Spring 2014 Philosophy Course descriptions Upper division

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1 Spring 2014 Philosophy Course descriptions Upper division 330: Philosophy of Religion Professor: Marcy P. Lascano: This course will examine issues and problems with the traditional attributes associated with the Judeo- Christian God. We will begin by examining traditional conceptions of God, and the role his perfections play in the ontological argument for God s existence. We will then discuss problems associated with the ontological status of God s nature. Next, we will examine God s incorporeality, necessary existence, eternality, omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence. Finally, after examining the attributes individually, we will discuss issues concerned with the compossibility of the attributes and alternative conceptions of God. Requirements: Ten online reading quizzes, and take- home essay midterm and final. Text: Articles and essays selected by the instructor. 352i: Philosophy of Law Professor: Amanda Trefethen: atrefeth@csulb.edu TOPICS: This course will introduce students to the study of philosophical topics related to law and its adjudication. Some of the questions we will address include: What is law? Why, when, and how are we constrained by the law? Is there an essential relationship between law and morality? Can there be a "right answer" in legal disputes? And what does it mean to have "liberty"? Toward this end, we will analyze the theoretical debates between legal positivism and natural law, as well as engage in a discussion of more specific legal and normative topics such as tort law, free speech rights, privacy rights, paternalism, and the duty to rescue. Our readings will be drawn primarily from the historical development of the philosophy of law, including works by such philosophers as Thomas Aquinas, J.S. Mill, John Austin, H.L.A. Hart, Lon Fuller, John Rawls, Judith Thomson, Margaret Radin, and Ronald Dworkin. REQUIREMENTS: To meet the University requirements for IC courses, students will have a writing assignment no later than the fifth week of the semester, with sustained writing throughout the course. Requirements for the course include: significant class participation, weekly writing assignments, a short paper (5 pages), a mid- term examination, and a comprehensive, two- hour, in- class, final examination. TEXT: Philosophical Problems in the Law, David M. Adams. (4th ed.)

2 363: Ethical Theory Professor: Jason Raibley: This course introduces students to several of the main approaches to ethical theory through a close reading of classic texts. We will discuss the virtue ethics of Aristotle and his followers (e.g., G.E.M. Anscombe, Philippa Foot, and Julia Annas), Thomas Hobbes rational egoism, Jeremy Bentham s utilitarianism, David Hume s sentimentalism, Immanuel Kant s deontology, versions of pluralism associated with John Dewey and W. D. Ross, and contractualist approaches from the contemporary philosophers John Rawls and T. M. Scanlon. We will also briefly discuss religious approaches to ethics and several forms of ethical relativism. Ethical theory attempts to provide an integrated understanding of such perplexing phenomena as value (good and bad), moral obligation (right and wrong), personal character (virtue and vice), justice, practical rationality, and personal well- being. An integrated treatment of these phenomena will tell us which characteristic(s) an action, outcome, or policy would need in order for it to be morally or rationally choiceworthy. Such an account will hopefully guide us in our personal, professional, and political lives, enabling us to flourish as individuals, to satisfy our obligations to one another, and to better order the basic institutions of our society. Course requirements: Attendance, participation, and completion of three take- home exams. 403: Medical Ethics Professor: Patrick Dieveney: Patrick.dieveney@csulb.edu In this course, we will be exploring a wide range of issues in contemporary biomedical ethics. Topics discussed in the course include ethical issues concerning the professional- patient relationship, human and animal research, physician- assisted suicide, abortion and embryonic stem- cell research, and social justice and health- care policy. The primary goal in the course is to introduce students to the various ethical issues and debates surrounding the bio- medical sciences, and to equip them with the analytical tools necessary to appreciate the various positions and arguments. This course should prove beneficial to those interested in the practice of medicine, for whom this may be their only philosophy course, and it will provide a good background for those who wish to pursue further studies in philosophy.

3 416/516: Pragmatism Professor: Alexander Klein: In 1898, William James ignited a philosophical bomb by publishing a talk he had delivered at UC Berkeley earlier that summer. Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results introduced the world to pragmatism, a philosophical doctrine that had at its heart a curious account of meaning. James credited his old friend Charles S. Peirce with the original formulation of this account. Consider what effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have, Peirce had written. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object. This seemingly arcane pronouncement sparked outrage that is hard to overstate. One commentator warned of pragmatism s dark moral consequences, calling the view a degrading sophistry. Others derided it as American capitalism run amok. Why all the hellfire? One source of ire is that pragmatists often deployed their account of meaning to offer radical analyses of familiar concepts like truth, goodness, and beauty. For instance the pragmatic meaning of truth, according to a standard analysis, is just whatever consensus scientific inquiry would produce were it to be pursued as far as possible. This sort of account rejects any notion of Truth that transcends real human inquiry, a rejection that was (and remains) a source of the scorn to which pragmatism has long been subject. In this class we will seek charitably to unpack the philosophical dimensions of golden- era pragmatism, focusing on the works of Peirce, James, and (to a lesser extent) Dewey. Both Peirce and James were trained scientists, and they saw pragmatism as an application of good scientific methodology to philosophy. As such, we will pay special attention to the pragmatists philosophy of science, and to the general scientific milieu out of which their philosophy grew. For instance, James was a pioneer of experimental psychology, and we will see how some of his work on perception informs his mature pragmatism. We will also study some of the pragmatists ground- breaking and heretical writings on ethics and religion, both issues of crucial importance for this movement as well. 423/523: Kant Professor: Nellie Wieland: nellie.wieland@csulb.edu Are you seriously considering not taking the Kant course? No way! How else are you going to spend ALL of your waking hours in the spring semester? In just 15 long, difficult, and frustrating weeks we will read most of the Critique of Pure Reason. We will work hard to understand the limits of knowledge, experience, space and time, appearances and reality. Ultimately, we will fail.

4 Nevertheless, we will leave this course better prepared to discuss this extremely important episode in the history of philosophy, and better prepared to take the richness of Kant s philosophy and apply it to many contemporary philosophical debates. I'd say you won't regret it, but in fact you just might. The required reading is The Critique of Pure Reason. Standard expectations for participation, exams, and papers apply. Join us! 451i: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in American Law Professor: Amanda Trefethen: atrefeth@csulb.edu This course will examine the nature of basic constitutional notions, such as liberty, justice, due process, and equality, against the backdrop of an American legal history too frequently blighted by systematic and pervasive human inequality. In short, this course will examine the social construction of race, ethnicity, and gender and consider when and to what extent this construction has served as a legal sanction for perpetuating an exclusive, rather than inclusive, interpretation of "justice." In the process we will ask (and find surprising answers to) such questions as: Does Race Exist? What is Justice? Can the Sexes be Equal? GENERAL EDUCATION: This course can be "triple- counted," as (1) 3 units of the University Interdisciplinary (IC) requirement, (2) 3 units of the University Human Diversity (HD) requirement, and (3) 3 unit credits for the philosophy major OR 3 units of C.2.b. "Philosophy" for non- majors. COURSE REQUIREMENTS: The University IC requirements include substantial writing. To comply, the course will require (1) a word essay on the assigned readings due at the end of the fifth week, (2) an in- class essay mid- term exam, (3) weekly reader response essays, and (4) a cumulative in- class essay final exam. TOPICS: We will begin by considering the nature of "justice," with special attention to issues of race, ethnicity, and gender. We will then consider how the law historically has identified and distinguished these groups, how these distinctions have been justified and implemented by the law, and how the law has developed to reject different treatment. We will read both philosophical texts and extensive court decisions. We will read philosophical texts by Catherine MacKinnon, John Stuart Mill, Naomi Zack, Thomas Nagel. Susan Okin, Martha Minow, John Rawls, Alexis de Tocqueville, Richard Wasserstrom, and others. To comply with the University HD requirements, we will consider court decisions which address African- Americans, Asian- Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and women. TEXT: Ethical Issues in the Courts: A Companion to Philosophical Ethics (Julie Van Camp, Wadsworth Publishing, 2000) We also will use a course supplement, available at the University Bookstore in late August, e- reserve materials, and public domain readings

5 482I: Intro to Cognitive Science Professor: Charles Wallis This course introduces students to the basics of Cognitive Science including elements of Philosophy, Computer Science, Cognitive Psychology, Neuroscience, and Linguistics. Serving as an independent introduction to the field of Cognitive Science, the course will focus upon on the historical development, foundational philosophical presuppositions, methodologies, and results from a selection of core topics in Cognitive Science. In addition to covering the theoretical contributions of the various disciplines of Cognitive Science, the course provides students with an introduction to the underlying theoretical framework of Cognitive Science, including its central problems, explanatory structure, and experimental methodologies. Students participate in several labs designed to promote active learning and give students a deeper understanding of the foundational presuppositions and methodology of Cognitive Science. I focus primarily upon ways in which Cognitive Scientists explain human and animal abilities through the hypothesis of various types of cognitive architectures acting to perform cognitive tasks. A cognitive architecture combines representational structures, computational processes, and control structures to specify the information- processing capacities of a natural or artificial system. A task specification includes: (1) A characterization of the task in terms of inputs and outputs which represent the information available/utilized (inputs) and the information inferred from that initial input (outputs). (2) A characterization of computational strategy employed by the system, particularly the environmental and heuristic constraints exploited by the system in the generation of tractable, and reliable task solutions. I base undergraduate evaluations upon the following: (1) 12 one page tests/research assignments (70%) assigned most weeks during the term, (2) four labs [one lab from each lab set] (20%), and (3) 10 randomly taken attendance points (10%). I base graduate evaluations upon the following: (1) 12 one page tests/research assignments (50%) assigned most weeks during the term, (2) eight labs [two labs from each lab set] (20%), (3) 10 randomly taken attendance points (10%), and (4) page final paper (20%) on a topic of the student's choosing (in consultation with me). Upon completion of the course, should have made satisfactory progress towards the following four goals: (1) Students learn to read and evaluate scholarly journal articles from the some of the core disciplines of Cognitive Science; Computer Science, Linguistics, Neuroscience, Philosophy, and Psychology. (2) Students gain significant insight into many of the research areas, theories, and methodologies found in Cognitive Science and its constituent academic disciplines. (3) Students gain an sense of the potential impact of research in Cognitive Science upon their lives, conceptions of self, and societies. (4) Students improve their writing abilities, particularly with respect to their ability to write concise, highly organized, and self- contained expositions of theories and empirical findings. (5) Students gain familiarity with research techniques and available databases applicable to the cognitive sciences.

6 493/593: Special Topics in Metaphysics Fact-checking and Truthmaking Professor: Dr. Cory Wright: Some people so-called fact-checkers earn an honest living exposing those who don t. (See, e.g., < or < Presumably, the job of a fact-checker is to check the facts. But how, exactly, is this done? After all, facts about, say, unobservables are facts for which we have in-principle difficulties experiencing and accessing. Other kinds of facts are equally recalcitrant: very general facts, negative existentials, facts regarding counterfactuals, facts described by indeterminate truths, etc. In this course, we will explore some of the practical difficulties with this line of work, as well as the philosophical issues that it raises. We will work through some of the major metaphysical conceptions of facts and fact-checking; and we will spend a lot of time learning about related issues pertaining to truth and contemporary advances in truthmaker theory. Upon successful completion of the course, students will be better philosophers and partially ready for a new career in factchecking. 496/596: Marx and Marxist Theory Professor: Max Rosenkrantz: max.rosenkrantz@csulb.edu Description: The first part of this course will be devoted to a careful reading of substantial selections from Volume I of Capital, supplemented with selections from the 1844 Manuscripts and Grundrisse. In addition, we will read a number of works by later writers Marxist and non- Marxist that illuminate the issues Marx discusses. We will cover the central issues in Marxist theory: the origins of capitalism, the labor theory of value, class, exploitation, technology, early Marx vs. late Marx, economic crisis (i.e. recessions and depressions) and the relation between Marx s thought and the theory and practice of orthodox Marxism. In the second part of the course we will turn to a consideration of Marxist analyses of the political/economic developments of the past 80 years or so: the rise and fall of the Keynesian state, the emergence of neo- liberalism, the financialization of the economy and so on. 620: Descartes Metaphysics Professor: Lawrence Nolan: Lawrence.nolan@csulb.edu One of the hallmarks of the early modern rationalists (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Malebranche) is the systematic character of their metaphysics. The various aspects of their philosophies hang together in

7 a highly elegant manner and derive from a few basic principles. As the father of modern philosophy, Descartes is often regarded as the greatest of the modern rationalists; he is clearly the most influential. Yet, he is also something of an outlier. One wants to say that he too is one of the great system- builders in metaphysics, but it is difficult to make this judgment in an unqualified way and without offering some defense. There are multiple difficulties: 1) Based on the Meditations, Descartes has the reputation of being an epistemologist a philosopher concerned primarily with defeating skepticism and establishing the foundations of knowledge rather than a metaphysician. (Interestingly, he referred privately to the Meditations as his Metaphysics.) 2) Unlike the other rationalists, Descartes never wrote a systematic treatise devoted exclusively to metaphysics. Instead, one must piece together his views from various works and even his correspondence. 3) When responding to critics, Descartes sometimes seems to change his mind and to offer contradictory views on topics such as the nature of human freedom. This might suggest that rather than springing from a central source his views evolved over time. 4) There are some important metaphysical topics, such as the nature of causation, which were the focus of much debate in the 17 th century, but which Descartes leaves unanalyzed. In this course, we will explore the degree to which Descartes metaphysics can be regarded as systematic in the same sense as the other rationalists and the degree to which it marked a revolution in Western thought. In addition to Descartes philosophical writings, we will read a wide range of secondary literature on such fascinating topics as human and divine freedom, the nature of the human being and whether Descartes was a committed dualist, the nature of the mind and consciousness, the status of universals, causation, time, the nature and existence of God, the creation of the eternal truths, and the concept of substance. We will also attend to methodological questions concerning how to study and write about the history of philosophy. Participants in the seminar will be required to write two drafts of a term paper and deliver at least one oral presentation based on their term- paper research. The main goal of these assignments will be to help prepare you for writing a master s thesis or for completing the comprehensive exam option.