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Undergraduate Courses Spring 2002
Non-Major Introductory Courses
V83.0005-001
Ethics and Society
TR 3:30-4:45 PM
Albert Piacente
Examines grounds for moral judgment and action in various social contexts. Typical topics: public versus private good and duties; individualism and cooperation; inequalities and justice; utilitarianism and rights; regulation of sexual conduct, abortion, and family life; poverty and wealth; racism and sexism; and war and capital punishment. Intensive Introductory Courses
V83.0010-001
Central Problems in Philosophy
MW 2:00-3:15 PM
Thomas Nagel
An intensive introduction to the main problems of philosophy, through historical and contemporary writings. Topics will include knowledge and skepticism, the mind-body problem, moral objectivity, and free will. Four short papers and a final exam.
V83.0015-001
Minds and Machines
TR 2:00-3:15
Ned Block
Minds and Machines examines the conflict between computational and biological approaches to the mind. Topics covered include whether a machine could think, whether thinking could be symbol crunching, whether a computational description is entirely observer-relative, the Turing Test, mental representation, the reduction of the mind to the brain, neural nets, mental imagery, and whether consciousness can be explained computationally or biologically.
Group I: History of Philosophy
V83.0021-001
History of Modern Philosophy
MW 11:00-12:15 AM
Gary Ostertag
This is a survey of 17th and 18th century European metaphysics and epistemology. We will read Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant.
Group II: Ethics, Value, and Society
V83.0040-001
Ethics
TR 9:30-10:45 AM
We will begin the course by discussing some ethical problems that we encounter as citizens and human beings. Then we will consider philosophical approaches to ethical problems. We will discuss and evaluate deontological theories, utilitarianism, existentialism, and pragmatism. Readings will include Plato, Mill, Rawls, Dewey, Sartre, and Foucault. Course work will include two midterm exams, a term paper, and a final exam.
V83.0050-001
Medical Ethics
MW 6:20-7:35
James Dwyer
In the first part of the course, we will consider a number of ethical issues that arise in the practice of medicine. We will discuss confidentiality, truthfulness, informed consent, competence, refusal of treatment, assisted suicide, decisions for children, and professional obligations. In the second part of the course, we will consider ethical issues that are related to health care systems, public policies, and social institutions. We will discuss the allocation of scarce resources, social justice, social responsibility, and international duties. Throughout the course, we will reflect on different philosophical approaches to ethical issues. We will discuss ethical theories, the role of principles, case-based reasoning, moral virtues, and pragmatism. Course work will include two midterm exams, a term paper, and a final exam.
Group III: Metaphysics, Epistemology, Mind, Language, and Logic
V83.0070-001
Logic
MW 3:30-4:45 PM
Scott Walden
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.
V83.0074-001
Modal Logic
TR 11:00-12:15 PM
Rohit Parikh
Modal Logic is the logic of necessity and possibility and other such notions. In recent times, the framework of possible worlds has provided a valuable tool for investigating the formal properties of these notions, and the subject has found application in a variety of fields - including philosophy, linguistics and computer science. This course will provide an introduction to the basic concepts, methods and results of modal logic, with an emphasis on its application to some of these other fields.
V83.0076-001
Belief, Truth & Knowledge
MW 9:30-10:45 AM
Roger White
This course is an inquiry into the nature of inquiry. We often seek answers to questions—e.g., Who was responsible for the Sept 11 attacks? Will the Knicks win tonight? 837+655=?—and take ourselves to know the answers, or have rational opinions, or to have good evidence for our views. Rather than answer these questions, we will step back and ask, What is the nature of evidence? and What it is to know something or to be rational? In answering these questions, we will examine versions of, and responses to Skepticism: that there is very little we can know or have reason to believe.
V83.0090-001
Philosophy of Science
TR 2:00-3:15 PM
Gordon Belot
We will consider a range of question about the nature and objectivity of scientific knowledge. What is the difference between scientific explanations and other ones? What is the role of observation and experiment in scientific knowledge? How and why does scientific knowledge change over time? Can we have knowledge of what is in principle unobservable? Is scientific knowledge more objective than other forms of knowledge? We will read some classic contributions to the philosophy of science from the last fifty years.
V83.0101-001
Topics in the History of Philosophy
TR 11:00-12:15PM
Cian Dorr
We will spend most of the course reading our way through one of the greatest books in philosophy, Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature. Additional readings may include: excerpts from the works of Hume’s precursors (including Locke and Berkeley); excerpts from some of Hume’s other works; contemporary and recent commentary on Hume; and articles by twentieth-century philosophers engaged in projects related to Hume’s.
V83.0102-001
Topics in Ethics and Political Philosophy
TR 2:00-3:15 PM
Peter Unger
The course will revolve around two central questions in basic ethics, with related discussion of several topics in applied ethics. The first central question is, what is it that determines the moral status of a particular being? If we can save one human baby or else two elephants, in a world with plenty of each, what is it about the human baby that determines it's she alone that we should save, rather than both elephants, each (suppose) mentally more advanced than she? And, here's the second central question: Is there a morally significant distinction, even anywhere in the neighborhood of the (probably insignificant) distinction between causing and letting happen - between killing and letting die, for instance, and, for another instance, between inflicting pain and letting pain happen?
On the second question, I'll unconfidently argue that there really isn't any important distinction. And, so, it's terribly wrong to for us to allow distant little children, in the poorest regions, to suffer and die young. But, now turning back to the first question, there's this: If we can't find good reason to accord the human babies enormously higher moral status than almost all other mammals, will we then be required, on pain of behaving very badly, to provide them also, all over the world, with whatever aid they need to flourish? For many centuries, that may be enormously costly. So, there'll be important interplay between our two central questions.
Our discussion of these questions will have implications for issues of discrimination, abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, and other "hot topics" in applied ethics.
Far from being a series of lectures, the course should consist mainly of lively discussion with, and among, its students, where the students think hard about ethical issues. Since there won't be an attempt to impart a "body of ethical knowledge," there won't be any exams. But, students must write two lucid short papers, or possibly three, each on a different issue discussed in class.
V83.0201-001
Honors Seminar
TBA
Peter Unger
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