12267

PHIL / PS 117 Intro to Political Philosophy

Ruth Zisman

. T . Th .

11:50 -1:10 pm

RKC 111

HUM

Cross-listed: Human Rights; Political Studies From Plato’s “philosopher kings” to Hegel’s “master-slave dialectic” to Michel Foucault’s “disciplined subject,” political philosophers have struggled to come to terms with the concept of authority. What is authority? What does political authority entail and represent? Who has authority and how is it obtained, maintained, and/or lost? Under what conditions is authority legitimate? Does political authority represent a seat of power or does it mark the absence of power? In other words, how, when, and in what ways is authority meaningful or, on the other hand, meaningless (i.e., an empty gesture)? This course will explore various themes in political philosophy, all of which seem to revolve around and branch out from the concept of authority: the state, rights, law, liberty, justice, citizenship, duty, obedience, and sovereignty. Texts will be drawn from the following: Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Politics, Machiavelli’s The Prince, Hobbes’s Leviathan, Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government, Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality, Kant’s Perpetual Peace, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, Marx’s The Communist Manifesto, Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals, Hannah Arendt’s What is Authority?, Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, and, lastly, Jacques Derrida’s The Force of Law. 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

12268

PHIL 118 Human Nature

Kritika Yegnashankaran

M . W . .

10:10 – 11:30 am

OLIN 202

HUM

Cross-listed: Human Rights; Science, Technology & Society Is there a human nature? Does it matter? An ancient tradition claims that we have a detailed set of inborn capabilities and limitations, rich in implications for how we can live our lives and organize society. An opposing tradition emphasizes plasticity and indeterminacy; at the limit, it pictures us as "blank slates," ready to form ourselves or to be formed by society. What remains of this debate once we refine the claims of each side? If there is a human nature, what is it, who can speak with authority about it, and what implications does it have for changing what we are? If there isn’t a human nature, does this more freely license the genetic and technological development of what we are? We will investigate these and other questions in the course through an interdisciplinary mix of readings from philosophy, psychology, evolutionary biology, and other fields. Class size: 22

12192

PHIL/ LIT 2038 Ethical Life in Ancient Greek Literature and Philosophy

Thomas Bartscherer

. T . Th .

10:10 - 11:30 am

OLIN 203

HUM

Cross-listed: Classics, Literature Ethical life as presented and analyzed in ancient Greek texts will be the object of inquiry in this course. Our goal will be to decipher, examine, and evaluate the ethics manifest both implicitly and explicitly in the philosophical and literary texts of Greek antiquity from the archaic age through to the twilight of the classical period. Particular attention will be paid to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, which we will study carefully and in its entirety, the epics (Homer and Hesiod), tragedy and comedy, and Plato. While our reading will focus on the primary sources, we will also consult scholars such as Bernard Williams and Martha Nussbaum, who draw liberally from the whole spectrum of classical genres to argue for the urgent contemporary significance of ancient ethics. Class size: 22

12310

PHIL 2044 History of Philosophy II

Garry Hagberg

. T . Th .

3:10 -4:30 pm

OLIN 204

HUM

A course closely examining selected texts in the history of philosophy, emphasizing historical connections and developments in the subject from the 18th to the 20th Century. Authors include Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Russell, Sartre, William James, and Wittgenstein. Like this course’s predecessor (PHIL 203: History of Philosophy 1, which is prerequisite), we will keep questions of philosophical methodology in mind as we proceed through issues in ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of perception, and philosophy of language. Class size: 22

12269

PHIL 237 Symbolic Logic

William Griffith

. T . Th .

1:30 -2:50 pm

ASP 302

MATC

Cross listed: Mind, Brain & Behavior 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 Godel’s incompleteness proof. No prerequisite. Class size: 16

12270

PHIL 265 The Unconscious

Kritika Yegnashankaran

M . W . .

11:50 -1:10 pm

OLIN 202

HUM

Cross listed: Mind, Brain & Behavior; Science, Technology & Society In the 17^th century, consciousness was the reigning mark of the mental: what made something count as a mental phenomenon at all was its being conscious. Since the emergence of cognitive psychology in the middle of the 20^th century, however, there has been an explosion of research into unconscious mental life. In a striking reversal, so much of our mental life is now relegated to the domain of the unconscious that consciousness has come to seem the greater mystery. In this course, we will look at debates concerning the nature and existence of unconscious mental phenomena as they developed over the past 350 years. We will ask: What is at stake in affirming or denying the existence of unconscious mental phenomena? What sorts of evidence are adduced in favor of unconscious mental phenomena? If there are unconscious mental states and processes, are they like conscious mental phenomena except without the lights on, or are they fundamentally different? What’s the difference between the cognitive unconscious developed by experimental psychologists and the dynamic unconscious developed by mental health clinicians? And how do the answers to all of these questions ultimately affect our conception of ourselves? Class size: 22

12271

PHIL 271 Topics in the Philosophy of Language

Robert Martin

. . W . F

10:10 - 11:30 am

HEG 300

HUM

Cross-listed: Mind, Brain & Behavior We will study the uses of formal languages in solving problems in the philosophy of language. We’ll start with Russell's theory of descriptions. Then, with Frege’s “On sense and reference” as background, we’ll read Carnap’s Meaning and Necessity; Tarksi, Kripke, and Gupta on truth; David Lewis on context; and David Kaplan on indexicals and demonstratives. Prerequisite: Symbolic Logic (Philosophy 237 or the equivalent). Class size: 22

12272

PHIL 281 Philosophy of William James

William Griffith

M . W . .

3:10 -4:30 pm

ASP 302

HUM

William James (1842–1910) wrote and lectured on philosophy for both the emerging “profession” and for lay persons, and he did so with unusual style and clarity. In his lifetime, he earned an international reputation in both philosophy and psychology and became the most widely known philosopher in America. Among the topics to be studied are the subject matter and nature of psychology, religious experience, various issues of both metaphysics and ethics, and the pragmatic theory of truth.

William James brought heart to the intellect and passion to the world of ideas in an unprecedented manner in American life. He is the most profound, adorable, and unpretentious public intellectual in American history. — Cornel West, Princeton University Prerequisites: None. Open to students of all levels. Class size: 18

12590

PS/ PHIL 287 Anarchism

Roger Berkowitz

M . W . .

3:10 -4:30 pm

OLINLC 118

HUM

Cross-listed: Human Rights; Philosophy Anarchism is the political theory of government without rulers, or the idea that communities can organize themselves politically without hierarchical authority. Often utopian, there are also many practical and historical examples of anarchic politics and self-organization. Most recently, large elements of the Occupy Wall Street movement have embraced fundamental anarchist ideas. In this course, we explore the intellectual history of anarchism in order to understand its place in contemporary politics. Readings include: Emma Goldman, Martin Heidegger, Commandante Marcos, David Graeber, and many others. Class size: 20

12508

PHIL / HR 334 Is Perpetual Peace Sustainable?

Olivia Custer

. T . . .

1:30 – 3:50 pm

HEG 201

HUM

Cross-listed: Human Rights In his 1795 essay Towards Perpetual Peace Immanuel Kant sketched a framework for national, international, and cosmopolitan law and made the case for the necessity of a world court. In the context of debates about the role of the ICC, this course will engage in a close reading of Kant’s essay to clarify the conceptual framework within which he invests hope for justice in such an institution. Part of the task will be to clarify how and why sustainable peace is seen to depend both on the juridical process in general and on particular rights such as those to free speech or migration. The other part of the task will be to identify the assumptions on which the legal reasoning rests: a philosophical anthropology; a specific conception of the desirability of, and conditions for, individual autonomy; a particular understanding of the dynamics of commerce; a certain perception of the resources of the planet available to humanity. We will need to piece together the story Kant tells – one of war and commerce acting on man’s unsociable sociability – to understand why he pleads for certain legal institutions to sustain mankind’s progress towards perpetual peace. There will be some readings aimed at situating Kant’s positions historically (Grotius, Pufendorf, Mandeville, Locke, Montesquieu, Adam Smith) but the emphasis will be on Kant’s writings (Perpetual Peace, Idea for a Universal History, Metaphysics of Morals, Anthropology,  etc.) and discourses in the public sphere today. Our concern will be to develop an ear for the way in which Kant’s principles are mobilized in contemporary discussions. Why intervene in Libya and not Syria? Should the Pope be indicted by the ICC for crimes against humanity? What can we learn from the European sovereign debt crisis?  How are national policies on immigration justified? These are some of the debates students will be encouraged to consider as we take measure of Kant’s persistent influence and ask whether his prescriptions for perpetual peace are sustainable today. Class size: 15

12273

PHIL 371 The Philosophy of Kant

Bruce Matthews

. . W . .

1:30 -3:50 pm

HEG 300

HUM

Kant's masterpiece The Critique of Pure Reason initiated what has come to be known as the "Copernican Revolution" in modern philosophy.  This revolution resulted in a radical re-orientation of the knowing subject that in turn laid the foundation for German Idealism. In this seminar we will examine Kant's attempt to meet the problems of scientific understanding and moral action through his radical analysis and reconstruction of rationalist and empiricist claims in philosophy. We will focus on a close reading of central sections of The Critique of Pure Reason, supplemented by readings from Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics and his Logic. Prerequisites: A previous course in philosophy and permission of the instructor. This course fulfills the single-philosopher requirement for junior philosophy majors.

Class size: 15

12326

PHIL / PS 380 Advanced Topics in Political Thinking

Roger Berkowitz

. T . . .

4:40 -7:00 pm

DUBOIS

HUM

Cross-listed: Human Rights; Political Studies This course will focus on a reading of one thinker or book.  While the text or texts will vary, our approach will be a page-by-page reading of important works in the tradition of political and legal theory.  Our effort will be both to understand the selected texts as well as to comprehend its place in the history of political thought.  This semester, our guiding question will be: What is a human being? In pursuing this question, the focus will be Martin Heidegger’s long essay,  Letter on Humanism. Class size: 15

12274

PHIL 393 Philosophy and the Arts

Garry Hagberg

. . . . F

1:30 -3:50 pm

OLIN 203

HUM

This advanced seminar on aesthetics will work through three of the great masterpieces in the field. Beginning with Aristotle's Poetics, we will look closely into questions of representation in the arts, the role and experience of the spectator, the connections between ethics and aesthetics, and the relation between art and knowledge. From there we will move to Hume's essay on taste, looking into the distinction between subjective and objective judgement and the nature of aesthetic perception. We will then progress to a close reading of Kant's Critique of Judgement, in which we will explore questions of aesthetic perception, judgement, ethics and aesthetics, the beautiful, and the sublime. We will end with an examination of the transition to the aesthetics of romanticism and nineteenth-century aesthetic thought. Class size: 15