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Undergraduate Courses Summer 2008

First Session

V83.0017 Life and Death
MTWR 1:30-3:05pm
Gina Rini
 This course, intended as a rigorous introduction to philosophical methods and concerns, will focus upon a range of answers to one question: what’s so great about being alive? Is life good in itself, or only if it includes good things? Is death really bad? Is it a bad thing to have never lived at all? (If so, bad for whom?) Are all lives – all living creatures – equally good? Is anything more important than life? In addressing these questions, the course will emphasize the development of philosophical reasoning through extensive discussion and written work. We will primarily engage philosophy, but consider some relevant science, literature, and art as well.

V83.0020 History of Ancient Philosophy
MTWR 6:00-7:35pm
Helena Wright
Western philosophy owes its birth to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. 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.  

V83.0036 Existentialism & Phenomenology
MTWR 11:30am-1:05pm
Bogdan Rabanca
The course will examine the works of the most representative thinkers associated with existentialism. We will read Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Arendt. Since some of these thinkers were influenced by the phenomenological method developed by Husserl, we will spend some time on his work as well. If time allows, and depending on the interests of the participants in the class, we might also read some Merleau-Ponty and Camus. Although the approach will be historical, the main focus of the class will be on two ideas: (1) freedom and its connection to moral responsibility and (2) subjectivity. Besides reading philosophical texts, I will also assign some literary texts that illustrate existentialist themes (one or more of Dostoevsky, Camus, and Sartre) and possibly a movie. Course requirements: two 5-6 page papers, a midterm and a final.

V83.0045 Political Philosophy
MTWR 3:30-5:05pm
Matthew Seligman
In this course we will examine the fundamental moral questions about government and the state. In the first half of the course, we will look at the arguments for the justification of the authority of the state. We will evaluate the arguments advocating particular forms of government, including readings by Hobbes, Locke, Rawls, and Nozick.

In the second half of the course, we will focus on the moral questions about war. Readings will include seminal papers on just war theory, and more recent work on terrorism.

V83.0070 Logic
MTWR 1:30-3:05pm
Eliza Block
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 Metaphysics
MTWR 3:30-5:05pm
Shamik Dasgupta
In this course we're going to ask questions about the fundamental nature of reality. We'll start by asking what sort of picture of the world is given to us by modern physics. We often think of physics as describing a bunch of particles moving around in space in law-like ways. But what is space? Is it a "substance" through which things move? If not, how are we to make sense of motion? And anyway, what is time? Is it that just the present moment is real, with the past already gone and the future not yet happened? Or are past, present and future equally real: the future "already existing", waiting for us to drift into it? And what can we learn about these questions from modern developments in physics such as relativity theory? Then we'll turn to asking whether we can locate other things---tables, people, emotions, values, causes---in a world that at a fundamental level consists in nothing other than a swarm of particles.

V83.0080 Philosophy of Mind
MTWR 6:00-7:35
Jonathan Simon
This will be an introductory course in the philosophy of mind. What is it to have conscious experience, to be self-aware, or to have thoughts about and perceptions of the world around us? Do our mental lives have any causal impact on the physical world? Are there different kinds of consciousness? Do androids dream of electric sheep?  We will investigate whether these questions can be answered and explained in terms of the physical and computational architecture of our brains, or if we must say that there are irreducibly mental properties, states or souls. We will consider dualism, idealism, and materialism; inverted spectrum scenarios, zombie worlds, the “Mary” argument, mental causation, etc. No prerequisites, though familiarity with the general methods and concepts of contemporary analytic philosophy will come in handy.

Second Session

*V83.0001 Inroduction to Philosophy
MTWR 1:30-3:05pm
Justin Clarke-Doane
This course is an introduction to the central themes and methods of philosophy for the general student (the course does not count toward the philosophy major).  We will read important historical and contemporary texts from various philosophical traditions.  Emphasis will be placed on thinking, talking, and writing clearly and creatively about complex issues.

*V83.0015 Minds and Machines
MTWR 6:00-7:35pm
Jonny Cottrell
Could man-made machines—in particular, computers—have mental lives at all like ours?  Are our own minds (or brains) themselves computers?  This course will approach central topics in philosophy of mind and psychology by way of these questions.  Along the way, we will consider:  Could computers ever be intelligent?  How do we represent the world in language and thought, and could computers be capable of either?  What is the relation between those aspects of our minds we are aware of, such as our beliefs, desires and experiences, and the subconscious neural processing that takes place in our brains?  Is it anything like the relation between software and hardware?  What is the nature of consciousness experience? And what are we, ourselves—are we computers, or computer programs?  Or are we animals of a certain biological species?  Readings will be drawn from classic books and papers in the philosophy of mind, psychology, and artificial intelligence.

*V83.0021 History of Modern Philosophy
MTWR 1:30-3:05
David Barnett
We'll be examining some of philosophy's "Greatest Hits," from some of the 17th and 18th centuries' greatest thinkers:  Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. We'll be asking questions like: Is there a God, and how could we know?  Is your mind just your brain, or do you have an immaterial soul?  What is free will, and are we just fooling ourselves when we think we have it?  Does your subjective perception of the world correspond to how it is in reality, and how can you possibly know?  Are there universal moral rules that hold across all times and cultures, and how could we determine what they are?

The course is required for philosophy majors, and it could also be used as an advanced introduction to philosophy for non-majors.

*V83.0040 Ethics
MTWR 3:30-5:05
Colin Marshall
This course will attempt to examine the most fundamental features of morality.  We'll begin by trying to determine what the central aim or aims of morality might be (e.g. producing happiness, respecting others' autonomy, etc.).  From there, we'll consider meta-ethical issues such as the relation of morality to motivation, and the question of how there could be moral facts if the world turns out to be made of nothing more than a bunch of tiny particles or strings.

The course will draw both from great ethicists of the past (such as Kant and Mill) and from major figures in contemporary ethics (such as Moore and Nagel).  Our discussions will run at a high level, but no previous experience with philosophy is required.

*V83.0050 Medical Ethics
MTWR 9:30-11:05am
Jeff Sebo
This course explores a range of concepts and principles for framing and addressing moral questions in medical practices. Topics include: moral theory and methodology; concepts of life, death, health, disease, and well-being; reverence and respect for life; the right to life, the right to death, and the duty to die; autonomy, paternalism, and trust; legal and political principles of medical care; conflicts of interest; criteria for rationing scarce medical resources; malpractice and uncertainty; sentience, pain, and empathy; animal, fetal, and clinical research; and more.

In addition to philosophy articles, we will read medical case studies and newspaper/magazine articles. We may also watch some movies and TV shows. No background in philosophy or medicine is assumed.

*V83.0052 Philosophy of Law
MTWR 11:30am-1:05pm
Alex Guerrero
This course is an introduction to the philosophy of law.  No background is assumed—either in philosophy or in law.  The course is divided into four parts.

The first part will briefly introduce the main substantive areas of US law—including Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, Property Law, Tort Law, Contract Law, and Administrative Law—and some of the philosophical issues associated with those areas of law.  We will read a range of materials in this part of the class, including parts of the US Constitution, criminal statutes, administrative codes, judicial opinions, and philosophical texts.

Having warmed to some of the basics of law (small ‘L’), the second part of the class will focus on philosophical theories of Law (big ‘L’).  We will consider four main theories—(1) Natural Law Theory, (2) Legal Positivism, (3) Legal Realism, and (4) Law and Economics.  These theories offer different answers to some or all of the following questions: What is law?  How do we know whether something is ‘law’ or not?  What makes it the case that something is or isn’t law?  What are the (actual and/or normatively appropriate) sources of law?  What is the connection, if any, between law and morality?  How should we evaluate laws and legal systems?  For this part of the class, we will read philosophical texts by Hart, Dworkin, Coleman, Leiter, and Posner, among others.

The third part of the class will connect our philosophical study of law with normative political philosophy, addressing three main topics: the Rule of Law, Political Legitimacy, and the relationship between Democracy and Constitutionalism.  Our discussion of these topics will be brief (particularly given the vast literature that exists), but should provide some sense of the issues at stake.  Questions we will consider: What are rule of law values?  Why should we care about them?  What conditions must be satisfied in order for the coercive behavior of a political entity to be morally legitimate?  What are the reasons for having a constitution?  What, if anything, justifies judicial review (the ability of courts to overturn a democratically-enacted statute on the grounds that it is unconstitutional)?  We will read Fuller, Waldron, Hobbes, Rawls, and Simmons, among others, on these topics.

The fourth and final part of the class will consider issues of constitutional interpretation, focusing on a discussion of two main theories of interpretation—originalism and various forms of non-originalism (pragmatism, certain forms of textualism, doctrinalism, and others)—that will be informed by our earlier discussions of legal theories and normative political philosophy.  Our main interest in the topic will be in thinking about the following question: How should judges interpret the U.S. Constitution?  Readings for this part of the course will come from Justice Scalia, Amar, Marmor, Balkin, Barnett, and others, and various excerpts from judicial opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court.

*V83.0070 Logic
MTWR 6:00-7:35
Sinan Dogramci
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 Belief, Truth and Knowledge
MTWR 3:30-5:05
Mike Raven
This course will focus upon some of the central issues in epistemology. What is the difference between belief and knowledge? What is it to have a justified belief? What ways are reliable ways of forming new justified beliefs, or new knowledge? Is it possible for you to have any justified beliefs, or knowledge, about the world beyond your mind?

V83.0085 Philosophy of Language
MTWR 11:30-1:05
Melis Erdur
An introduction to philosophy of language. Topics to be covered include meaning, reference, truth, pragmatics, and speech-acts.  Once the fundamental notions are mastered, we will move on to a discussion of a variety of philosophical problems in which language plays an important role.  These include incommensurability of scientific theories, relativism, objectivity of morality, and also issues that revolve around naming something (‘torture’ or ‘genocide’ for example).