Course: |
PHIL 104 Multicultural Philosophy |
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Professor: |
Daniel Berthold |
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CRN: |
90029 |
Schedule: |
Mon Wed 10:20 AM - 11:40
AM Olin 205 |
Distributional Area: |
MBV Meaning, Being, Value D+J Difference and Justice |
Class cap: |
22 |
Credits: |
4 |
This course is an introduction to such major themes in the history of
philosophy as the nature of reality and our capacity to know it; issues of
ethics and justice; and conceptions of how one should live. Readings will include selections from a
diverse range of traditions, including Western, Hindu, Buddhist, Chinese,
African, native American and feminist texts.
A main emphasis of the course is to look at ways that cultural contexts
inflect the meanings of what philosophy is and how it is expressed.
Course: |
PHIL 108 Introduction to Philosophy |
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Professor: |
David Shein |
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CRN: |
90030 |
Schedule: |
Mon Wed 8:30 AM - 9:50
AM Olin 205 |
Distributional Area: |
MBV Meaning, Being, Value |
Class cap: |
20 |
Credits: |
4 |
If our lives have meaning, what gives them meaning? If our lives do not have meaning, how ought
we to live them? Guided by this pair of
very big questions, we will spend the semester exploring classical and
contemporary attempts to figure out whether the universe is purposeful and how
the answer to that question might impact how we live our lives. Topics to be discussed include the existence
of God, the nature of reality, the possibility of knowledge, the problem of
induction, conceptions of the good, and the relationship between the individual
and the state.
Course: |
PHIL 212 Early Greek Thinking |
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Professor: |
Jay Elliott |
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CRN: |
90031 |
Schedule: |
Mon Wed 2:00 PM - 3:20
PM Olin 205 |
Distributional Area: |
MBV Meaning, Being, Value |
Class cap: |
20 |
Credits: |
4 |
Cross-listed: Classical Studies
Our word "philosophy" derives from the Greek word philosophia, meaning
"love of wisdom." What did it mean to "love wisdom" in
ancient Greek societies, and what might it mean to us today? This course
invites students into the discipline of philosophy through a critical
consideration of its origins in ancient Greece. Philosophy emerged in the sixth
and fifth centuries BCE in a context of rapid urbanization, expanding literacy,
colonial warfare, and democratic experimentation. Without any established
academic disciplines or traditions, the early Greek thinkers we now call the
"first philosophers" experimented with an astonishing variety of
forms and practices, including scientific observation, cryptic aphorisms,
poetic narratives, and dramatic dialogue. As we follow the emergence of
distinctively "philosophical" ways of thinking and living, we will
also trace the shifting relations of philosophy to other modes of thought in
ancient Greek culture, such as poetry, religion, theater, and politics. The
course centers on the enigmatic figure of Socrates, in whose intellectual circle
the term "philosophy" first came into common use. We will consider
the conflicting accounts of Socrates and his circle that we find in the
historian Xenophon, the comedian Aristophanes, and the tragedian Plato.
Alongside this paradigmatic philosopher, we will also consider other thinkers
who have a more contested relationship to the philosophical canon, including
the so-called "Presocratics" and the Sophists. In taking up the
question of who counts as a philosopher and what counts as philosophy in Greek
antiquity, we will attend to the role of class, gender and sexuality in the
formation of philosophical communities. This course satisfies the Philosophy
program's Histories of Philosophy requirement. All majors are required to take
two courses fulfilling this requirement, starting with the class of 2025.
Course: |
PHIL 217 Philosophy in the USA |
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Professor: |
Kathryn Tabb |
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CRN: |
90032 |
Schedule: |
Tue Thurs
3:50 PM - 5:10 PM Olin
205 |
Distributional Area: |
MBV Meaning, Being, Value |
Class cap: |
18 |
Credits: |
4 |
This course will offer a survey of different philosophical movements
historically associated with the United States. We will focus on the twentieth
century, but also look at traditions that have their roots earlier and apart
from the nation-state, such as Indigenous American philosophies and logical
positivism, brought to the country by
European emigres in the 1930s. This class's guiding question will be whether
there is such a thing as a "tradition of American philosophy," and if
so whether it can be identified simply by genealogy, or rather through a
particular set of philosophical commitments. Contenders will include the
pragmatism found in thinkers from C.S. Peirce to Richard Rorty; the pluralism
championed by philosophers from Ida B. Wells to Alain Locke; the socialized
ethics of the likes of Jane Addams, John Dewey, and the intellectual leaders of
the Civil Rights Movement; and the radicalism of political thinkers from Emma
Goldman to Cornell West. This course satisfies the Philosophy program's
Histories of Philosophy requirement. All majors are required to take two
courses fulfilling this requirement, starting with the class of 2025.
Course: |
PHIL 234 Philosophy, Art, and the Culture of Democracy |
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Professor: |
Zachary Weinstein |
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CRN: |
90035 |
Schedule: |
Tue Thurs
2:00 PM - 3:20 PM Olin
303 |
Distributional Area: |
MBV Meaning, Being, Value |
Class cap: |
12 |
Credits: |
4 |
Cross-listed: Art History; Human Rights
How have philosophical
conceptions of liberty, equality, freedom of expression, and representation
defined our conception of American political democracy? How have they continued
to challenge and shape our social and cultural conceptions of individuality,
education, political responsibility, and social engagement? How are art works
and critical writing not just exemplary of, but fundamental to, our democratic
culture and essential to its continuation? We will explore these questions
through discussions of philosophical works by John Locke, John Stuart Mill,
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Stanley Cavell, Marilyn Frye, and others; Bard’s
Stockbridge-Munsee Land Acknowledgment; essays by James Baldwin, Toni Morrison,
and Claudia Rankine; and art works by Bruce Nauman,
Felix Gonzalez Torres, Glenn Ligon, Theaster Gates, and other artists.
Course: |
PHIL 237 Symbolic Logic |
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Professor: |
James Brudvig |
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CRN: |
90036 |
Schedule: |
Wed Fri 10:20 AM - 11:40
AM Reem Kayden Center 103 |
Distributional Area: |
MC Mathematics and Computing |
Class cap: |
25 |
Credits: |
4 |
Cross-listed: Mind, Brain, Behavior
An introduction to logic, requiring no prior knowledge of philosophy or
mathematics. This course aims at
imparting the ability to 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 2010, 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.
Course: |
PHIL 245 Marx, Nietzsche, Freud |
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Professor: |
Ruth Zisman |
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CRN: |
90033 |
Schedule: |
Tue Thurs
12:10 PM - 1:30 PM Olin
204 |
Distributional Area: |
MBV Meaning, Being, Value |
Class cap: |
18 |
Credits: |
4 |
Cross-listed: German
Studies
Writing from the mid-19th century through the 1930s, Karl
Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud revolutionized modern philosophy
in radical and yet radically different ways. Together they dismantled
previously held beliefs and demanded a rethinking of ideas of work, tradition,
history, god, religion, morality, power, sexuality, and subjectivity. These
three “masters of suspicion,” according to Paul Ricoeur,
“clear the horizon for a more authentic word, for a new reign of Truth, not
only by means of a destructive critique but by the invention of an art of
interpreting.” And the legacy of their thinking lives on
today not only in the academy but in everyday discussions and debates about
topics such as economic inequality, religious fundamentalism, social values,
and mental health. In this course, we will read closely and get to know
Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud - both individually and in conversation with one
another - and we will consider the ways in which their thinking forms the basis
of contemporary critical thought.
Course: |
PHIL 306 The Philosophy Lab |
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Professor: |
Kathryn Tabb |
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CRN: |
90037 |
Schedule: |
Fri 2:00 PM - 3:20
PM Olin 304 |
Distributional Area: |
MBV Meaning, Being, Value |
Class cap: |
12 |
Credits: |
2 |
This two-credit course will focus on philosophy as a discipline, with
special attention to questions of inclusion and access. Students will meet
biweekly to discuss readings on the current state of the profession and its
history, to learn about what life as a philosopher looks like at the
post-graduate and professional levels, and to contribute to the community of
the program. This last component might include choosing speakers for the annual
Speaker Series, organizing events for the Philosophy Salon, managing the
Philosophy Study Room, and participating in a mentoring program. Written work
will include biweekly response papers as well as other short assignments. This
class is open to all moderated students in Philosophy.
Course: |
PHIL 317 Spinoza |
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Professor: |
Robert Tully |
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CRN: |
90038 |
Schedule: |
Thurs 2:00 PM - 4:20
PM Olin 304 |
Distributional Area: |
MBV Meaning, Being, Value |
Class cap: |
12 |
Credits: |
4 |
Cross-listed: Jewish Studies; Study of Religions
Baruch Spinoza's Ethics, a product of the early Enlightenment, is a
paradigm of rationalist metaphysics. The
book is comprehensive, systematic, rigorously argued, and unflinching in its
radical conclusions about our place in the universe. It is also a neglected masterpiece. To the empirically committed, the Ethics
sinks under the weight of obsolete philosophical concepts. In Spinoza's metaphysics, God is identical
with Nature, a single substance possessing infinite attributes which causes its
own existence and on which everything in space and time depends. But hasn't modern science gone well beyond
such a framework? To the religiously
inclined, the Ethics is heretical secular theology which views God as an
impersonal power, and which condemns traditional beliefs and practices, whether
in Judaism or Christianity, as no better than primitive idolatry. Isn't this atheism? However, just as it is counterproductive for
theology to ignore the knowledge which science reveals to us, it is also
self-serving for science to ignore the deeply contemplative and spiritual side
of Spinoza's thought about the mind's capacity to recognize its limited
function within nature. Spinoza intended
the Ethics to guide the serious reader towards a perspective that enables a well-ordered
life. For that reason alone, his book is
of timeless importance and rewards careful study, which is the aim of this
course.
Course: |
PHIL 393 Philosophy and the Arts Seminar |
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Professor: |
Garry Hagberg |
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CRN: |
90039 |
Schedule: |
Tue 5:40 PM - 8:00
PM Olin 203 |
Distributional Area: |
MBV Meaning, Being, Value |
Class cap: |
15 |
Credits: |
4 |
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. This course satisfies the Junior Seminar
requirement.
Course: |
PHIL 399 Kierkegaard |
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Professor: |
Daniel Berthold |
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CRN: |
90040 |
Schedule: |
Tue 2:00 PM - 4:20
PM Olin 306 |
Distributional Area: |
MBV Meaning, Being, Value |
Class cap: |
12 |
Credits: |
4 |
Cross-listed: Study of Religions
An examination of a variety of Soren Kierkegaard's aesthetic,
psychological, and theological texts. We will investigate the portrait of the
aesthetic, ethical, and religious dimensions of existence; the critique of
systematic philosophical discourse; the existentialist psychology of
inwardness; the religious categories of absurdity, paradox, and offense; and
the nature of language and authorship.
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).
Cross-listed courses:
Course: |
HR/PS 243 Constitutional Law |
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Professor: |
Peter Rosenblum and Roger Berkowitz |
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CRN: |
90139 |
Schedule: |
Mon Wed 3:50 PM - 5:10
PM Reem Kayden Center 103 |
Distributional Area: |
SA Social Analysis |
Class cap: |
40 |
Credits: |
4 |
Cross-listed: American Studies; Philosophy
Course: |
HR 3206 Evidence |
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Professor: |
Thomas Keenan |
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CRN: |
90140 |
Schedule: |
Mon 2:00 PM - 4:20
PM Center for Curatorial Studies
Seminar Room |
Distributional Area: |
MBV Meaning, Being, Value D+J Difference and Justice |
Class cap |
18 |
Credits: |
4 |
Cross-listed: Literature; Philosophy
Course: |
PS 392 The Political Thought of W.E.B. Du Bois |
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Professor: |
Mie Inouye |
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CRN: |
90572 |
Schedule: |
Thurs 10:20 AM - 12:40 PM |
Distributional Area: |
MBV Meaning, Being,
Value |
Class cap: |
12 |
Credits: |
4 |
Cross-listed: Africana
Studies; American Studies; Human Rights; Philosophy
Course: |
SOC 306 Law, Jurisprudence & Social Theory |
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Professor: |
Laura Ford |
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CRN: |
90016 |
Schedule: |
Mon 2:00 PM - 4:20
PM Olin 301 |
Distributional Area: |
SA Social Analysis |
Class cap |
12 |
Credits: |
4 |
Cross-listed: Human Rights; Philosophy