Fall 2009 Course Descriptions
PHIL 100W.06
Introduction to Philosophy (W)
Mark Peter
MWF 12:10-1:00
This course introduces some common concepts and
concerns developed in western philosophy such as identity, freedom,
morality, consciousness, faith, and knowledge. Our reading list will
consist of older figures such as Plato, Hume, Berkeley, as well as more
contemporary thinkers like Sartre, who have used the "dialogue" genre to
explore philosophical questions. The aim of this course is to make visible
how we are already proto-philosophers, using philosophical concepts and
ways of thinking without even recognizing it. The hope is to begin to be
more aware of them, more aware of ourselves, in thinking through these
ideas we live by.
PHIL 102.02, 102.04, 102.06
General Logic
Scott Aikin
MWF 10:10-11:00, 12:10-1, 1:10-2
Introduction to Logic: We will briefly survey three broadly
defined systems of logic: propositional, categorical, and informal logics.
We will then address a series of philosophical problems in logic.
Phil 202
Formal Logic and Applications
José Medina
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 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 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 A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will (Oxford, 2005) and John Searle's Mind: A Brief Introduction (Oxford, 2004) - and several essays posted on Blackboard, including 1) "Soul-Making Theodicy" by John Hick, 2) Crito by Plato, 3) "The Subjectivity of Values" by John Mackie, 4) "Ethics as Philosophy: A Defense of Ethical Nonnaturalism" by Russ Shafer- Landau, 5) "The Human Quest" by Robert Kane, 6) "Subjective and Objective" by Thomas Nagel, 7) "The Nature of Time" by Michael Loux, 8) "Constitution" by Ted Sider, 9) "The Problem of Universals" by Charles Landesman, 10) "Propositions and Their Neighbors" by Michael Loux, 11) "The Idea of God" by William Rowe, 12) "The God Beyond Time" by Hugh McCann, 13) "Of Identity and Diversity" by John Locke, 14) "The Problem of Personal Identity" by John Perry, 15) "The Necessary and the Possible" by Michael Loux, 16) "Theories of Actuality" by Robert Adams, and 17) some excerpts on the meaning of life. Course writing requirements are three (average 6-8 page) papers. Most class meetings will be discussion-oriented.
Philosophy 240
The History of Aesthetics
Jonathan A. Neufeld
TR 2:35-3:50
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, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume, Kant, Schiller, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. 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 243.01
Philosophy of Film
Gregg Horowitz
TR 1:10-2:25
The medium of film raises unique problems for interpretation and aesthetic theory. As a young medium, just more than one hundred years old, film stands in anxious and uncertain relation to more traditional art forms and functions as a kind of laboratory for the invention and development of new artistic norms. As a medium that enables the use of space and time, sound and image, word and narrative, film jumbles together the capacities specific to the other arts; it thereby risks representational and artistic incoherence, but at the same time opens up unanticipated possibilities for representation and art. And as a medium that has given rise to ever-expanding industries of entertainment and documentation, film blurs the line between art and mass culture. In this course, we will investigate these problems of film theory and practice by watching a mix of films from different periods, countries, and genres, and analyzing them with the help of readings drawn from philosophy, film theory, film criticism, and film history. We will pay special attention to the question of how particular films invent new possibilities for the medium by taking up for themselves the problems of film's specificity and uniqueness as a medium.
PHIL 246.01
Philosophy of Language
José Medina
MWF 11:10-12:00
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: Foucault
Charles Scott
T 3:10-5:30
A study of Foucault’s archeological/genealogical thought. We will work in class on texts in the assigned material that will include major parts of: Madness and Civilization, The Order of Things, Power/Knowledge, and The History of Sexuality, Vol. III (The Care of the Self).
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.
