CRN

14089

Distribution

A

Course No.

PHIL 101

Title

Problems in Philosophy

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

14092

Distribution

A

Course No.

PHIL 106

Title

Introduction to Philosophy: Reality, Knowledge and Value

Professor

Robert Martin

Schedule

Wed Fr          11:30 am - 12:50 pm     OLIN 201

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.

 

CRN

14002

Distribution

A

Course No.

PHIL 230

Title

Philosophy and the Arts

Professor

Garry Hagberg

Schedule

Tu Th            3:00 pm -  4:20 pm       OLIN 202

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

14006

Distribution

A

Course No.

PHIL 237

Title

Symbolic Logic

Professor

William Griffith

Schedule

Tu Fr             1:30 pm -  2:50 pm       HEG 300

Students will learn to use several different symbolic systems, some developed thousands of years apart, in order to formally test the validity of deductive arguments expressed in ordinary language of various levels of complexity.  Beginning from the common notion of a valid argument the course progresses through:  truth tables; a system of natural deduction for propositional logic, which is proven to be consistent and complete; Aristotelian logic - immediate inference, mediate inference, the square of opposition; Venn diagrams; monadic quantificational theory; general quantificational theory, including identity.  At each level the interrelationship between formal systems, their consistency and completeness being kept in view, and their interpretation in English is stressed. The course ends with a discussion of the extension of such work into higher orders of logic and the foundations of mathematics and the surprise (at the time) of Gödel’s incompleteness proof.   No prerequisite.

 

CRN

14090

Distribution

A/C

Course No.

PHIL 240

Title

Liberalism and Its Critics

Professor

Mary Coleman

Schedule

Mon  Wed  10:00 am – 11:20 am    HDR 302

Cross-listed: Human Rights

Liberalism is the dominant trend in the political thought of Modernity. It has profoundly shaped our political institutions and our thinking about them. However, since its birth, it has been at the center of political and theoretical debate. In this course, we will explore some of the central questions of this debate: What role(s) does the state play in the lives of individuals? Is its role solely coercive, or does it also facilitate the realization of human potential? What is the nature of political freedom? What forms of government are preferable? What is the source of civil laws? When and why do you obey the state and its functionaries? What is the ground of their power over you? We will study these questions through the writings of Locke, Mill, Kant, Constant, Hayek, Rawls, Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, and Schmitt.  This course is part of the Bard-Smolny Virtual Campus Project. Bard students will use innovative technologies, including live videoconferencing, to work with students taking the same course concurrently at Smolny College in St. Petersburg, Russia. Enrollment in the Bard section of the course will be limited to 10 students.

 

CRN

14088

Distribution

A

Course No.

PHIL 251

Title

Ethical Theory

Professor

William Griffith

Schedule

Tu Th            10:00 am - 11:20 am     ASP 302

What is it to be a “moral” being, i.e., what is the “moral dimension” of our lives?  What are its key elements?  Is there such a thing as “happiness,”  “the good life,” “virtue,” “wisdom?” Are there “rights,” “duties?”  If so, how do we recognize them?  We will critically examine the primary texts of four philosophers whose thoughts on these fundamental questions have had a permanent influence on western philosophical thought:  Aristotle, Epictetus, Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill.  (No prerequisites.  Open to First Year students.)

 

CRN

14080

Distribution

A/B

Course No.

PHIL / THEO 301

Title

Working Theologies:  Søren Kierkegaard

Professor

Daniel Berthold / Nancy Leonard

Schedule

Wed               1:30 pm -  3:50 pm       OLIN 310

Cross-listed:  Theology

This seminar will explore some of the main paths taken by the Danish Christian existentialist Søren Kierkegaard towards theology.  The seminar, limited to fifteen,  is planned for students concentrating in theology as well as moderated philosophy majors and others interested in the subject. While Kierkegaard rejected the title of “theologian,” and called himself “essentially a poet” (or sometimes a “humorist”), his poetic experimentation -- even in the most apparently non-theological “aesthetic” works of many of his pseudonyms, and even in the many tracts written in the last five years of his authorship which together make up his Attack Upon Christendom -- was, in his words, “from first to last in the service of God.” We will commit ourselves to interrogating just what this service amounted to -- a commitment requiring our willingness to enter the labyrinth, since whatever else it was, Kierkegaard’s service to God was exquisitely complicated by his commitment to the authorial strategy of “indirect communication,” a mode of discourse marked by disguise, hidden intentions, the proliferation of competing voices, and what he called “the disappearance of the author.” Readings will be drawn from such pseudonymous works as Either / Or  (Victor Eremita), Repetition (Constantine Constantius), Fear and Trembling (Johannes de Silentio), Concluding Unscientific Postscript (Johann Climacus), Training in Christianity and The Sickness Unto Death (Anti-Climacus), as well as some of the sermons or “Edifying Discourses” written under Kierkegaard’s own name. We will also read a variety of writers who have engaged Kierkegaard’s authorship in ways central to the several projects of modernity and postmodernity, including Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas, Paul Ricoeur, Sylviane Agacinski (and other feminist commentators).

 

CRN

14091

Distribution

A

Course No.

PHIL 360

Title

Free Will

Professor

Mary Coleman

Schedule

Mon               4:00 pm -  6:20 pm       OLIN 307

Do you have free will? Do you ever freely choose what to do? It may seem obvious that you do. Couldn’t you have chosen to eat something other than what you actually had for dinner last night? Or it may seem obvious that you don’t. Aren’t all of your decisions and actions ultimately determined by a confluence of your genetic make-up and the social environment in which you find yourself? What is free will? Do we have it? What difference does it make whether we have it or not? The problem of free will is one of the most familiar, enduring, and difficult problems of western philosophy. We will begin by studying some classic texts that offer a wide range of answers to these central questions about free will, but we will spend the majority of the semester studying “state of the art” writings about free will from such philosophers and philosophically-minded thinkers as Daniel Dennett, Robert Kane, Benjamin Libet, Timothy O’Connor, and Daniel Wegner.

 

CRN

14004

Distribution

A

Course No.

PHIL 403

Title

Philosophy Research Seminar

Professor

Garry Hagberg

Schedule

Th                 7:00 pm -  9:20 pm       ASP 302

An intensive advanced seminar primarily for senior majors in philosophy.  The fundamental purposes of the seminar are to: (1) carefully select, exactingly define, and thoroughly research a problem in contemporary philosophy (including the contemporary interpretation of historical authors), mastering selected recent writing directly relevant to that problem; (2) write an essay or article on that problem, going through numerous revisions and refinements as a result of class responses, faculty guidance, and further research; (3) formally present the article to the seminar, followed by detailed discussion and philosophical debate; and finally (4) submit the article in its most complete form to an undergraduate or professional journal of philosophy or to an undergraduate conference in philosophy.  In addition to working on the article throughout the semester, each participant will be expected to read and comment on all of the other articles produced in the seminar and to prepare for the discussions following each presentation.  All the standard and relevant specialized research tools, bibliographies, and reference works in philosophy will be introduced and used as needed in the course of developing the papers. In addition, students will gain familiarity with the various aspects of journal editing and publishing in connection with Philosophy and Literature, edited in Bard’s philosophy program.  May be of particular interest to those contemplating graduate work in the field.