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Undergraduate Courses Spring 2004
Non-Major Introductory Course
V83.0005-001
Ethics and Society
MW 3:30-4:45 PM
TBA
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 Course
V83.0015-001
Minds and Machines
TR 3:30-4:45
Ned Block
This course examines the difference between computational and biological approaches to the mind. Topics covered include whether a machine could think, whether we are machines, whether thinking could be symbol manipulation, the Turing Test, Searle's "Chinese Room" argument, mental representation, whether mental imagery is incompatible with the computer model of mind, the reduction of the mind to the brain, neural nets, and whether consciousness can be explained materialistically.
V83.0017-001
Life and Death
TR 11-12:15
William Ruddick
An intensive introduction to main areas, traditions, and genres of Philosophy, by way of various questions about life, mortality, and death. Topics include: biological and metaphysical definitions of life and death; the goods of life and evils of death; the shapes and meanings of lives; arguments and alleged evidence for personal post-mortem survival; abortion, suicide, and euthanasia; capital punishment and wars; biography and memorials.
Readings from canonical and contemporary philosophers. Frequent writing assignments.
Only sophomores beginning or considering a Philosophy major
Group I: History of Philosophy
V83.0021-001
History of Modern Philosophy
MW 11:00-12:15 AM
Don Garrett
In seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe, revolutionary developments in science and culture led to the generation of new philosophical questions, methods, and theories--and to the transformation of old ones--in such a way as to produce a remarkable share of the most general philosophical questions, methods, and theories that still quite recognizably dominate philosophy today. This course will examine the most important contributions of such influential and systematic early modern philosophers as Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume to the fields of epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, and ethics.
Group II: Ethics, Value, and Society
V83.0036-001
Existentialism and Phenomenology
TR 11-12:15
John Richardson
The course will study major works by the major philosophers in the existential and phenomenological movements. After some attention to Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, we will look more closely at the difficult work of Husserl, the founder of phenomenology, and of Heidegger, who revises that method to handle existential themes. Finally, we will look at Sartre’s related system, and (if time permits) at work by Merleau-Ponty. Requirements: 2 papers and a final exam.
V83.0040-001
Ethics
TR 2:00-3:15
Sharon Street
In this course, we will examine some central topics in moral philosophy. Among the questions we will consider are: What reason is there to be moral? Is pleasure the only ultimate good? 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? Are there such things as moral facts, and if so, how should we understand them? Is there a single true morality, or is moral truth relative to culture or the individual? Readings will be drawn from both contemporary and historical sources.
V83.0045-001
Political Philosophy
TR 11-12:15
Liam Murphy
Critical discussion of classic issues and texts in political philosophy from the 17th to the 20th century. Questions include: What are the conditions that a system of government must satisfy before its use of coercive power can be considered legitimate? What are the conditions that a society must satisfy before it can be considered just? What role do the ideas of consent, contract, democracy, individual rights, social welfare, liberty, and equality (including racial, sexual, and economic equality), play in our answers to these questions? Readings include works by Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, Hume, Rousseau, Kant, Wollstonecraft, Marx, Mill, Schmitt, Rawls, and Nozick.
V83.0060-001
Aesthetics
TR 2-3:15
Dale Jamieson
This course will center on questions about aesthetic appreciation, beginning with whether or not there is any such thing, and what it might consist in if there is. We will also ask about what sorts of things can be aesthetically appreciated, paying particular attention to various aspects of nature and everyday life. Finally, we will discuss some questions about artworks, including their relations to aesthetic appreciation. Readings will range from Kant to Cage.
Group III: Metaphysics, Epistemology, Mind, Language, and Logic
V83.0070-001
Logic
Scott Walden
MW 2-3:15 PM
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.
V83.0076-001
Belief, Truth & Knowledge
MW 9:30-10:45 AM
TBA
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.
V83.0085-001
Philosophy of Language
MW 4:55-6:10
Gary Ostertag
Examines various philosophical and psychological approaches to language and meaning and their consequences for traditional philosophical problems in metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Discusses primarily 20th Century authors including Russell, Wittgenstein, and Quine.
V83.0102-001
Topics in Ethics and Political Philosophy
MW 12:30-1:45 PM
Elizabeth Harman
Prerequisite: Two course in Philosophy, including either V83.0040, V83.0041, V83.0045, or V83.0052.
Every day each of us fails to save a starving child somewhere in the world. It seems that this is much less bad than pulling a trigger of a gun and killing someone; but is it? In exploring this question, we will ask: Is there a morally significant difference between making something happen and allowing it to happen? Do a person's intentions affect the permissibility of her actions? Is it worse to intend a bad outcome as a means than to merely foresee that it will occur? Does a person have stronger ethical obligations to those who are near to her than to those who are on the other side of the world?
V83.0103-001
Topics in Metaphysics and Epistemology
TR 11-12:15
Peter Unger
Prerequisite: Two course in Philosophy, including either V83.0076 or V83.0078.
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 six 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 short selections from several of these influential thinkers, and from several other thinkers. Students will be required to write two short papers, each on a different topic discussed in class. One will be due a bit before the middle of the term and, to avoid the issuing of Incompletes, the second will be due about a week before the course's last scheduled meeting.
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