Our Course Descriptions

Instructors' Course Descriptions for Fall 2008

The following descriptions of courses being offered by the Philosophy Department in Fall 2008 were submitted by the course instructors. Exceptions are descriptions in brackets {…}, which have been adopted from the Undergraduate Catalogue (students desiring further information regarding the specific content of courses with bracketed descriptions are advised to contact the instructors directly).

Specific information regarding the dates, times, and locations of these courses may be found in the Registrar’s official Schedule of Courses for Fall 2008.

If the instructor is designated as ‘Staff’, the actual instructor for the course has yet to be determined. If you are looking for a complete syllabus for a course, check the Syllabi area for availability.

Descriptions

PHI 2010 Intro to Philosophy – Dr. Ray

(Sections 0948, 2013, 2756, 2971, 5904, 5915, 5916, 5928, 5952)

In this course, we will read and discuss classic and contemporary essays from two central areas of philosophy: metaphysics and epistemology. Recent renditions of this class have covered topics such as: the problem of personal identity, the ontology of material objects, the existence of a god, the problem of free will, the possibility of time travel, and the nature of mind and knowledge.

PHI 2010 Introduction to Philosophy (sect. 2963) – STAFF

{An introduction to philosophy through study of traditional questions about the existence of God, the nature of the mind, the definition of good, freedom of the will, and criteria of truth and knowledge. Topics can vary with the instructor.}

PHI 2010 Introduction to Philosophy (sect. 2964) – STAFF

PHI 2630 Contemporary Moral Issues (sect. 5798) – STAFF

[An introduction to moral philosophy through selected contemporary issues, e.g. abortion, euthanasia, genetic engineering and the treatment of animals. (H) (WR)]

PHI 2630 Contemporary Moral Issues (sect. 5800) – STAFF

[An introduction to moral philosophy through selected contemporary issues, e.g. abortion, euthanasia, genetic engineering and the treatment of animals. (H) (WR)]

PHM 2204 Social Issues & Political Thought – Dr. Copp

(Sections 1103,1771,1781,1793,1829,1843)

This is a course in the philosophical underpinnings of democratic government, and on the tension between security on the one hand and democracy and civil liberties on the other hand. To illustrate this tension, in the last part of the course we will focus on issues raised by war and terrorism. Overall, the goal of the course is to investigate the cogency of arguments that can be given for (1) democracy (understood as majority rule), (2) restricting majority rule by constitutional protections for individual and minority rights, (3) abridging majority rule or constitutional protections for individual and minority rights to ensure the security of the state in the face of internal or external threats of various kinds.

PHH 3100 Ancient Greek Philosophy – Dr. Palmer

(Sections 5288, 5425, 5434)

This course is the first part of the Philosophy Department’s 3000-level history of philosophy sequence. It is designed to familiarize students with some of the main ideas of those thinkers who stand at the beginning of the western philosophical tradition. Although the primary focus will be on the three great figures of the Classical Period of Greek philosophy–namely, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle–there will also be some discussion of early Greek philosophy (Presocratics and Sophists) as well as later developments during the Hellenistic era among (Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics). Registration for sections 5425 and 5434 of PHH 3100 is temporarily restricted to philosophy majors and minors. This temporary access restriction expires on July 1. 2008.

PHH 3200 Medieval Philosophy – Dr. Palmer

(Sections 5437, 5438, 5443)

Medieval philosophy, or the philosophy of Western Europe between the Classical Antiquity and the Renaissance, can broadly be characterized as the period when philosophers sought to integrate philosophical speculation with the doctrines of the major religious traditions, primarily those of the Christian church, but also those of Judaism and and Islam. Although medieval philosophers tended to approach philosophical problems from a religious or theological perspective, their approach remained essentially rational and thus properly philosophical. This course will focus on some of the period’s major philosophical problems, including our knowledge of God’s existence, the compatibility of the divine attributes, the problem of evil, the compatibility of divine foreknowledge and human free will, the problem of universals. We shall attend closely to the positions and arguments developed by the period’s major thinkers, including Augustine, Boethius, Avicenna, Anselm, Ableard, Averroes, Moses Maimonides, Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham.

PHI 3300 Theory of Knowledge (sect. 0203) – Dr. Ludwig

The three fundamental questions of the theory of knowledge are: What is knowledge?, What do we know?, and How do we know it? This course will be concerned with the problem space these questions generate and with the contemporary literature that responds to it.

The theory of knowledge is of fundamental importance in itself, as delimiting the range of the ambition of human inquiry and characterizing the nature of its goal, and as a critical tool in every area of philosophy for the development of the proper method on inquiry.

We will organize our discussion around the central problematic of the theory of knowledge, namely, skepticism – the view that we do not have knowledge at all or the view that do not have knowledge in one other another area of inquiry, such as the external world, other minds, the unobservable, the future, the past, etc. All the central issues of the theory of knowledge are fallout of the response to the problem of skepticism: how stringent are the requirements for knowledge and justification, what are our fundamental ways of coming to know things in various domains, what are the interrelations between the kind of entities or facts we think we have knowledge of and the ways in which we can come to know them, what is the connection between justification and knowledge and objective reality, what is the relation between first-order and higher-order knowledge and justification, what sort of cognitive access to the mechanisms that connect belief reliably to the world are required for knowledge and justification, is knowledge context dependent, does knowledge have a foundation and if so of what kind or kinds, is knowledge and justification a matter of a set of mutually supporting beliefs, what are the limits on the possibility of reflective endorsement of our claims to justification and knowledge, and what is distinctive about conceptual (or a priori) as opposed to empirical (or a posteriori) knowledge and justification?

Primary text: Epistemology: An Anthology, ed. by Ernest Sosa and Jaegwon Kim, Blackwell.

Registration for PHI 3300 is temporarily restricted to philosophy majors and minors. This temporary access restriction expires on July 1, 2008.

PHH 3400 Modern Philosophy (sect. 2914) – Dr. Duncan

This course is an introduction to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European philosophy. We will focus on four prominent philosophical works of the period: Descartes’s Discourse on the Method, Leibniz’s ‘Discourse on Metaphysics’, Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding, and Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. We will also consider the work of other philosophers of the period, such as Hobbes and Berkeley. The course will focus on the philosophers’ views in metaphysics and epistemology, but will also look at views in the physical sciences and in ethics. Assessment will involve a series of quizzes, two papers, and final exam. Registration for PHH 3400 is temporarily restricted to philosophy majors and minors. This temporary access restriction expires on July 1, 2008.

PHI 3420 Philosophy of Social Science – Dr. Liu

(Section 5827, 5840, 5841)

This course concerns the nature of rationality and personhood, two fundamental concepts that lie at the foundation of social sciences and ethics. In order to have a clear and integrated idea of how a large number of issues concerning the two concepts are handled with consummate philosophical skills, we conduct a detailed study of the classic, Reasons and Persons, by Derek Parfit. You are required to carefully read (and re-read) the assigned readings and evaluate the moves and steps made by Parfit in his arguments before coming to class each week; and you are expected to actively participate in class discussion whose goal is to clarify and, if applicable, criticize some of those moves and steps. The ultimate goal of this course is to help you appreciate the depth and range of issues that one has to confront before one even begins to think about how social sciences are, in a philosophical sense, possible.

The topics in this book include, the self-interest theory of rationality (S), consequentialism (C), self-defeating theories (individually or collectively), prisoner’s dilemma, common-sense moral theory, the present-aim theory (P), psychological egoism, rational altruism, the temporal neutrality of S, the full relativity of S or C, the irrationality of motivation, the physical criterion of personal identity, the psychological criterion of personal identity, the Cartesian-Ego concept of personal identity, the redutionist concept of personal identity, relation R, psychological continuity, psychological connectedness, teletransportation, quasi-memories, quasi-intentions, successive selves, reductionist utilitarianism, the non-identity problem, the overpopulation problem, the quality of life problem, the narrow (and the wide) person-affecting principle, the mere addition paradox.

PHI 3650 Moral Philosophy (sect. 2947) – Dr. Oshana

Moral philosophy addresses questions of the following sorts: I. How should a person behave, especially when faced with morally complex situations? Which moral principles can help us decide what to do in such situations? What constitutes a morally appropriate life? II. When we say that it is wrong to harm one person in order to benefit others, what do we mean by this? How do we justify such claims? Can moral disputes be settled by appealing to objective criteria of right and wrong, good and evil, etc.? Or, is morality an essentially subjective matter, relative to individuals or to cultures? In this class we will explore both kinds of questions.

This class will focus on historical works from three major schools of western ethical theory, each of which offers a distinctive perspective on the nature of morality. We will begin in Ancient Greece with the philosopher Aristotle, an aristocrat and tutor of Alexander the Great, who gave birth to the moral philosophy known today as virtue theory. Next, we will study the work of Immanuel Kant, an 18th century German pietist, who views morality as a function of reason, and who judges moral worth in terms of a person’s commitment to the moral law as to an end in itself. Finally, we will examine the ethical theory of utilitarianism, a development of the social reform movement of 19th century England, in which the actions and choices of both individuals and institutions are assessed for moral worth in light of their consequences. Our readings will include recent selections by male and female philosophers who have continued to develop these three schools of thought.

Registration for PHI 3650 is temporarily restricted to philosophy majors and minors. This temporary access restriction expires on July 1, 2008.

PHP 3786 Existentialism – Dr. Auxter

(Sections 3224, 3225, 3226)

{An examination of the existentialist movement in philosophy through readings from such figures as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Sartre.}

PHI 3930 Aesthetics – Dr. Müller

(Sections 3169, 5849, 5880)

A systematic introduction to basic problems and issues in aesthetics. The topics include: nature of art, art and beauty, interpretation, aesthetics and ethics. We shall read both historical and contemporary literature. Requirements include two papers and a midterm and final examination.

PHI 3950 Philosophical Writing for Majors (sect. 7296) – Dr. Tresan

This is an intensive writing course designed to prepare you for further work in philosophy (and argumentative writing in general). The focus is practice not theory, so be ready for lots of writing. Producing a philosophy paper involves three main elements: research, thinking, and writing. We’ll focus on the latter two, so there won?t be lots of reading or lecture material (much class time is devoted to discussions of student papers). For material we’ll focus on traditional philosophical issues, possibly including the mind-body problem, skepticism, philosophy of religion, and free will. Registration for PHI 3950 is restricted to philosophy majors.

PHI 4330 Philosophy of Action (sect. 5919) – Dr. Ludwig

Agency is expressed in doing something intentionally. The philosophy of action is concerned with the nature of agency. The philosophy of action studies the concepts of agency, action, intention, deliberation, will, volition, belief and desire, rationality and irrationality, and the role of agency in social organization, including that necessary for language and systems of morality. The philosophy of action is a subfield of the philosophy of mind. It has important connections with ethics, epistemology, social and political philosophy, the philosophy of history, the philosophy of the social sciences, the philosophy of science more generally, the philosophy of language, the philosophy of art, and traditional areas of metaphysics such as the problem of freedom of the will–in short, with any area of philosophy in which an understanding of what it is to be an agent and to perform an action is connected with the subject matter. My own view is that some acquaintance with basic work in the philosophy of action is extremely important for anyone who is seriously interested in any of the areas I have listed above and generally important for anyone who aspires to a general competency in philosophy.

This course aims to provide a contemporary introduction to basic issues in the philosophy of action, with special emphasis on collective agency. We will be concerned with the following issues:

• nature of action and agency, including the individuation of actions, • the nature of action explanation and • its relation to causal explanations and scientific explanations of human behavior, • what count as reasons for actions, • what distinguishes intentional from unintentional action, • the nature of practical deliberation, • the role of intention in action, • the nature of irrational action, in particular, weakness of will, and • the nature of collective action.

At least one quarter of the course will be taken up with the last topic.

Texts: Donald Davidson, Essays on Actions and Events, Oxford University Press; Alfred Mele, ed., Philosophy of Action, Oxford University Press; Kirk Ludwig, Understanding Collective Agency, book manuscript.

PHI 4542 Philosophy of Space and Time (sect. 5920) – Dr. Liu

This course takes an in-depth, semi-historical approach to the issues concerning the nature of space, time, and space-time. We will read excepts, with commentaries, of such philosophers and scientists as Plato, Aristotle, Copernicus, Leibniz, Newton, and Einstein. We will discuss such famous debates on the nature of space and time as the Leibniz-Clarke debate over whether space and time are substances or relations. We then read mostly contemporary philosophical investigations of the nature of time, discussing such issues as whether time is real or illusory, what the relation is between time and change, etc. We will also explore the meaning of Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity, and their implications on our conceptions of space and time. The course will be run in a seminar style, with in-class discussions of the ideas and issues as the main components. Students will be assigned two papers as part of the requirements for the course, one short at the middle of the term, one long at the end, and a final take-home exam.

PHH 4644 Continental Philosophy (sect. 5444) – Dr. D’Amico

The aim of this course will be to reexamine the early years of the so-called continental philosophical tradition. We will start with selections from Franz Brentano and Alexius Meinong who debated the relationship between psychology and philosophy and a proper understanding of objects of thought. These debates provide the proper context for reading Edmund Husserl’s writings on psychologism, logic and epistemolgy. We will then examine a range of responses to Husserl ‘s project for a rigorous philosophical method from, for instance, Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty among others. The course will finally consider debates about whether there are two separate philosophical traditions. Among our readings will be; Michael Dummett, Origins of Analytic Philosophy, Realism and the Rise of Phenomenology (edited by R. Chisholm), and Cambridge Companion to Brentano (edited by D. Jacquette). Please do not purchase any texts until you have the syllabus from the first class meeting.

PHI 4662 Ethical Theory I (sect. 5926) – Dr. Müller

{Advanced topics in moral theory, such as cognitivism, obligations and permissions, moral reasons and moral epistemology. }