PHILOSOPHY

CRN

13197

Distribution

A

Course No.

PHIL 101

Title

Problems in Philosophy: Philosophical Questions

Professor

William Griffith

Schedule

Mon Wed 3:00 pm -4:20 pm ASP 302
An introduction to the problems, methods, and scope of philosophical inquiry. Among the philosophical questions to be discussed are those associated with morality, the law, the nature of mind, and the limits of knowledge. Philosophers to be read include Plato, Descartes, David Hume, William James, A. J. Ayer, Sartre, C. S. Lewis, and Lon Fuller.

CRN

13190

Distribution

A

Course No.

PHIL 108

Title

Introduction to Philosophy

Professor

Mary Coleman

Schedule

Tu Th 10:00 am - 11:20 am OLIN 203
Western philosophers address questions that most of us naturally find puzzling, such as: do we have free will?; do we know what the world around us is really like?; does God exist?; how should we treat one another? We will critically examine historical and contemporary texts which address these and other central themes of the philosophical tradition.

CRN

13199

Distribution

A

Course No.

PHIL 230

Title

Philosophy and the Arts

Professor

Garry Hagberg

Schedule

Tu Th 3:00 pm -4:20 pm OLIN 107

Cross-listed: Integrated Arts

We will critically investigate a wide range of theories and problems in the philosophy of art, emphasizing issues of artistic meaning. Among the topics to be discussed are whether there exists an aesthetic experience unique to the art world; the nature of representation and mimetic theories of art; the role of expression in artistic definition and criticism; formalism and the form/content distinction; the logic of aesthetic evaluation and its relation to ethical argument; and subjectivity and objectivity in aesthetic perception. We will examine both classical and contemporary theories as they apply to questions arising out of architecture, dance, drama, film, literature, music, painting, and photography.

CRN

13200

Distribution

A

Course No.

PHIL 237

Title

Symbolic Logic

Professor

William Griffith

Schedule

Mon Wed 10:00 am - 11:20 am HEG 300
An introduction to modern logic, this course covers sentential and predicate logic (also known as propositional logic and quantification theory, respectively). The emphases are on skill in producing formal derivations and clarity on the relation between formal derivations and natural language argumentation. The course will also contain an introduction to formal semantics, including the proof of completeness for

first-order logic.

CRN

13518

Distribution

A

Course No.

PHIL 242

Title

Relativism

Professor

David Shein

Schedule

Tu Th 4:30 pm - 5:50 pm OLIN 205
A semester-long investigation of relativism. The first half of the term will focus on epistemic/cognitive relativism and the second half will focus on moral/cultural relativism. While this will allow us to explore the several modes of philosophical inquiry presupposed by these positions, the focus of the class will be a detailed investigation of relativism as a philosophical position: roughly, the view that a given property ('moral', e.g., or 'red') is not a unitary property of a thing (it's not a fact of the matter that the thing has that property) but, rather, a relational property between the thing, the property, and something else (typically, a person, culture, or worldview). In its most simple formulation ('everything is relative') the relativist position collapses on itself; however, more sophisticated formulations of the position are available. We will be interested in assessing these formulations and the arguments for them, looking particularly at questions such as: what does it mean to say that the properties of morality and red are relative? to what or whom are they relative? about what sorts of things might one be a relativist? In addition - and I think this is the key question for the relativist - we will ask whether relativism can be reconciled with certain seemingly incontrovertible assumptions about the world around us (i.e., murdering innocent people is wrong, there is an observer-independent reality, I exist, etc.) Authors to be read include: Richard Rorty, W.V. Quine, Donald Davidson, Peter Winch, and others. Regular short writing assignments and two longer papers. A prior course in philosophy is desirable but not necessary.

CRN

13202

Distribution

A

Course No.

PHIL 247

Title

Philosophy of Mind

Professor

Mary Coleman

Schedule

Mon Wed 11:30 am - 12:50 pm OLIN 310
An introduction to the philosophy of mind. We will focus on contemporary readings and such questions as: is your mind something different from your body and, in particular, something different from your brain?; can you know for sure that the people around you have conscious mental lives?; might it be, in principle, impossible for a computer or robot to have a mind, no matter how fancy the program it's running is?; is it possible that you yourself don't have a mind?

CRN

13201

Distribution

A

Course No.

PHIL 268

Title

Issues in Bioethics

Professor

Michael Tibbetts / Daniel Berthold

Schedule

Wed Fr 10:00 am - 11:20 am OLIN 201

Cross-listed: History & Philosophy of Science

Related interest: Environmental Studies

An interdisciplinary approach to issues in bioethics, this course explores scientific, social, and ethical aspects of topics of contemporary concern. In recent semesters the focus has been on three such topics of current debate: the genome project, cloning, and the development and use of transgenic plants. Readings cover theoretical literature and case studies. The course is team-taught by a member of the philosophy program and a member of the biology program.

Prerequisite: either a course in philosophy or BIO 201.

CRN

13205

Distribution

A/B

Course No.

PHIL 332

Title

The Paradoxes of Logic and Semantics

Professor

Robert Martin

Schedule

Fri 10:30 am - 12:50 pm OLIN 107
A family of paradoxes, (known in the 12th century as insolubilia and today as paradoxes of self-reference, has intrigued and puzzled philosophers since the 3rd century B.C. Versions appear in the texts as varied as the New Testament (Titus I, 12) and Cervantes Don Quixote (II, 51, 842). The paradox of set theory, discovered by Bertrand Russell in 1900, was quickly seen to belong to the same family of paradoxes. Later in the twentieth century, the paradoxes played a key role in the study of the foundations of mathematics, and are related to the famous proof by Kurt Gödel of the incompleteness of formal arithmetic. The grandfather of the family, the Liar, is central to Alfred Tarski's landmark work on formal semantics and the concept of truth. We will survey the history of the paradoxes and study many of the dozens of solutions that have been proposed. Students will be encouraged to develop and defend their own solutions. A warning is in order: there are perils to the study of the paradoxes. G. Frege wrote in 1902 that the Russell paradox destroyed his life's work. A gravestone from ancient times has the inscription (in Greek); "traveller, I am Philetas. The argument called the Liar, and deep cogitation by night, brought me to death." It is expected that Bard students will rise to the challenges of the paradoxes without adverse consequences.

Prerequisites: PHIL 237 (Symbolic Logic), or equivalent.

CRN

13203

Distribution

A

Course No.

PHIL 371

Title

The Philosophy of Kant

Professor

Garry Hagberg

Schedule

Wed 1:30 pm -3:50 pm OLIN 305

Cross-listed: German Studies

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.

CRN

13204

Distribution

A

Course No.

PHIL 375

Title

The Philosophy of Nietzsche

Professor

William Griffith

Schedule

Tu 1:30 pm -3:50 pm HEG 300

Cross-listed: German Studies

The major emphasis of the reading will be on Nietzsche's ethical and meta-ethical viewpoints. However, issues of metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophical psychology will also be involved as we discuss such notions as perspectivism, the overman, eternal return, and the will-to-power.