11339

PHIL 108 Introduction to Philosophy

David Shein

. T . Th .

4:00 -5:20 pm

OLIN 201

HUM

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 that address these and other central themes of the philosophical tradition.

11363

PHIL 111 Introduction to Moral and Political Philosophy: Justice

Olivia Custer

M . W . .

10:30 - 11:50 am

OLIN 203

HUM

What is justice? Who is just? To whom does one owe justice? Why? What does a theory of justice try to accomplish? Which institutions might provide justice? How is our understanding of ourselves connected to our understanding of justice? What would it be to do justice to someone, let alone to justice “itself”? What makes justice impossible? What makes justice necessary? Exploring the range of questions that have been asked about justice, this course will provide an introduction to a few key figures of the western philosophical tradition. After a brief methodological introduction, the course will follow a historical sequence before exploring more recent work on the subject (Rawls, Derrida). Emphasis will be on the analysis of primary sources but the course also aims to build up the students’ familiarity with some of the canonical terms and tools, methods and strategies of moral and political philosophy. Readings will focus on works by Plato, Hobbes, Kant, Bentham, Nietzsche, Rawls and Derrida.

11346

PHIL / THEO 201 Kierkegaard: A Writer’s Identity

Nancy Leonard

M . W . .

1:30 -2:50 pm

OLIN 310

HUM

See Theology section for description.

11116

CLAS 209 Early Greek Philosophy

William Mullen

M . W . .

3:00 -4:20 pm

OLIN 204

See Classical Studies section for description.

11030

PHIL THEO 212 Archaeology of the Bible

Bruce Chilton

. T . Th .

1:00 -2:20 pm

Center for the Study of James

ELIT

See Theology section for description.

11024

PHIL 213 19th-Century Continental Philosophy

Daniel Berthold

. T . Th .

9:00 - 10:20 am

OLIN 201

HUM

Cross-listed: German Studies Readings from Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. We will focus on how these writers explored such themes as the nature of consciousness, reality, value, and community; on their distinctive styles of authorship, and on their conceptions of the nature and role of philosophy itself.

11421

HIST 229 Confucianism: Humanity, Rites, and Rights

Robert Culp

M . W . .

10:30 - 11:50 am

OLIN 308

HIST/DIFF

See History section for description.

11102

PHIL 235 Philosophy and Film

Adam Rosen

. . W . . . . . . F

10:30 - 11:50 am 10:30 - 12:50 pm

RKC 102 PRE 110

HUM

Are the claims – the insights, arguments, and ethical demands – conveyed by film medium-bound? Can the philosophical, ethical, or political content of a film be detached from its specifically filmic expression? What then is the specificity of film as an aesthetic medium? And what are the epistemological and political consequences of this notion of medium-bound meaning? In order to address these questions, we will integrate readings of Benjamin, Adorno, Beckett, Cavell, and Danto with viewings of films by Eisentein, Marker, Fillini, and others. Later in the semester we will undertake close analyses of specific films that decisively reconfigure longstanding philosophical debates, e.g. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf will reshape the debate between realism and nominalism, films by David Lynch will challenge our deepest assumptions about identity and sexuality, and films by Charlie Chaplin, Woody Allen, and the Marx Brothers will press for a rethinking of the relation between human and the animal.

11025

PHIL 237 Symbolic Logic

William Griffith

M . W . .

3:00 -4:20 pm

ASP 302

MATC

Cross-listed: Cognitive Science 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 both the characteristics of the formal systems and the interpretation of their schemata into English are kept in view. 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.

11103

PHIL 248 Hume & Philosophy of Science

Adam Rosen

M . W . .

1:30 -2:50 pm

OLIN 309

HUM

This course begins with an examination of Hume’s empiricist challenge to received understandings of causality, induction, the systematic unity of nature, and the self. Then, by bringing Hume into dialogue with the Logical Positivists who, in the early twentieth century, claimed to be his true inheritors, we will expose the strengths and weaknesses of empiricism in its various forms. Following this, we will extend our understanding of Hume by exploring the Humean elements of relativity theory, quantum mechanics, and contemporary neuroscience, as well as Humean resonances in key figures in contemporary philosophy of science (esp. Van Fraassen, Cartwright). Finally, we will ask whether contemporary philosophy of science has successfully responded to Hume’s empiricist challenge. Has there yet been a successful defense of the necessitarian character of law or the systematic unity of nature? Might Hume be unsurpassable?

11507

PHIL 252 American Philosophy and Education

Ariana Stokas

. . W . F

12:00 -1:20 pm

OLIN 310

HUM

While American education has been influenced greatly by philosophy, it is, largely, a neglected area of study for many students and aspiring teachers. This course aims to introduce students to philosophical texts central to the development of education in America as well as American philosophers who examine conceptual issues of concern in teaching and learning today. Students will emerge with a foundational understanding of the intersection that exists between education and democracy, the nature of educational experience and how teaching as an art and as a science is understood. The course will primarily focus on the work of John Dewey, particularly Democracy and Education. Students will also read works from Stanley Cavell, Hilary Putnam, Amy Gutmann, Hannah Arendt and Maxine Greene among others. The class will engage in an analysis of educational policy as a way to reflect on its relationship to the larger conceptual issues of ethics, justice and democracy in schooling. This course is intended to provide students who will teach in the New Orleans Summer Education Program with a theoretical foundation for their future practice.

11441

THTR / LIT 310B Survey of Drama: Euripides and Nietzsche

Thomas Bartscherer

. . W . .

1:30 -3:50 pm

FISHER

ELIT

See Theater section for description.

11026

PHIL 331 Advanced Symbolic Logic

Robert Martin

. T . Th .

10:30 - 11:50 am

RKC 101

MATC

In this course we will study the proof theory and model theory of first-order logic and prove its completeness, in the manner of Henkin, 1949. Then we will develop formal arithmetic and prove some important limitative results, especially incompleteness (Goedel, 1931). Finally, we will study a variety of modal systems and some of their philosophical applications, e.g. tense logic and the logic of indexicals.

11027

PHIL 371 The Philosophy of Kant

William Griffith

. . . . F

1:30 -3:50 pm

ASP 302

HUM

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.

11338

PS 380 Political & Legal Thinking

Roger Berkowitz

. . W . .

4:30 -6:50 pm

OLIN 204

SSCI

See Political Studies section for description.

11028

PHIL 383 The Philosophy of Heidegger

Daniel Berthold

. T . . .

1:30 -3:50 pm

OLIN 107

HUM

Cross-listed: German Studies A close reading of major portions of Heidegger's Being and Time and several short later works such as The Origin of the Work of Art, Letter on Humanism, The Question Concerning Technology, and Building Dwelling Thinking. We will focus on such themes as Heidegger's (re)conception of the phenomenological method; the elusive search for an account of Being; the portrait of key existential structure of Dasein (human "being-there"), such as being-within-the-world, being-with, discourse, thrownness, temporality, care, anxiety, and being-towards-death; the analysis of our "everyday" inauthentic being and our potentiality for authenticity; and Heidegger's thoughts on art, language, and technology. Prerequisite: previous courses in philosophy.