Fall 2008 Course Descriptions
PHIL 100W.07
Introduction to Philosophy (W)
Margaret Hejtmancik
TR 9:35-10:50
We will read Homer’s Odyssey and Plato’s Republic. The principal guide for class discussion will be the texts themselves. Things discussed might include, but will not be limited to, philosophy, poetry, goddesses, gods, monsters, virtue, justice, war, friendship, nature, stories, geometry, and education. This course offers a somewhat unusual introduction to philosophy, being neither a historical nor a topical survey of philosophical authors or ideas. Rather, through close and careful reading of the two texts, liberal but disciplined discussion of them in a seminar setting, and the cautious crafting of written pieces that adequately present one’s thoughts on the matter, students will begin to formulate for themselves certain questions and themes that have never ceased to be worth examining for those who are lovers of wisdom.
PHIL 100W.10
Introduction to Philosophy (W)
Dom Eggert
TR 2:35-3:50
In a rapidly advancing age in which monkeys can control robotic arms hundreds of miles away with thought alone, scientists have spawned sheep-human chimeras with 15% human DNA, and our fastest computers can outsmart the world's greatest chessmasters, questions of human identity take on a new poignancy. In this atypical introduction to the discipline of philosophy, we will explore the impact of science and technology on ideas of what it means to be human, by discussing an assortment of classical and contemporary readings.
Topics to be covered include: the limits of personhood; the mind-body problem; happiness and the good life; the ethics of human enhancement; the possibility of strong artificial intelligence and machine consciousness; the social and political implications of exponential growth in genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics; and the viability of democracy in a high-tech culture.
PHIL 102.02
General Logic
Helen Koudelková
MWF 10:10-11:00
The fundamental aim of this course is to enable students to become better thinkers and reasoners both in academic and everyday life. The course will offer a basic introduction to arguments, the methods for evaluating them, and principles of valid inferential reasoning. A primary focus will be on identifying various types of arguments, analyzing their structure, and applying appropriate standards for judging whether an argument is good or bad. Some of the areas to be covered include: deductive, inductive and conductive arguments, categorical and propositional logic, and common logical fallacies. Students should come away from the course well-equipped not only to detect faulty reasoning but to construct good arguments of their own.
PHIL 102.07
General Logic
Sarah Tyson
TR 11:00-12:15
This course will offer a general introduction to logic with the aim of helping students to improve how they reason and evaluate the reasons of others. We will start with a small unit on formal logic and then we will cover informal, categorical, and inductive reasoning. Students should leave the course more able to detect fallacious reasoning and to construct valid arguments. This course will both serve aspiring logicians and students who will use logical thinking in other disciplines.
Phil 202
Formal Logic and Applications
Robert Talisse
MWF 1:10-2:00
This is a standard course in formal logic. We begin with the basics (validity and soundness, truth functions, truth tables, tests for various logical properties) and progress to derivations in sentence and predicate logic. Along the way, we confront a range of philosophical issues and problems occasioned by formal logic.
PHIL 203
Asian Philosophies
Susan Schoenbohm
TR 11:00-12:15
In this course we will trace the development of Zen Buddhist thought and practice in the U.S. and Japan back to certain of its ancient roots in China and India. We will attempt to understand the principles of Zen thought and practice as developments of principles of thought and practice as found in earlier Buddhist, Confucian, Taoist and Hindu traditions, as well as consider some of the differences among these traditions. We will also attempt to understand some of the difficulties involved in translating ancient Asian traditions into a contemporary American context, and transformations that occur as a result of these difficulties. Our attempts to understand these Asian traditions will involve us in engagements with them at both intellectual and practical levels.
PHIL 217.01
Metaphysics
Jeffrey Tlumak
MWF 10:10-11:00
Metaphysical questions arise in pursuit of virtually every branch of philosophical inquiry and reflective living. We will explore some powerful, alternative metaphysical visions of ourselves and our relations to our natural and social environments, and to realms beyond familiar experience. Here’s my plan. General metaphysics abstracts from every feature that is peculiar to an alleged kind of being and examines the concepts and principles common to all beings. Special metaphysics concerns notions and truths which purport to apply to more specific but still very broad categories of things, especially (and perhaps exhaustively) the self, the world, and God (for example, the immortality of the self, the spatial and temporal dimensions of the world, and the omnipotence of God). I aim to motivate the more abstract concerns of general metaphysics through probing discussions in special metaphysics. Beginning with two, related, gripping issues – the challenge of evil and the status of morality, instigated by a reading of the Book of Job (in which an incontestably just person suffers with God’s consent) and Plato’s Crito (in which Socrates argues that every defensible perspective (self-interest, concern for others, respect for the state, etc.) dictates that he should accept his escapable death sentence – I aim, step-by-step, to develop alternative responses to the two problems and explore their metaphysical underpinnings and consequences. Along the way, I’ll at least touch on the (often interrelated) topics of God and nature, mind and body, free will and determinism, identity (including personal identity) and difference, space and time, appearance and reality, universals and particulars, monism and pluralism, holism and atomism, necessity and contingency, subjectivity and objectivity, and the meaning of existence, of life, and of one’s particular life. I will also broach metaphilosophical questions such as where in the proper order of inquiry should metaphysical thinking occur, and whether metaphysics is even legitimately possible. So we will focus on metaphysical issues (self, freedom, values, etc.) more obviously connected with core human concerns, especially morality and well-being, but discover that doing so systematically exposes commitments about virtually every other topic in metaphysics. I will use two, relatively short, softbound books – Robert Kane’s An Introduction to Free Will (Oxford) and John Searle’s Mind (Oxford) – and several essays posted on Blackboard, likely including 1) “Subjective and Objective” by Thomas Nagel, 2) “The Subjectivity of Values” by John Mackie, 3) Moral Realism: A Defence (excerpts) by Russ Shafer Landau 4) “Evil and Soul-Making” by John Hick, 5) “Modality and Metaphysics” by Michael Loux, 6) “Theories of Actuality” by Robert Adams, 7) “Yes, Virginia, There is a Real World” by William Alston, 8) “Time is not Real” by J.M.E. McTaggart, 9)“The Myth of Passage” by D.C. Williams, 10) “Freedom and the New Theory of Time” by Nathan Oaklander, 11) “Personal Identity” by John Locke, 12) “The Idea of God” by William Rowe, 13) “The God Beyond Time” by Hugh McCann, 14)”Life After Death” by Jeffrey Olen, and 15) “The Meaning of Life” by Kurt Baier (as well as Book of Job and Crito). Course writing requirements are three (average 6-8 page) papers. Most class meetings will be discussion-oriented.
Philosophy 240
The History of Aesthetics
Gregg M. Horowitz
TR 1:10-2:25
We will consider the leading accounts of the nature of art and the character of aesthetic experience. Our approach will be largely historical, in the sense that we will focus on the emergence, development and transformation of key concepts in the philosophy of art and aesthetic experience in texts by, for example, Plato, Burke, Hume, Kant, Schiller, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Freud. We will pay special attention to how these philosophers and thinkers conceive of the volatile relations between art and aesthetic experience on the one hand and knowledge, ethics and politics on the other. No background in philosophy required.
PHIL 246.01
Philosophy of Language
José Medina
TR 9:35-10:50
This course is a survey of core issues in Philosophy of Language: communication, meaning, reference, interpretation, performativity, and the formation of identities and communities through language. We will read and discuss the writings on language of some of the most influential thinkers in contemporary philosophy, including Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Quine, Davidson, Gadamer, Austin, Derrida, and Bourdieu. We will study how philosophical issues concerning language arise and are treated in different philosophical traditions.
Phil 252
Social and Political Philosophy
Robert Talisse
MWF 12:10-1:00
The course examines central issues and arguments in social and political philosophy, including authority, autonomy, liberty, equality, justice, rights, and democracy. Readings will be drawn from historical and contemporary sources.
PHIL 256.01
Philosophy of Mind
José Medina
TR 1:10-2:25
This course is a survey of central problems in the philosophy of mind: the relationship between mind and body, the nature of consciousness, the problem of other minds, the status of self-knowledge, and the possibility of artificial intelligence. Especial attention will be given to the complex relationship between personal identity, consciousness, and the unconscious. We will read both historical figures and contemporary authors. We will also consider philosophical assessments of psychological research on mental illness and personality disorders.
PHIL 262.01
Islamic Philosophy
Lenn E. Goodman
MWF 2:10-3:00
A survey of the chief achievements of Islamic philosophy. Thinkers studied include al-Kindi, known as the Philosopher of the Arabs; the iconoclastic physician al-Razi; the great logician, Platonist and philosopher of politics and culture, al-Farabi, called the Second teacher; the cosmopolitan Sincere Brethren of Basra; Avicenna (Ibn Sina), the prince of philosophers; his critic al-Ghazali, “the Proof of Islam,” author of The Incoherence of the Philosophers; Averroes (Ibn Rushd), author of the spirited defense of Aristotelian philosophy, The Incoherence of the Incoherence; the imaginative thinker who tried to heal the rift between philosophy and Islam, Ibn Tufayl; and the great social philosopher Ibn Khaldun, who founded a new science, which he called the science of civilization.
PHIL 353.03
Figures in Phil: Derrida
Charles Scott
TR 4:00-6:00
A study of Jacques Derrida's Of Grammatology, The Gift of Death, "Plato's Pharmacy," and "Differance." We will pay special attention to his accounts of differance, trace, writing, deconstruction, substitution, pharmakos, metaphysical thinking, secret, and responsibility.
PHIL 353.04
Figures in Phil: Philosophy of Language (20th C.)
José Medina
TR 7:00-9:00
This seminar will focus on core debates in semantics and pragmatics in the 20th Century. Central topics will include communication, meaning, reference, truth, interpretation, and the relationship between language and identity. Especial attention will be given to Speech Act Theories both in the analytic and in the Continental tradition. We will study some of the most important authors in 20th Century Philosophy of Language: Wittgenstein, Austin, Derrida, Davidson, Foucault, Bourdieu, and Butler, among others.
