Courses
PHIL 201 - Logic
This course is an introduction to the formal logic of propositions, identity, and quantification, which may include metalogic, philosophy of logic, alternate and deviant logics, and applying formal logic when evaluating real arguments.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.);
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts;
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
PHIL 203 - Introduction to Ethics
An examination of selected historical and contemporary accounts of how we should live, of what makes life good, of what does harm, of what constrains our actions, and of what gives our lives meaning.
PHIL 204 - Introduction to Epistemology
An examination of the sources, structure, and scope of knowledge and justification.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.);
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts;
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
PHIL 207 - Persons and Their Lives
What is it to be a person, and to live a life distinctive of persons? This course will explore a variety of philosophical issues relevant to answering these questions, among them: What is it to be the same person across time? Is a person essentially a mind? Is there something distinctive about the way persons act? Must their actions always be rational, and must agents always pursue some perceived good? Do persons have free will? What makes a life meaningful? Is immortality required for a meaningful life, or can only mortals have meaningful lives?
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.);
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts;
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
PHIL 208 - Introduction to Environmental Ethics
Something is morally considerable if we have a moral obligation with respect to it. The first half of the class will address the question of whether non-human animals are morally considerable: that is, do we have moral obligations to non-human animals? What grounds these obligations: their welfare, their rights, their interests? What are rights, anyway? The second half of the class will address the question of whether plants, species, and ecosystems are morally considerable, and what might ground their moral considerability. Do they have intrinsic worth independent of their worth to humans or is their worth of solely instrumental value? Do they have aesthetic value? What is aesthetic value anyway? If they are merely instrumentally valuable, how do we take into consideration their instrumental value to future humans who don't yet exist? Are non-existent humans morally considerable? If so, how?
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
PHIL 209 - Minds, Computers, Worlds
This course will introduce and consider a number of interrelated philosophical questions about minds, computers, and the world(s) they inhabit: Is the human mind identical with the human brain? What exactly is a computer, and could a computer have a genuine mind? How "real" are the "virtual" realities created by actual and possible computers and minds? Could our minds, and could the physical world, turn out to be parts of a computer or computer simulation?
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
PHIL 210 - Introduction to Ancient Philosophy
This course explores the metaphysics, ethics, and epistemology of the pre-Socratics, the Sophists, Plato, Aristotle, the Epicureans, the Stoics, and the Skeptics. All these schools explored still-essential questions, such as: What are the ultimate constituents of reality? What is the nature of causation? What is a soul? What is knowledge, and what can we know? Is there a best way to live, and, if so, what is it? What is justice? How is my good related to the goods of others? The course seeks both to understand and situate the ancient texts historically and to discover philosophical insights that remain relevant in the social and scientific context of the twenty-first century.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
PHIL 213 - Philosophy of Religion
This course is an analysis of the nature and grounds of religious belief. Topics include classic and contemporary arguments for the existence of God, the problem of evil, the problem of freedom and foreknowledge, the relation between faith and reason, the meaningfulness of religious language, and the prospects for religious pluralism.
PHIL 214 - Philosophy of Memoir
In this course we will read memoirs alongside philosophical texts exploring personal identity, the nature of the self, mind, memory, imagination, truth, justice, friendship, and the meaning of life. The course will raise questions like the following: If a memoir is a work of art, does it matter if it is true? Do narrative arcs truthfully represent life? Are lives and persons unified in the way that stories are unified? How are you related to your past? How is your present well-being related to time and to the overall shape of your life? How are you related to others, and how do those relationships generate obligations? Should you tell your story even if it hurts others? In what sense is your story yours to tell?
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
PHIL 220 - Philosophical Topics
An examination of commonly held but philosophically untenable views on the nature of colors, numbers, minds, morals, and meaning, as well as philosophically tenable but uncommonly held views on the same topics.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
PHIL 301 - Ancient Philosophy
This course focuses on the relationship between ethics and metaphysics in Aristotle, Epicurus, the Stoics, and the Skeptics. For these ancient thinkers, ethics begins with and focuses on the agent's life as a whole. Their ethical theories view lives intricately embedded into the social context, and their distinctive approach to ethics takes root in natural science. The course seeks both to understand and situate the texts historically and to discover philosophical insights that remain relevant in the social and scientific context of the twenty-first century.
PHIL 302 - Modern Philosophy
This course is an introduction to the metaphysical and epistemological views of major modern philosophers such as Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. This course applies to the department's history of philosophy requirement.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
PHIL 306 - History of Modern Social and Political Philosophy
This course is an introduction to modern social and political thought and its epistemological foundations, covering authors from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, such as Machiavelli, More, Erasmus, Luther, Montaigne, Galileo, Descartes, Pascal, Hobbes, and Locke.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
PHIL 310 - Metaphysics
This course is a study of the central topics and problems of metaphysics, including the mind-body problem, free will and determinism, persistence and change, and the natures of particulars, properties, time, space modality, causality, identity, and persons.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.);
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts;
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
PHIL 311 - Epistemology
This course is an introduction to the central topics in the theory of knowledge, including the nature of knowledge, the nature of epistemic justification, and varieties of skepticism.
PHIL 312 - Ethical Theories
This course is an introduction to the central theories and problems of ethics.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
PHIL 313 - Color
Do colors really exist? If so, what are they? These simple questions launch a grand tour of philosophy. We begin by surveying the current science of color and color perception and reviewing the philosophical theories of color from the Enlightenment (Boyle, Locke, Berkeley). We then ask how color terms refer, examine color-based arguments for dualism, and finally evaluate the various contemporary metaphysics of color: eliminativism, relativism, dispositionalism, identity theory, and sense data theory.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
PHIL 315 - Philosophy of Language
This course is a study of such topics as truth, reference, meaning, convention, linguistic and nonlinguistic communication, and the relationships between language, thought, and reality.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.);
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts;
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
PHIL 316 - Philosophy of Science
A philosophical investigation of the nature of science and the light science sheds on the world. Topics covered include the difference between science and pseudoscience, the Quine/Duhem thesis on the underdetermination of theory by evidence, the problem of induction and the grue paradox, the problem of scientific confirmation, Bayesian approaches to confirmation, the nature of scientific explanations and scientific theories, the nature and philosophical implications of scientific revolutions, the rationality of science, the social construction of scientific facts, scientific realism and scientific social responsibility.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.);
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts;
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
PHIL 317 - Philosophy of Mind
This course is a philosophical study of the mind through an examination of such subtopics as the mind-body problem, consciousness, experience, perception, intentionality, externalism, and mental causation.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
PHIL 318 - Philosophy of Biology
This course is a philosophical study of such topics as adaptation; units of selection; emergence and reduction; function and teleology; the nature of life; the nature and epistemological status of biological mechanisms; the nature and epistemological status of species; evolutionary trends; implications of evolutionary theory for psychology, culture, epistemology, and ethics; and the social implications of contemporary biology and biotechnology (such as the human genome project, genetic engineering, and artificial life).
PHIL 320 - Topics in Logic
The course covers topics in logic relevant to contemporary philosophy, beyond the basic elements of first-order logic. Topics covered may include: definite descriptions and scope; elementary metalogic (e.g., soundness and completeness theorems); plural logic; nonexistence and free logic; higher-order logic; generalized quantifiers; temporal and modal logics; epistemic logic; vagueness; paraconsistent logic.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
PHIL 370 - Junior Seminar (Philosophy)
An intensive study of selected philosophical problems or works. The course aims to develop in each student the skills needed to do independent work in philosophy by having the student write a long research paper on a topic defined by the readings.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.);
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts;
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
PHIL 411 - Advanced Topics in Metaphysics
Ancient Greek Science
This course on ancient Greek science focuses on Aristotle's physics, biology, astronomy and meteorology and ends with special attention on his relationship to the Hippocratic writings On Regimen, On Flesh, and On Ancient Medicine. While Aristotle and his philosophical predecessors sought theoretical explanations for natural phenomena, ancient doctors had the more practical objective of inquiring into nature in order to harness its power for the production of health. How does ancient medicine navigate a path between the theoretical project of philosophy and the practice of ancient magic, with which it shares practical goals?
Ontology
This course will consider several contemporary debates concerning ontology, including whether a minimalist (sometimes called "nihilist"), common-sense, or plenitudinous ontology of (material) objects has a stronger claim to being true; the ontology of the social (groups, "socially constructed" entities); whether "abstract" objects exist and what their abstractness consists in; and the "meta-ontological" issue of the nature of ontological commitment.
Time and Modality
Through close reading and discussion of ancient, medieval, and contemporary texts, this course investigates the natures and existence of diachronic modalities-modalities that appear to be sensitive to temporal matters, such as future contingencies, past necessities, and what is inevitable or "could not have been otherwise."
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
PHIL 412 - Advanced Topics in Epistemology
Computation
This course surveys the important epistemological roles of computation in philosophy and science, especially concerning complex systems. The course surveys computation theory, and it includes computer laboratory exercises involving programming and computer simulations. Key course topics are illustrated with case studies, such as cellular automata, artificial life, and intelligent robot scientists.
Testimony and Trust
Most knowledge rests, either directly or indirectly, on the testimony of others. But the nature of testimony and its proper role in our epistemic lives remains poorly understood. This course takes up both of the issues just mentioned, as well as related questions of the nature of epistemic authority, the contours of epistemic injustice, and the relation between self-trust and trust in others. We will aim to investigate these general and abstract questions with an eye towards understanding the shifting social epistemic landscape of our own time, including debates over censorship in social media, political polarization, and decentralized systems of knowledge transmission.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.);
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts;
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
PHIL 413 - Advanced Topics in Ethics
The Ethics of Partiality
This course will examine the extent and limits of morally justified partial treatment. Some questions we will examine are: Is loyalty a virtue? Is it ever morally justified? How might we distinguish morally acceptable forms of loyalty (e.g., patriotism) from morally reprehensible forms (e.g., racism)? How can we justify special obligations toward some individuals (e.g., members of our family) without thinking that they are morally more important? What is it to treat others "equally?" Is impartiality really a moral ideal we should strive toward?
Morality at the Margin: What We Owe to Animals, A.I., and Future Generations
This course will examine issues around the moral status of, and our moral obligations to things at the margin of what we might call "the moral circle." Beginning with questions of what constitutes "moral standing," we will go on to ask whether there is reason to think that moral standing might be limited to our species, and whether species membership could be sufficient. If not, how far might it extend? How should we understand our obligations to animals? How could we have moral obligations to the merely possible people that make up future generations? And to what extent might sufficiently sophisticated A.I. "agents" lay claim to our moral concern?
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
PHIL 414 - Advanced Topics in Contemporary Philosophy
Philosophy of Money
What is money? Is it a certain kind of stuff, or is it debt? Must money come from a state? Are cryptocurrencies a form of money? These are metaphysical questions, a subset of social ontology. But they are simultaneously anthropological-historical questions about the origins of money, economic questions about a certain natural kind, and disguised ethical questions about what money ought to be and whose interests it ought to serve. This course surveys answers to the questions above with the twofold goal of clarifying the nature of those questions and attempting to answer them.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.);
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
PHIL 415 - Major Figures in Philosophy
Descartes
A course on the philosophy of René Descartes primarily through close reading, study, and discussion of Descartes's Meditations. Other works by Descartes are to be discussed occasionally, and some secondary literature is to be considered.
- Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.);
- Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts;
- Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).