This course is an introduction to such major themes in the history of philosophy as the nature of reality and our capacity to know it; issues of ethics and justice; and conceptions of how one should live. Readings will include selections from a diverse range of traditions, including Western, Hindu, Buddhist, Chinese, African, Native American, Latin American, and feminist texts.

An introduction to some key issues in three of the main areas of Western philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology and value theory. Readings in each area will be drawn from the classical and modern traditions: for example, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, and Bertrand Russell. In all cases we will attempt to see the connections between the traditional problems of philosophy and the concerns of our own lives.

When we disagree with others, we typically try to persuade them. We do it by using arguments. The purpose of the this course is to examine the different kinds of arguments available and distinguish between those that should work and those that shouldn't. In addition to the textbook we will examine the persuasiveness and validity of arguments in newspapers, the scientific literature, and any source suggested by the students.

Bertrand Russell has said: "philosophy, like all other studies, aims primarily at knowledge. The knowledge it aims at is the kind of knowledge which gives unity and system to the body of the sciences, and the kind which results from a critical examination of the grounds of our convictions, prejudices, and beliefs". In this course we will examine several philosophical searches for such unprejudiced unifying knowledge. We will walk through some arguments concerning the existence of God and the external world. We will look at several models of the relations between the mind and the body and see how they bear on arguments concerning the ability of robots to think. We will also examine the implicit beliefs underlying our moral and social convictions by looking at several models of what is morally right or wrong.

Most people believe that they have one life to live, that this life will be of a roughly specifiable duration, and that it must be lived under specifiable conditions. Furthermore, they believe that they will determine and must determine by active choice the precise form their life shall assume out of an indefinite number of different possible lives. Given these assumptions, as a rational being, how should one proceed? Upon what principles should one choose to live ones life? Many philosophers have thought this question to be extremely important, a proper subject of rational thought, and answerable. Answerable or not, it is a question we all must face. We shall critically examine the answers to this question which have been given by four influential western philosophers: Aristotle, Epictetus, Kant, and J. S. Mill.

The course will examine a variety of feminist philosophical approaches to issues surrounding modern culture's production of images of sexuality and gender. Some background readings will provide a sketch of a diverse range of feminist theoretical frameworks -- liberal, socialist, radical, psychoanalytic, and postmodern -- with readings from Alison Jaggar, Simone de Beauvoir, Annie Leclerc, Christine Delphy, Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, Sarah Kofman, and Hélène Cixous. However, this is primarily an "applied" philosophy course rather than a course focusing on theory. We will explore such issues as the cultural enforcement of both feminine and masculine gender identities, the mass-marketing of popular cultural images of sexuality, gender, and race, the urban environment and women's sense of space, the intersection of feminism and environmentalism, the logic of subjection governing cultural ideals of women's bodies (dieting, exercise, clothing, bodily comportment), issues of rape, sexual violence and harassment, pornography, and feminist perspectives of different ethnic groups. We will also screen a number of films and videos, including the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings, Madonna's "Truth or Dare," and documentaries on the pre-Stonewall femme-butch bar-scene culture of the 1950s and 60s, anorexia, rape on campus, the pornographic film industry, and several others.

An introduction to one of the classic texts of western philosophy, Kant's magnum opus, The Critique of Pure Reason. Prerequisite: a previous course in philosophy and permission of the instructor.

The course readings from a variety of Sartre's philosophic texts, including Existentialism, Anti-Semite and Jew, Essays in Aesthetics, and Being and Nothingness, and a number of his novels and plays, including Nausea, The Wall, No Exit, The Respectful Prostitute, Dirty Hands, and The Devil and the Good Lord. The relation between the two genres of Sartre's writing is explored, including the extent to which the philosophic and literary productions complement each other.