91381

PHIL 107 Informal Logic

James Brudvig

M . W . F

10:10 - 11:05 am

OLIN 204

HUM

The focus of this course is informal logic, though it begins with a thorough examination of syllogistic reasoning. There are two reasons for this. First, people often reason syllogistically, so it is helpful to learn how to do it well and avoid error. Second, a primer in syllogistic logic requires close attention to fundamentals of reasoning, such as the use and meaning of quantifiers, and is, therefore, important ground to cover before engaging real world arguments that are often linguistically and logically complex. Following this introduction to the logic of the syllogism, we move to the analysis of ordinary language arguments. We start with simple arguments and learn to diagram them to see how they work logically. Next, we set out a topology of mistakes in informal arguments. Finally, in this section of the course, we attempt to identify examples in the daily press of informal fallacies. The last part of the course looks at the arguments in more sophisticated pieces of writing. Articles from law, social and environmental policy, and philosophy provide challenging examples of critical reasoning. The goal in this section is to not so much to find logical fallacies (though they happen at this high level, too), but rather to use the tools of informal and formal analysis learned previously to try to better understand (and then criticize) the arguments of their authors. Class size: 22

91383

PHIL 113 Introduction to the Philosophy of Education

Ariana Stokas

. T . Th .

11:50 -1:10 pm

HEG 204

HUM

Cross-listed: Cognitive Science The course seeks to introduce students to philosophical thinking about education.  Course work centers around the close reading of primary texts in the history of ideas, with a focus on how these texts illuminate the meanings and significance of educational practice. We will draw from ontology, epistemology, aesthetics and ethics in our effort to understand the nature and purposes of education. We will engage questions such as: What is education? Is education something that occurs only in a school environment? Why do we create schools and does education, understood as an ontological entity, show us something about the nature of human existence? What is "teaching"? How does teaching differ from other social practices such as medicine, law, social work, and nursing? How does teaching differ from parenting and friendship? And what, or who, is a "teacher"? Should teachers be certain kinds of persons, with certain kinds of moral and intellectual sensibilities? What is worth knowing and studying? Posed differently, what is a "curriculum"? What is a "course of study"? Is the latter a body of facts to be memorized? A set of questions to be posed and contemplated? A conversation about how we perceive and understand the world? What are the grounds, rationales, and philosophies of life educators might appeal to in their response to such questions? And why might it be important to address such questions before teaching students, whether in schools, universities, or other sites? Texts include: Plato, The Republic, Aristotle, The Nichomachean Ethics, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Emile, Rabindranath Tagore, Personality, John Dewey, Experience and Education, Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought, and Paulo Freire, Pedagogy Of The Oppressed. Class size: 22

91376

PHIL 115 Introduction to the Philosophy Of the Mind

Kritika Yegnashankaran

M . W . .

1:30 -2:50 pm

RKC 102

HUM

In this course, we will think about immaterial spirits, futuristic robots, fake computers with little people inside, Martians who behave like us but have an internal structure very different from ours, brains in vats, and 'swampmen' who are formed by random aggregation of molecules. We will ask whether these strange characters have thoughts and feelings, and whether, if so, they are like us in what they think and feel. The point is not to consider bizarre cases just for the sake of it, but to see what light they can shed on the nature of the mind. As such, they will be our entry into investigating central issues in the philosophy of mind, such as the mind-brain-body relation, mental representation, and conscious awareness. Class size: 22

91494

PHIL 116 "What is" Philosophy?

Ruth Zisman

. T . Th .

11:50 -1:10 pm

ASP 302

HUM

This course will examine canonical texts throughout the history of philosophy that pose the question, “what is…?” Specifically, we will address the philosophical assumptions, implications, and consequences of “what is…?” questions. What are we really asking when we ask what something is? What type of knowledge do we anticipate or hope to receive when asking this question? What value do we attribute to such knowledge? In what sense is “what is…?” a fundamentally philosophical question? This class will serve as an introduction to philosophical thinking through a posing of these questions and through an exploration of the important philosophical ideas and issues to which they give rise, such as the concept of essence, the nature and ends of knowledge, and the systems by which values are created. We will begin by reading Plato’s Symposium on the question ‘what is love?’ and Plato’s Republic on the question ‘what is justice?’ From here we will proceed to Aristotle’s Ethics on ‘what is good?,’ Kant’s An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?, Nietzsche’s On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense on ‘what is truth?,’ Heidegger’s What is Metaphysics? and What is Called Thinking?, Sartre’s What is Literature?, Hannah Arendt’s What is Freedom?, Michel Foucault’s What is an Author?, Judith Butler’s What is Critique?, and, lastly, Deleuze and Guattari’s What is philosophy? Course requirements include regular attendance and participation, two short papers, one longer paper, and an informal class presentation in which students lead a class discussion on one of the assigned texts. Class size: 22

91183

PHIL / CMSC 131 Cognitive Science

Rebecca Thomas Lab:

M . W . . . . . . F

8:30 -9:50 am 8:30 - 10:25 am

RKC 101 RKC 107

SSCI

See CMSC section for description.

91390

PHIL / PS 134 Constitutional Law

Roger Berkowitz

M . W . .

3:10 -4:30 pm

OLIN 201

SSCI

See Political Studies section for description.

91375

PHIL 203 History of Philosophy I

Garry Hagberg

. T . Th .

3:10 -4:30 pm

OLINLC 206

HUM

A course closely examining selected texts in the history of philosophy, emphasizing historical connections and developments through the centuries from ancient Greece to 18^th-Century Britain. Authors include Plato (Republic), Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics), Epictetus, Augustine (Confessions), Aquinas, Descartes (Meditations), Spinoza, Locke (Essay Concerning Human Understanding, selections), Berkeley (Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous), and Hume. Issues include the philosophy of knowledge, art, education, society, ethics, religion, reason, perception, and, centrally, philosophical methodology. This course is prerequisite for PHIL 204: History of Philosophy 2. Class size: 22

91478

PHIL/REL 229 Modern Jewish Thought

David Nelson

. T . Th .

11:50 -1:10 pm

OLIN 203

HUM

See Religion section for description.

91378

PHIL 231 The Critical Turn: Aesthetics after Kant

Norton Batkin

M . W . .

1:30 -2:50 pm

HEG 106

HUM

This course will examine major contributions to philosophical aesthetics, beginning from Kant’s Critique of Judgment, an account of critical judgment that transformed eighteenth-century debates about beauty, taste, and art and continues to inform accounts of criticism and the arts to the present day. Particular attention will be given to philosophical discussions of the standard of beauty, progress in the arts, the medium of an art, art’s relationship to truth, art and the theatrical, and the antagonism of art and convention; throughout, these discussions will be brought to a consideration of the accomplishment of individual works of art. The goal of the course is to develop a critical understanding of works that have shaped our conceptions of the distinctive nature and history of the individual arts, of modern art, of the task of criticism, and of the relation of the arts to culture and society. Readings will include essays and selections from longer works by David Hume, Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, Martin Heidegger, Walter Benjamin, Clement Greenberg, Michael Fried, and Stanley Cavell, among others. Course assignments will include several short essays and a final paper. Class size: 22

91382

PHIL 237 Symbolic Logic

Robert Martin

. . W . F

10:10 - 11:30 am

OLIN 205

MATC

Cross listed: Cognitive Science An introduction to logic, requiring no prior knowledge of philosophy or mathematics.  This course aims at imparting the ability to recognize and construct correct formal deductions and refutations. Our text (available on-line free of charge) covers the first order predicate calculus with identity; we will cover as much of that as feasible in one semester.  There is software for the course, called Logic 2000, developed by Robert Martin and David Kaplan at UCLA in the 1990s and subsequently rewritten for the internet, that will assist students by providing feedback on exercises. Class size: 22

91380

PHIL 242 Relativism

David Shein

M . W . .

3:10 -4:30 pm

OLIN 101

HUM

Cross-listed: STS A semester-long investigation of philosophical relativism.  The first half of the semester will focus on epistemic relativism and the second half will focus on moral/cultural relativism.  While this will introduce us to several fundamental modes of philosophical inquiry (among them, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, and meta-ethics), the focus of the class will be a detailed exploration of relativism as a philosophical position.  Authors to be read include: Richard Rorty, W.V. Quine, Thomas Kuhn, Bernard Williams, Peter Winch, and others.  A prior course in philosophy is desirable but not necessary. Class size: 22

91384

PHIL 253 Around Merleau-Ponty: Language and Vision

Stephen Melville

. . W . F

10:10 - 11:30 am

OLIN 101

HUM

This course will focus on questions of vision as they emerge in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s late work and as they are linked by him to both a general concern for language and a more specific question about the proper form of philosophical expression. These questions emerge in close dialogue with various of Merleau-Ponty’s contemporaries, perhaps most notably Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Lacan, and, to a degree, Claude Lévi-Strauss. They have additionally been taken up in a variety of ways in subsequent philosophy, art history, and art criticism. The course will begin by looking at Merleau-Ponty’s writings, particularly the late, incomplete book The Visible and The Invisible and his roughly contemporaneous writings on art, and then open out into these further explorations, including readings from the philosophers Jean-François Lyotard and Gilles Deleuze, and the art historians/critics Hubert Damisch, Michael Fried, and Rosalind Krauss. We may also look briefly at relevant writings by Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy. The terrain staked by the course overlaps to a high degree with that claimed by Martin Jay’s influential study Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought, which will often serve as an active foil to our own readings. Short papers; term paper. Class size: 22

91401

PHIL 302 Philosophy Research Seminar

Kritika Yegnashankaran

. T . . .

4:40 -7:00 pm

RKC 200

HUM

An intensive advanced seminar required of all philosophy majors in their junior year. A problem in contemporary philosophy is carefully selected, exactingly defined, and thoroughly researched; an essay or article is written addressing the problem, going through numerous revisions as a result of class responses, faculty guidance, and further research; the article is formally presented to the seminar, followed by discussion and debate; and the article in its completed form is submitted to an undergraduate or professional journal of philosophy or to an undergraduate conference in philosophy. The seminar integrates the teaching and practice of writing into the study of the subject matter of the seminar. Emphasis will be placed on the art of research; the development, composition, organization, and revision of analytical prose; the use of evidence to support an argument; strategies of interpretation and analysis of texts; and the mechanics and art of style and documentation. This course is required of all junior Philosophy majors. Class size: 15

91286

PHIL / LIT 3071 Literary Method: Genealogy and the Unsayable

Nancy Leonard

. . . Th .

10:10 – 12:300 pm

OLIN 310

ELIT

See Literature section for description.

91385

PHIL 353 Jean-Luc Nancy and Philosophy after Derrida

Stephen Melville

. . W . .

1:30 -3:50 pm

OLIN 308

HUM

The French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy first rose to prominence as a follower of Jacques Derrida in the mid-1970s, often writing in collaboration with Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, perhaps most notably in an early study of Jacques Lacan (La titre de la lettre, 1973) and in a study of German Romanticism (L’absolu littéraire, 1978). By the early 1990s he was becoming an increasingly distinctive voice, the independent interest of which is now abundantly clear. The general goal of this course is to explore Nancy’s work through close attention to a range of his writings in relation to those he draws upon, including such established figures as the philosophers G.W.F. Hegel and Martin Heidegger and such somewhat less known writers as the maverick Surrealist Georges Bataille and the novelist and critic Maurice Blanchot. Since Nancy tends to avoid systematic philosophy in favor of the (often quite extended) essay, it seems sensible to focus on several discrete areas within his body of work; for our purposes, these will be his reflections on art, his engagements with Hegel, and his writings on community. His 1993 book The Sense of the World will be helpful in locating these various regions of thought in relation to one another. Two or three short papers; term paper. Prerequisites: One course in philosophy and consent of the instructor.

Class size: 15

91386

PHIL 354 Philosophical Issues of War

Alan Sussman

. T . . .

1:30 -3:50 pm

HEG 300

HUM

Cross-listed: Global & Int’l Studies; Human Rights; Political Studies Philosophy and war would seem to make strange bedfellows but there are a number of compelling topics which we will examine in this course concerning demands upon morality imposed by circumstances of war. These encompass not only vexing questions of political philosophy such as just war theory (jus ad bellum and jus in bello) and laws of war, patriotism, obedience to authority, pacifism and conscientious objection, collective responsibility, harm to civilians, mass destruction, and humanitarian military intervention, but more purely ethical concerns as well, including utilitarianism, consequentialism, deontology, and the principle of double effect. Readings include selections from Anscombe, Augustine, Elshtain, Holmes, May, McMahan, Nagel, Rawls, Scheffler, Todorov, Walzer, and Williams, cases from war crimes tribunals, and other sources. This is an upper lever seminar for which familiarity with basic philosophical and ethical issues is assumed. Juniors and seniors will be given priority in acceptance. Class size: 15

91398

PHIL/ PS 420 Hannah Arendt Seminar

Roger Berkowitz

. T . . .

4:40 -7:10 pm

DUBOIS

See Political Studies section for description.