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Undergraduate Courses Fall 2004Intensive Introductory Courses V83.0010-001
An intensive introduction to central problems in philosophy. Topics may include free will, the existence of God, skepticism and knowledge, and the mind-body problem. Group I: History of Philosophy
V83.0020-001 Western philosophy owes its birth to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the three most dominant intellectuals in the history of ancient Greece. In their care many of the foundational questions in ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind were raised for the first time and developed in striking and sophisticated ways. We will try to determine which questions they asked, what their answers were, and whether we should accept their answers as correct even now. V83.0030-001 An introduction to the theoretical philosophy of Immanuel Kant, often considered the greatest philosopher of the modern epoch. We shall concentrate on his Critique of Pure Reason, particularly the Transcendental Analytic, with supplemental readings in A Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics. Some background in early modern philosophy preferred, esp. Descartes and Hume. V83.0037-001 Investigation of the primary works of central analytic philosophers of the 20th century, including Frege, Russell, the positivists, Wittgenstein, Quine and Kripke. V83.0101-001 Our topic will be Plato, the most influential of philosophy's founding fathers. We will begin with his early "Socratic" dialogues, in which he defends three interrelated and paradoxical claims: (1) that it is always better for us to suffer injustice than to do injustice, (2) that one always does what one thinks is best, and (3) that moral excellence is a kind of knowledge. After grappling with Plato's arguments for these claims, we will examine his later attempts to support these arguments with full-blooded theories about what we can know (the theory of forms), how knowledge is possible (the theory of recollection), and how this knowledge can make us moral (the theory of justice). We will conclude by exploring some of Plato's final, self-critical reflections on the possibility of mind-independent value, false belief, perceptual knowledge, and weakness of will. Our goal will be not only to appreciate the extraordinary depth and sophistication of Plato's achievement, but also to evaluate this achievement from a 21st century standpoint. Group II: Ethics, Value, and Society
V83.0040-001 An examination of some central topics in moral philosophy. We will consider several particular moral issues, such as: Is abortion morally permissible? Is there a moral difference between killing someone and letting her die? How is it permissible to treat animals? We will also consider several general issues about morality, such as: Why be moral? What makes an action right or wrong, and to what extent is this a matter of the action's consequences? What role should the concept of virtue play in moral theorizing? Is there a single true morality, or is moral truth relative to cultures or individuals? V83.0055-001 In this course, we will investigate contemporary feminism, both as a political movement and as a collection of theoretical perspectives, through the exploration of a number of pertinent topics. These topics will likely include reproductive rights, pornography, violence against women, motherhood, transgender and transsexual identities, and the relationship between sexism and racism. We will examine the theoretical perspectives as found in academic writing on these issues, as well as their application to images of women in popular culture: in novels (such as Kate Chopin's “The Awakening”), in film (such as “Boys Don't Cry”) and television (such as “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”). Thus, we will examine both explicitly philosophical perspectives--that is, the perspectives of writers who are identified as philosophers--as well as perspectives that, though not obviously identifiable as philosophical perspectives, nonetheless express or presuppose theoretical positions, and thus are usefully illuminated by philosophical analysis. No background knowledge of philosophy or feminist theory is required for this course. V83.0102-001 The course will focus on current analyses of autonomy, trust, and deception in personal, medical, and political contexts. Ancillary topics include: authenticity, liberty, paternalism, and self-deception. There will be short commentaries on assigned readings, as well as a term paper. Group III: Metaphysics, Epistemology, Mind, Language, and Logic
V83.0070-001 Introduces the techniques, results, and philosophical import of 20th century formal logic. Principal concepts include those of sentence, set, interpretation, validity, consistency, consequence, tautology, derivation, and completeness. V83.0078-001
What is the ultimate nature of the universe, the nature of all concrete reality? Is it physical, or mental, or both, or neither? And, what is our nature: are we physical, or mental, or both, or neither? We'll be concerned to use our inquiry into these questions to help us with traditionally central philosophical problems, including the problem of free will, the problem of personal identity, and the mind-body problem. While much of the course will treat these topics, some will treat some other topics. V83.0080-001 The course will be primarily about the mind-body problem, but with some discussion of the problem of other minds, personal identity, and theory of action. V83.0081-001 Conceptual and empirical issues about consciousness. Issues covered may include: The explanatory gap, the hard and harder problems of consciousness, concepts of consciousness, the nature of phenomenal concepts, the function of consciousness, consciousness and the mind-body problem, what a neural correlate of consciousness is, higher order thought theories of consciousness, the inverted spectrum, the relation between consciousness and representation. V83.0090-001
We will study some central questions about the nature of scientific theory and practice. Some of the issues we will consider are: What makes a discipline a science? Does science have a special claim to be getting at the truth about the world? Does physics have a special status compared to the other sciences? What makes for a good scientific explanation? What are laws of nature? V83.0201-001 See description of Honor’s Program later in brochure. Graduate courses open to undergraduates with instructor’s permission: G83.1100
The course will be organized around Professor Unger's attempt to articulate a metaphysics of concrete reality that's analytically adequate for, but that's also speculatively bold enough to, make some progress with the problems that get most first drawn into philosophy, and that always comprise the subject's heart: problems of appearance and reality, problems of personal identity, problems of mind and body, problems of free will, and more. Over the last seven years, this metaphysical attempt has been receiving improving formulations in a book-in-progress, All the Power in the World, that will still be progressing throughout the course. The developing metaphysical system draws heavily on, and it’s a response to, several central figures of Modern Philosophy: Descartes, Locke, Berkeley and Hume. Several 20th century figures also influence the work, notably Bertrand Russell, David Lewis, C.B. Martin, Roderick Chisholm, Peter van Inwagen, and David Armstrong. As well as reading the nine chapters of All the Power, we'll read collateral selections from several of these influential thinkers, and from several other thinkers. So that this course serves well as an Advanced Introduction to Metaphysics, we’ll also address some issues that are only tangential to the book’s many main concerns. Readings for this will be drawn from sources Unger uses for his basic undergraduate metaphysics course: Metaphysics: The Big Questions, edited by van Inwagen and Zimmerman, and a small course-pack provided gratis.Students will be required to write just one paper, preferably at least 12 standard pages, but not more than 20. And, students will make a class presentation, each on a different Advanced topic covered in the course. To avoid the issuing of Incompletes, the all students will make there presentations well before the last class session, and each all will submit her paper a full week before the course's last scheduled meeting. G83.2320-002 The seminar will treat a selection of philosophical works by Martin Heidegger. Roughly half of the time will be spent laying out the existential-phenomenological system of Being and Time, with some attention to other writing of that early period. The rest of the semester will examine a selection of Heidegger’s later works, with special attention to the topics of art, language, and technology. Throughout our effort will be not merely to make specific sense of Heidegger’s concepts and claims, but to press his texts for arguments or evidences to support these claims. G83.2285-001 Topics will include most of the following: self-defeating normative theories, egoism, consequentialism, common sense morality, rationality and reasons, the rationality of attitudes to time, obligations to future generations, distributive justice, naturalism, non-cognitivism, normativity, irreducibly normative truths, different senses of ‘wrong’ and kinds of wrongness, and the role of intuitions in moral arguments. G83.2285-002 | |
