in particular: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Our primary goal is to develop a critical understanding of their respective approaches to, and arguments regarding, a variety of philosophical issues in metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics.
Assignments: There will be one in-class midterm and a final exam. As part of each, a take-home essay question will be distributed one week in advance of the exam. The resulting take-home essay (roughly 3-4 pages in length) will be due on the day of the exam itself.
In addition, each student will be required to submit a one-page (typed or word-processed) discussion paper on a topic related to the assigned readings every other week for the duration of the course.
Required texts:
Plato: Five Dialogues (2nd ed.; trans. Grube) Hackett Publishing
Plato: Protagoras (trans. Jowett, rev. Ostwald) Prentice Hall
Plato: Gorgias (trans. Zeyl) Hackett Publishing
Plato: Republic (2nd ed.; trans. Grube, rev. Reeve) Hackett Publishing A New Aristotle Reader (ed. Ackrill) Princeton University Press
PHIL 206 – EARLY MODERN PHILOSOPHY 4 hours
35464 X 1:00 – 2:20 T R 106 LH Weinberg, S.
This course provides an introduction to central themes in several major philosophical figures of the 17th and 18th centuries. We will concentrate on epistemological and metaphysical issues, including the scientific turn to mechanistic explanation, the nature of ideas, the role of reason and the senses in knowledge, the nature of substance and the self, and the question of freedom. The overarching theme of this course is an investigation into the limits of human understanding as undertaken in primary texts of Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Kant. Course requirements will include three written assignments.
PHIL 210 – ETHICS 3 hours
44103 A 1:00 – 2:20 T R 311 GH Sussman, D.
This course focuses on philosophical theories of what it is for an act to be morally right or wrong, and what sorts of considerations properly bear on this issue. We will consider whether there is anything of basic moral importance beside human happiness and misery? Does morality concern only our relations to other people, or might we have obligations to ourselves as well, or to animals, or to the environment? Can there be kinds of acts that are always wrong no matter what, or must there always be exceptions to any such prohibitions? We will consider these issues in light of modern debates about abortion, euthanasia, suicide, war, and torture. Our focus will be on modern utilitarianism and the main Kantian and contractarian alternatives to it.
PHIL 214 – BIOMEDICAL ETHICS 3 hours
35471 AL1 12:00 – 12:50 T R 116 RAL Wallace, J.
Philosophical issues lie at the center of many of the problems and controversies in bioethics. This course examines a selection of such problems and controversies, together with the philosophical issues they raise. The course is divided into three parts.
1. The first part of the course concerns a selection of cases that present problems about the responsibilities of health care workers to their patients, to one another, and to society. We will consider ethical principles relevant to the satisfactory solution of such problems. Among the matters discussed: truthfulness, confidentiality, autonomy and informed consent, care of the elderly, withdrawal of life-sustaining measures, physician-assisted suicide, and medical euthanasia.
2. The second part of the course is an examination of the ethics of abortion.
3. The last part of the course will focus on problems concerning the allocation of medical resources, ranging from triage problems that arise on the clinical level to current debate about whether and how the health care system in the United States should be changed.
PHIL 316 – ENGINEERING ETHICS 3 hours
*SAME AS ECE 316
32663 E3 9:00 – 10:20 T R 57 EVRT Hillmer, P.
32664 E4 2:00 – 3:20 T R 329 GH Hillmer, P.
The course fulfills credit as an upper division class in Advanced Composition, for which the University of Illinois requires twenty to thirty pages of revised writing as a minimum standard. In order to fulfill this requirement, each member of the class will write and revise three Response Papers (an article analysis of three pages, a case study of three pages, and a paper on normative ethical theories of at least five pages in length), a Research Paper (of at least twelve pages or more in length), and a Personal Statement (of two pages) reflecting on one’s life work and career. All members of the course will also give a ten-minute presentation of their research project in class at the end of the semester. The research paper and in-class presentation function together as the final examination for the course.
The required readings for the Advanced Composition component of the course will include the seventh edition of Turabian, A Manual for Writers by Turabian (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), and selected portions from previous editions of Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace by Williams, now in its ninth edition (1981–2007). As a course in Philosophical and Applied Ethics, the primary textbook will be the third edition of Engineering Ethics: Concepts and Cases by Harris, Pritchard, and Rabins (Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2005), together with a set of additional readings in normative ethical theory and applied ethics.
PHIL 318 – SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT II 3 hours
*SAME AS HIST 366
43034 A 1:00 – 1:50 M W F 217 GH Maher, P.
This course is a survey of science and philosophy of science from the death of Newton to the 20th century. We will read examples of scientific work from this period in chemistry (Black on lime), biology (Darwin on the origin of species), and physics (Einstein on relativity). On the philosophical side we will consider the justification of induction (Hume, Popper, Carnap), causation and causal inference (Hume, Mill), probability and its use for understanding scientific inference (Laplace, Keynes, Carnap), an attempt to make science deductive (Popper), and an argument that scientific reasoning cannot be rationally compelling (Kuhn). Throughout the course we will compare philosophical theories of scientific reasoning with the arguments used by scientists. The text is a packet of primary sources available from Notes-n-Quotes. Grades will be based on three 50-minute short-answer exams.
PHIL 351 – THINKING AND REASONING 3 hours
*SAME AS PSYC 351
47948 A 1:30 – 2:45 T R 31 PSYCH Cummins, D.
An overview of historical and contemporary research on thinking, reasoning, and problem-solving. Topics will include normative systems of logic, defeasible/non-monotonic reasoning, psychological models of reasoning, heuristic problem-solving, insight, and creativity, Bayesian decision-making, decision-making biases, and fast-and-frugal heuristics. Same as PSYC 351. Prerequisite: Either PSYC 100 and PSYC 224, or PHIL 101 and PHIL 102, or consent of instructor.
PHIL 380 – CURRENT CONTROVERSIES 3 hours
*TOPIC: NORMATIVITY AND COMMUNITY
35474 N 2:30 – 3:50 T R 217 GH Neely, E.
This course looks at communities from a value-theoretic standpoint. We will begin by asking what it takes to be a member of a community in general and, in particular, to be a member of our moral community; do we extend membership (and thus ethical consideration) to people in our nation? To all humans? To all animals? What are the boundaries of the community? We will then consider two ways in which questions of normativity arise in conjunction with being a member of a community.
First, we may ask whether communities have intrinsic value; is there value simply in being a member of a community? What happens if an individual’s needs conflict with those of the community? Is our growing emphasis on individuality undermining the traditional emphasis on the importance of belonging to a community? Or are we simply redefining our communities? Second, we will discuss to what extent communities are responsible for creating value; is normativity simply a matter of community agreement? Is there any way to judge a particular practice other than by reference to its participants? How are a community’s value commitments reflected in its practices – and are they sometimes reflected in places we don’t expect them; for instance, do community values sneak in to practices we often take to be responsible mainly to objective notions of truth, such as scientific inquiry?
The readings will draw on both classical and contemporary philosophers and will be contained in a course packet. The class is largely discussion-driven, so participation in class discussions (or through the online discussion questions) is expected. Students will also be asked to write several papers in which they explore the major themes of the course. This is especially important since, due to the broad nature of the topic we are considering, we will not be able to cover all of the above questions in depth; these papers will give students a chance to focus on the areas which particularly interest them.
PHIL 401 – PHILOSOPHY AND FILM 4 hours
*SAME AS CINE 401
39138 A 3:00 – 4:50 M W G36 FLB Schroeder, W.
This course has two goals: to teach students how to interpret films seriously and to explore some ideas (in both films and in philosophical texts) about romantic love. We will examine several kinds of films, in depth. Some are European film classics of the 1960s (Resnais’s Hiroshima Mon Amour; Bergman's Persona; Antonioni’s L’Avventura) some more recent films (The Hours; Wenders’s Wings of Desire; Love Actually); and perhaps one classic American romantic comedy (Cukor’s The Philadelphia Story). (The final list is not set yet.)
Throughout the term we will read a variety of philosophical readings on romantic love and some essays on the logic of interpretation. Requirements include two papers--one long interpretation paper (20 pages or so) and one shorter (7-8 page) philosophical paper; there will also be a final exam. Most of the films will be shown at special evening screenings (7:30-9:30 PM on Tuesday nights). Students enrolling in the course should insure they have this time free and plan to attend the class screenings. Class time will be devoted entirely to lecture and discussion.
This is an excellent course for aspiring screenwriters, directors (of theater and film), and anyone interested in the serious philosophical interpretation of film. The focus of this version of the class will be balanced between issues of interpretation and romantic love. The procedure I teach requires an enormous amount of time and energy to apply (and many repeated viewings of the film you are interpreting); so do not register if you are not prepared for a rigorous, demanding class. Prerequisite: one course in philosophy or one course in cinema studies.
PHIL 412 – CLASSICAL MODERN PHILOSOPHERS 3 undergraduate hours, 4 graduate hours
*TOPIC: HEGEL’S PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT
39161/39162 UG/G 11:30 – 12:50 M W 329 GH Schroeder, W.
This course will introduce students to Hegel’s philosophy by providing an exposition and evaluation of his famous treatise The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807). This is an extremely difficult text to comprehend even though it is probably the seminal text for much of contemporary European philosophy. You will need to work extra hard simply to comprehend the book, but I will work hard to help you with this. We will learn to discuss Hegel without his technical jargon. Both the details of the book’s specific sections and the overall sweep and organization of the book will be discussed in depth. The course will examine the continuing importance of Hegel’s treatise—both for philosophy and for everyday life—and will explain and evaluate his "dialectical approach" to philosophical thinking. Much of the course will involve lecturing because the book is so hard, but there will be some time for discussion. We will cover the entire book. There will be a mid-term assignment, a final exam, and a term paper (12-15 pages). This course is offered only once in five years; so if you are interested in this book, this is your chance to study it in depth. Prerequisite: one course in philosophy, but the most helpful prior courses are Philosophy 325 or 411.
PHIL 421 – ETHICAL THEORIES 3 undergraduate hours, 4 graduate hours
39163 UG/G 1:00 – 2:20 T R 317 GH Varden, H.
This course will explore the distinction between justice and virtue in four influential ethical theories. We start with Aristotle’s conception of the distinction in the Nicomachean Ethics as well as in the Politics. We will then turn to modern moral theories. First we will look at Immanuel Kant’s delineation of the proper spheres of virtue and justice in The Metaphysics of Morals, and second to John Stuart Mill’s treatment of the issue in On Utilitarianism and On Liberty. We end the course by looking at a more contemporary existentialist view of justice and virtue in Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex and The Ethics of Ambiguity.
PHIL 422 – RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN ETHICS 3 undergraduate hours, 4 graduate hours
43036/43037 UG/G 10:30 – 11:50 T R 217 GH Sussman, D.
This course examines recent attempts to revive an approach to ethics focused on notions of human flourishing and the character traits needed to realize it. This focus contrasts with the emphasis on obligations, rights, and rational principles that dominates modern moral theories, whether they be deontological or consequentialist. We will consider whether such conceptions of human flourishing can be compatible with a purely naturalistic metaphysics, whether an ethics of virtue can avoid being either relativistic or ethically conservative, and to what extent any understanding of flourishing or virtue can really be prior to an account of basic moral principles. Is virtue ethics a real alternative to more familiar sorts of moral theorizing, or is it a subject that merely needs to be given a place within such theories?
The primary readings in the course are Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue, Rosalind Hursthouse’s On Virtue Ethics, Philippa Foot’s Rational Goodness, and Bernard Williams’ Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Additional readings from G.E.M. Anscombe, Warren Quinn, John McDowell, Susan Wolf, and Michael Stocker.
PHIL 423 – PHILOSOPHY OF ART 3 undergraduate hours, 4 graduate hours
35510/35511 U3/G4 10:00 – 10:50 M W F 311 GH Himmelmann, B.
What is art? What sort of role does art play with regard to our attitude toward the world? How does art contribute to the way we see ourselves? These questions will structure the course work. We will treat the (classical) aesthetic theories of Kant and Hegel, which are still influential. Subsequently, we will study the aesthetic conceptions of Heidegger and Adorno, thus dealing with two modern answers to our questions. Both of them had considerable impact on recent discussions as well. (Graduate students will meet with the instructor for an additional hour of discussion each week at a time to be arranged.)
PHIL 426 – METAPHYSICS 3 undergraduate hours, 4 graduate hours
45791/45792 U3/G4 11:00 – 11:50 M W F 236 WOHLR Korman, D.
Topics covered will include time, persistence, vagueness, composition, personal identity, the puzzles of material constitution, possibility and possible worlds, essential properties, natural kinds, the reduction of the mental to the physical, and the intersection of metaphysics with epistemology and philosophy of language. The primary texts for the course will be Theodore Sider's Four-Dimensionalism and Saul Kripke's Naming and Necessity.
PHIL 435 – SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY 3 undergraduate hours, 4 graduate hours
35536/35543 R3/R4 9:00 – 10:20 T R 329 GH Mohr, R.
This course is about power. What it is. Who has it. Who should have it. What can be done about it. What should be done with it.
More specifically, the course will examine the flow and figure of power relations between, across, and through individuals, groups, and governments. We will examine ancient, modern, and post-modern takes on this matrix of relations.
The primary readings for this course will be Plato's Republic (Books II – V), Mill's On Liberty, Freud's Civilization and its Discontents, and excerpts from Foucault's Discipline and Punish and History of Sexuality I.
PHIL 436 – PHILOSOPHY OF LAW AND OF THE STATE
3 undergraduate hours, 4 graduate hours
35548/35551 N3/N4 2:30 – 3:50 T R 317 GH Varden, H.
In this course we will explore the question of whether or not justice requires a distinctly international political and legal authority to posit and enforce laws governing international interaction. Prominent theories of justice differ widely in their answers to this question. We will take a close look at three main approaches: the libertarian, the liberal and the legal positivist conceptions of international justice. The first half of the course focuses on three classical discussions of the role of the state and law in the international sphere, namely Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan (legal positivist), John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government (libertarian) and Immanuel Kant’s “Doctrine of Right” in The Metaphysics of Morals and “Perpetual Peace” (liberal). We will pay special attention to the structure of the reasoning that informs and distinguishes these theoretical approaches to issues of justice. In particular, we will focus on delineating the different conceptions of the ideal role of law and the state. This is essential not only to understand how they are different theories, but also to understand how they formulate their conceptions of international justice. In the second part of the course, we will move to contemporary discussions of international justice. This will include, but not be limited to, contributions made by Charles Beitz, Jurgen Habermas, Hans Kelsen, Thomas Nagel, John Rawls and Thomas Pogge.
PHIL 439 – PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS 3 undergraduate hours, 4 graduate hours
*SAME AS MATH 439
39168/39169 UG/G 2:00 – 2:50 M W F 329 GH McCarthy, T.
This course will focus on an examination of the alternative foundations for classical mathematics. The fundamental questions are (a) What is mathematics about? (b) Are mathematical assertions objectively true or false, independently of our minds and language? (c) How is mathematical knowledge possible, and how, if at all, is it limited? The first question is the most fundamental. Among the answers to be considered are: mathematics is about sets; mathematics is a part of logic; mathematics is about structure; mathematics is about mental constructions; mathematics is about a special kind of necessity; finally, a default answer: mathematics isn't about anything. It is, as David Hilbert once asserted, a meaningless game played with marks on a piece of paper.
Each of the above answers to question (a) represents a prominent position in the 20th century philosophy of mathematics, and each of them represents, to some extent, a live option at the present time. Each answer goes along with its own account of mathematical truth and mathematical knowledge. We will consider representative writings from each of these traditions, focusing on the degree to which these alternative views successfully answer key philosophical questions about mathematics, but also on their ability to provide a convincing account of mathematical practice.
Undergraduate requirements are two short (5-8 pp) papers in addition to midterm and final examinations. Graduate students will substitute one longer paper for the second short paper. The prerequisite for the class is one course in philosophy, but some acquaintance with logic is highly desirable.
PHIL 444 – TOPICS IN RECENT EUROPEAN PHILOSOPHY
3 undergraduate hours, 4 graduate hours
*TOPIC: NIETZSCHE, HEIDEGGER, PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
39170/39171 UG/G 1:00 – 1:50 M W F 311 GH Himmelmann, B.
Nietzsche was passionately engaged in trying to rethink human reality in the aftermath of what he called “the death of God”. We will carefully study those projects of Nietzsche that are related to this attempt, especially his critique of metaphysics and his claim that a “view of life” (“Optik des Lebens”) should serve as the crucial measure in science, ethics, and art. Also, we will examine his genealogical way of looking at human nature and values.
Heidegger shares many of these Nietzschean ideas; therefore we will treat, subsequently, parts of his early main work Being and Time. In this book Heidegger develops an analysis of human “existence”, trying to avoid the categories and abstractions of academic philosophy (“Schulphilosophie”). Instead, he wants to give an account of the existence of man that elucidates man’s “being-in-the-world” (“In-der-Welt-Sein”) and emphasizes his finite nature.
The meaning of human existence also occupied a group of thinkers who promoted the idea of a “philosophical anthropology”, an idea against which Heidegger inveighed. In the third and last section of this course we will discuss several leading figures associated with the project of a “philosophical anthropology”, Max Scheler, Helmut Plessner, and Arnold Gehlen. (Graduate students will meet with the instructor for an additional hour of discussion each week at a time to be arranged.)
PHIL 501 – SEMINAR ON HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 2 to 4 graduate hours
*TOPIC: KANT
35568 AM 4:00 – 5:50 T 402 GH Melnick, A.
We will focus on Kant’s theory of what the thinking self is and how it relates to being the persons that we are. We will consider what being a subject of thoughts means for Kant, how it is that we are conscious of ourselves as such subjects, in what way a person is an identical bearer of thoughts and perceptual states through time, what can be known about ourselves from the first-person point of view, etc. We will discuss these issues both as they relate to Kant’s philosophy in particular, as well as how they relate more generally to issues in contemporary philosophy (whether the self can be an object to itself, the relation of a person to being embodied, issues of fission and fusion, self-representation and the personal pronoun ‘I’, etc.). The readings will be selected sections of the Critique of Pure Reason that are pertinent to Kant’s theory of the self. The assignment will be a single term paper either on Kant or on the philosophical topics covered in the course. I will try to present the course in such a way that no precious background in Kant is required.
PHIL 521 – SEMINAR ON CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS 2 to 4 graduate hours
*TOPIC: PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
39210 A 3:00 – 5:20 W 1046 FLB McKim, R.
Intensive study of philosophical and theological responses to the phenomenon of religious diversity. Topics such as these will be discussed: (a) pluralism, exclusivism, and inclusivism as attitudes to both the truth and the salvific efficacy of other religious traditions; (b) the bearing of the presence of a diversity of religious traditions on appeals to religious experience; (c) the issue of whether religious traditions can be understood from the outside; (d) whether there are viable forms of religious faith that are nondogmatic and open to revision; (e) whether human experience is religiously ambiguous and, if so, what the implications are for responding to other religious traditions; and (f) whether there are viable ways to compare the religious traditions. Readings will include recent work from Alston, Schellenberg, Basinger, Plantinga, Quinn, Mavrodes, Hick, and many others.
PHIL 525 – SEMINAR ON PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 2 to 4 graduate hours
*TOPIC: CONSCIOUSNESS
43854 MR 4:00 – 5:50 R 402 GH Roth, M.
With the publication of his 1974 paper “What is it like to be a Bat?” Thomas Nagel ushered in an era in the philosophy of mind that has been largely concerned to situate consciousness within the natural world. Of course, ‘consciousness’ is a slippery word, and this slipperiness has led philosophers to make distinctions between ‘access’ and ‘phenomenal’ consciousness (Block), ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ problems of consciousness (Chalmers), and myriad others. At the heart of the matter is whether there are certain facts or properties of our mental lives that cannot be explained within our current, predominantly physicalist/scientific picture of human beings. A number of prominent philosophers (e.g. Chalmers, Block, Nagel, Jackson, Searle) have argued that there are such facts or properties—facts/properties concerning “experience,” “subjectivity,” or “qualia” that are not the suitable targets of functional or physical explanation/reduction. Other philosophers—including Churchland and Dennett—have argued vociferously that there are no such facts/properties.
In this course we will attempt to clarify just what is at issue in these disputes about the nature of consciousness. Is ‘consciousness’ ambiguous, and if so, what are the various phenomena that philosophers have targeted with the use of that word? Are some of these phenomena amenable to physical/functional explanation/reduction, but not others? In addition to trying to come to grips with what philosophers have in mind when they talk about consciousness, we will examine some well known arguments that attempt to establish that there are facts/properties of our mental lives that cannot be accounted for within our current scientific framework. More specifically, we will look closely at what have been called the ‘explanatory gap,’ ‘conceivability,’ and ‘knowledge’ arguments against physicalism, as well as criticisms of those arguments. We will also consider attempts to account for consciousness in terms of representation (e.g. Tye and Rosenthal, among others) and examine the relationship between representation/content and consciousness generally.
There is no text for the course; all papers will be available on-line. Students will write several short (3-5 pages) papers throughout the term, as well as one long paper (15-20 pages) at the end of the term. Each student will be responsible for presenting a paper/initiating class discussion at least once during the term (possibly twice).
