Department of Philosophy Spring 2019 Course Descriptions

Transcription

1 Philosophy majors must take several core courses, and at least one course from each of three categories: Ethics and Values, Knowledge and Reality, and Philosophy in Society. Listings for upper division ( ) courses indicate whether the course is in the core, or its category. Lower division ( ) courses can only be used as electives in the major; their category is listed as N/A. Course number: PHIL 1013/001 CRN: Meeting time: TR 10:30-11:45am Course title: Introduction to Philosophy Instructor: Weaver Description: The word philosophy comes from the Greek philo- loving + sophia- knowledge, wisdom. In terms of word origin, then, philosophy is the love of knowledge or wisdom. The scope of study is thus very broad, covering all the things we can know or be wise about. But we will focus on three fundamental areas of inquiry in our pursuit of knowledge and wisdom: 1) Metaphysics, which asks questions such as: What is real? What sorts of real things are there? What are the ultimate constituents of real things? 2) Epistemology, which seeks answer to these sorts of questions: What is knowledge? Can one ever possess knowledge? How can one come to know? And finally, 3) Ethics, which asks: What is good? Is good/right real? Are ethical judgments objective or subjective? In addition to Logic, which we will *not* cover in this course, these are the four classical domains of philosophy. And by seeking to become wise through the spending of time with a few of the best thinkers through the ages as they examine these questions, you can expect the following: to become a better thinker; to become a more careful and competent reader; and to become a better writer. Course number: PHIL 1013/002 CRN: Meeting time: MWF 10:30-11:20am Course title: Introduction to Philosophy Instructor: Burkhart Description: This course will explore a wide range of philosophical questions using a multicultural perspective of philosophy and the history of philosophy. We will read texts from Anglo-European, Hindu, Buddhist, Chinese, African, African-American, Native American, Latin American, Euro-American philosophers and more. We will use these philosophical texts to study questions like: How should I live? How can I know what is right? What makes a society just and is justice possible? Is knowledge possible? What is truly real? Do I have free will? Are religious claims true? By the end of this course you will not only have a familiarity with a broad cross-section of philosophical inquiry (both globally and historically), but you will also have greatly improved your ability to critically think about and formulate your own arguments on these topics. The textbook for this course is Voices of Wisdom: a multicultural philosophy reader (9e) edited by Gary E. Kessler. Courses assignments includes a number of quizzes (both in and out of class), a midterm, final exam and several short writing assignments. Course number: PHIL 1013/003 CRN: Meeting time: TR 1:30-2:45pm Course title: Introduction to Philosophy (Honors) Instructor: Montminy Requires permission from Honor s College Description: This course is a thematic introduction to philosophy that focuses on some of the most central issues in the field. The topics we will discuss include the existence of God, the mind-body problem, free will, the nature of persons and morality. By the end of the semester, students will not only be familiar with some of the central philosophical questions, but will have developed and sharpened their analytic and argumentative skills. Readings: course packet

2 Course number: PHIL 1013/995 CRN: Meeting time: On-line Course title: Introduction to Philosophy Instructor: Bickel Description: This course focuses on some of life s most difficult yet most important questions. After a primer in critical thinking and logic (i.e. the rules for how to reason well and how to avoid common reasoning mistakes), we will focus on three big questions: (1) What, if anything, is knowledge, and how do we get it? (2) Which things, if any, are real, and how do we distinguish real from not real? (3) What, if anything, is morally good/ bad, and how should this effect our behavior? Our task throughout the course will be to practice using good reasons and good sources of evidence to construct persuasive cases in favor of the most plausible answers to these questions. The most important thing is not what answer you give, but rather how well you can explain and defend that answer. But this will not be an exercise in defending your view at all costs: philosophy is, at bottom, the practice of identifying, reflecting on, and when necessary changing your beliefs in order to be as justified as possible. Course number: PHIL 1013/996 CRN: Meeting time: On-line Course title: Introduction to Philosophy Instructor: Grosz Description: In this course you will examine your views on several core philosophical topics: the existence of God, the possibility of knowing about the world, what makes actions moral, and the justifications for governmental authority. The class begins with crash course in elementary logic. Each topic will be covered in a three-week unit. During the course you will read philosophical texts, in order to analyze traditional arguments and evaluate some classic answers to the questions explored in the units. As appropriate, you will consider how philosophical concepts can help you understand practical dilemmas, in particular in moral and political life. And you will practice expressing ideas through arguments which present and justify your reasons for holding your beliefs. Course work will include: a series of short exercises, which will lead you through the ideas in each unit; posts to the course discussion board, including answers to assigned questions, and responses to other students answers; tests on each unit (the final grade will be based on the best three of five unit tests); a comprehensive final exam. Course number: PHIL 1113/001 CRN: Meeting time: MWF 11:30am-12:20pm Course title: Introduction to Logic Instructor: Cook Gen-ed: Core Area I Mathematics Category: N/A Requires Math 0123 or satisfactory score on Math Placement Test Description: Donald Trump claims that Hilary Clinton is a crook, and Hillary Clinton claims that Donald Trump is a liar. Are their arguments for these claims any good? Arguments can be good or bad in numerous ways. We will focus on arguments that are good or bad because of their form. We may not know whether the premises Trump uses to argue that Clinton is a crook are true; but we can ask whether, assuming they are, they establish that Clinton is a crook. We will concentrate on Formal Logic. In general, Formal Logic involves two steps: translating an argument from ordinary language into special symbols that bring out more clearly the form of the argument and using various techniques to determine whether the symbolized argument has a good form whether, that is, the conclusion follows.

3 Course number: PHIL 1113/002 CRN: Meeting time: MWF 12:30-1:20pm Course title: Introduction to Logic Instructor: TBA Gen-ed: Core Area I Mathematics Category: N/A Requires Math 0123 or satisfactory score on Math Placement Test Description: An introduction to modern logic and its applications. Emphasis is placed on deductive logic, but may also include some treatment of inductive logic. Various common fallacies and errors in reasoning will also be discussed. Course number: PHIL 1213/001 CRN: Meeting time: TR 9:00-10:15am Course title: Introduction to Ethics Instructor: Droira Description: This course has two major goals. The first is to study the major ethical theories, offering students some frameworks for moral reasoning in relation to concepts such as rights, virtue, permissibility, obligation, flourishing, etc. The second goal is to understand how those moral concepts to practical situations. Course number: PHIL 1223/001 CRN: Meeting time: TR 3:00-4:15pm Course title: Introduction to Asian Philosophy Instructor: Huda Gen-ed: Core Area IV Non-Western Culture Category: N/A Description: This course introduces you to some talked about and not so talked about philosophical traditions from different parts of Asia: Arab/Middle East, China, Indian subcontinent (that includes Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan), Iran, Korea, and Japan. These philosophies are so diverse in their focus that it is almost impossible to bring them under the same umbrella. Yet, we will focus on their philosophies with respect to morality, politics, and society. In so doing, we will heed to their understandings of various notions that are relevant to our current practical context. That is, we will survey these philosophies considering the following questions: What is the end of human life? Is the emancipation from sufferings possible, and how? Do they have anything to say about how to run administration? How do they treat political institutions? What are their views about civil society? How do they treat environment? What are their views about abortion? Do they talk about education? How to run business, according to them? And so on. When we survey their philosophies, one thing we will always do is to see whether (and how) they can contribute to minimizing different contemporary problems that exist almost everywhere. In fact, this cross-cultural understanding, ambitious though, is the key purpose of this course. The course readings will include both classical and contemporary texts. Possibly you don t need to buy any books for this course (I am not sure of it though, at this stage!). Evaluation will include take-home exam(s), quizzes, short writing assignments, presentation(s), and paper(s). Course number: PHIL 1233/001 CRN: Meeting time: TR 1:30-2:45pm Course title: Contemporary Moral Issues Instructor: Montminy Description: This course is a philosophical exploration of major contemporary moral issues, including euthanasia, abortion, death penalty, war and terrorism, poverty and world hunger, animal rights, pornography, marriage, affirmative action, drug legalization, and organ sales. Students will read contrasting views from prominent philosophers, and learn about how moral theories may be invoked in support of positions on those issues. Readings: course packet

4 Course number: PHIL 1273/001 CRN: Meeting time: MWF 11:30am-12:20pm Instructor: Khoshroo Course number: PHIL 1273/002 CRN: Meeting time: MWF 1:30-2:20pm Instructor: Frazier Course number: PHIL 1273/003 CRN: Meeting time: MWF 1:30-2:20pm Instructor: Eaves Course number: PHIL 1273/004 CRN: Meeting time: MWF 12:30-1:20pm Instructor: Xie

5 Course number: PHIL 1273/005 CRN: Meeting time: MWF 3:30-4:20pm Instructor: McCumber Course number: PHIL 1273/010 CRN: Meeting time: MW 9:30-10:20am Instructor: Trachtenberg Course number: PHIL 3243/001 CRN: Meeting time: TR 12:00-1:15pm Course title: Civility (Honors) Instructor: Olberding Gen-ed: Category: Philosophy in Society Requires permission from Honor s College Description: This class will address the moral, social, and political aspects of the virtue of civility. We will consider questions such as: Does civility express moral, social, and political values, and if so, what are the relevant values? Is being uncivil or rude a moral vice? Are there circumstances that make being uncivil morally acceptable or even required? Given the historical connection between certain civility norms and unjust distinctions of class, race, and gender, how are tensions between the civil and the moral to be navigated? What is the relation between civility and political dissent? Our course readings will range from theoretical works linking civility to broad moral and political concerns to more applied approaches that seek to address how civility disputes about civility feature in contemporary culture. Coursework will consist primarily in essay-format writing.

6 Course number: PHIL 3263/001 CRN: Meeting time: MW 3:00-4:15pm Course title: Virtue Ethics Instructor: Zagzebski Gen-ed: Core Area IV Western Civilization and Culture Category: Ethics and Values Description: Virtues are the same as human excellences. They can be moral excellences like compassion, executive excellences like self-control, intellectual excellences like open-mindedness, or civic excellences like justice or civic peace. For most of philosophical history, moral philosophy focused on virtues and the connection between virtue and happiness. This course will begin with an overview of the history of virtue ethics from the ancient Greeks to the present day, covering ancient and medieval virtue ethics, the fall of virtue concepts in the early modern period, and the rebirth of virtue ethics in the later 20th century. We will discuss a number of individual virtues and their related vices, such as compassion, loyalty and disloyalty, courage and cowardice, fairness and unfairness, intellectual humility, proper handling of money, and civility and incivility. We will address some of the fundamental philosophical questions that arise in the study of virtue ethics: What is a virtue? How is virtue related to a life that is good for the individual and good for the community? Can virtue be taught? Can virtue be measured? Are we suspicious of virtue? What are the grounds for critique of some of the traditional virtues? Course number: PHIL 3273/001 CRN: Meeting time: MWF 10:30-11:20am Course title: Ethics and Business Instructor: Heiser Gen-ed: Core Area IV Western Civilization and Culture Category: Philosophy in Society Description: A study of how ethics illuminates business activities. Topics include: the philosophical bases of capitalism; the legitimacy of the profit motive; virtue and the marketplace; corporate responsibility; government regulation; the marketplace and the environment; the ethics of advertising; employee privacy; and the challenges posed by the developing information age. Course number: PHIL 3333/001 CRN: Meeting time: MWF 9:30-10:20 Course title: History of Modern Philosophy Instructor: Cook Gen-ed: Core Area IV Western Civilization and Culture Category: Core Description: In this course we will discuss the philosophies of René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (The Continental Rationalists); John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume (The British Empiricists); and Immanuel Kant seven philosophers from the 17 th and 18 th century whose work is intrinsically interesting and still influential today. We will examine selections from their most important writings to see what philosophical problems worried them, how they understood these problems, and how they went about solving them. Though this is a course in the history of philosophy, we will be less concerned with the history than with understanding the philosophy as it is expressed in the philosophers writings. Text: Ariew and Watkins (eds.), Modern Philosophy: An Anthology of Primary Sources.

7 Course number: PHIL 3433/001 CRN: Meeting time: TR 9:00-10:15am Course title: Modern Philosophy of Religion Instructor: Judisch Gen-ed: Core Area IV Western Civilization and Culture Category: Knowledge and Reality Description: This course focuses on philosophical reflection about religious topics produced by thinkers from the beginnings of the modern era (circa 1500) through the very early twentieth century. Much of this work concerns the rationality of religious belief including such questions as whether and how religious belief is (or can or must be) based upon reason but we will also look closely at metaphysical topics at the intersection of philosophy and theology. Among these latter topics are attempts to prove or disprove the existence of God, theories about God s relationship to the created order and the human condition, et cetera. Philosophers to be studied include Descartes, Spinoza, Malebranche, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, Mill, Kierkegaard, Pascal, James and others. At course s end, students should be able to articulate a philosophically illuminating narrative concerning the transition from high medieval to modern- or enlightenment- period religious philosophy, and the ways in which this latter period paved way for philosophy of religion as practiced in the 20 th and 21 st centuries. Students will also exhibit deep familiarity with the central topics debated within this discipline, and the relations between these topics and mainstream philosophical and scientific thought. Course number: PHIL 3503/001 CRN: Meeting time: TR 1:30-2:45pm Course title: Self and Identity Instructor: Judisch Gen-ed: Core Area IV Western Civilization and Culture Category: Knowledge and Reality Description: This is a course about the self. In it we will explore the concept of the self and various problems that arise in connection with it, including the question of what personhood is, how persons retain their individual identity through time and change (if, indeed, they do), what the characteristic powers of selves are with particular attention paid to the concept of free agency and how we know and sometimes fail to know things about ourselves and others. We begin with an examination of the unity of consciousness the feature of human consciousness which presents our experience as consisting in a unified field, and which leads to considerations about our own self-unity. The second unit of the course focuses on theories of personal identity and the problem of identity through time. In the third unit we will study free will; we will examine what free will is supposed to be, the conditions under which human persons act freely (if indeed we do), and what sorts of beings we must be like, assuming we do in fact possess free will. We will finish by discussing questions surrounding the possibility of artificial intelligence and the relationship between minds and machines. Our aim is to figure out as much as we can about the self and thus ourselves; failing that, we ll at least try to figure out, as Walker Percy puts it, Why it is possible to learn more in ten minutes about the Crab Nebula in Taurus, which is 6,ooo light-years away, than you presently know about yourself, even though you ve been stuck with yourself all your life.

8 Course number: PHIL 3533/001 CRN: Meeting time: TR 12:00-1:15pm Course title: Language, Communication and Knowledge Instructor: Priselac Gen-ed: Core Area IV Western Civilization and Culture Category: Knowledge and Reality Description: Language, perhaps more than anything else, distinguishes human beings from the rest of the animal kingdom. But non-human animals do communicate: bees dance, birds sing, apes gesture, and many animals use alarm calls. In this course we will study the ways in which language and linguistic communication differ from nonhuman animal communication systems. Are the differences merely differences of degrees or are there differences in kind? What do these differences reveal about the nature of the human mind and its place in nature? We will use classic philosophical texts on language and communication as well as recent research from biology, linguistics, and psychology to examine these questions. Course number: PHIL 3713/001 CRN: Meeting time: TR 12:00-1:15pm Course title: History of Social and Political Philosophy Instructor: Trachtenberg Gen-ed: Core Area IV Western Civilization and Culture Category: Philosophy in Society Description: One of the central topics in the history of Western philosophy is the fact that human beings live in societies, which are governed by political institutions. Thinkers throughout history have developed theories to understand the social and political structures and conflicts they observed in their own times. Succeeding generations have often turned to those theories for help in understanding their own social and political circumstances. In this course we will consider whether or not some of the most influential theories in the Western tradition can help us better understand our own society and politics. We will see if we can use key writings from that tradition to identify fundamental concerns we now face, and to recognize positions politicians, commentators, and others take on them especially in the context of contemporary American politics. Course number: PHIL 3743/001 CRN: Meeting time: TR 10:30-11:45am Course title: Feminist Philosophy Instructor: Alavi Gen-ed: Core Area IV Western Civilization and Culture Category: Philosophy in Society Description: Feminism is the new F-word, although it has been one of the core social justice movements for quite some time, and has contributed significant gains for women. Before diving into the study of concepts of feminism(s), we will spend a brief amount of time with the history of feminist movements. Feminist movements are the movements for gender justice. We will address different feminist philosophies, as well as concepts of oppression, gender, and sexism. We also study and evaluate both recent and historical literature by feminist philosophers (from multiple identities and perspective). Other topics include feminist epistemology, immigration, politics, and family, and disability. Our aim in this class to address the gender biases in traditional philosophy literature, the absences of marginalized voices and perspectives, and include them in our discussion, and production of knowledge.

9 Course number: PHIL 3753/001 CRN: Meeting time: MWF 12:30-1:20pm Course title: Philosophy of Race Instructor: Burkhart Gen-ed: Core Area IV Western Civilization and Culture Category: Philosophy in Society Description: This course addresses philosophical questions about race. We will consider questions like these: Where does the concept of race come from? Do races exist? Is race a biological fact, a social construction, or something else? Should we eliminate the concept of race, or is it necessary for achieving social justice? What exactly is racism? Is it some individual phenomena or does it exist in a society as a structure? What is racial identity, and why does it matter? How does the significance of racial identity differ for members of different races? How does racial identity interact with gender, ethnicity and nationality? How do concepts of race and values of racial justice and equality interact with or impact concepts such as social contract and political recognition? What are the phenomenological and existential frameworks and characteristic of being a particular race and being seen and existing through the lens of race? Course assignments include a number of quizzes (both in and out of class), two mini take-home exams, several short writing assignments, and a final exam. Course number: PHIL 3833/001 CRN: Meeting time: MWF 9:30-10:20am Course title: History of Modern Philosophy for Majors Instructor: Cook Gen-ed: Core Area IV Western Civilization and Culture Category: Core Description: In this course we will discuss the philosophies of René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (The Continental Rationalists); John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume (The British Empiricists); and Immanuel Kant seven philosophers from the 17 th and 18 th century whose work is intrinsically interesting and still influential today. We will examine selections from their most important writings to see what philosophical problems worried them, how they understood these problems, and how they went about solving them. Though this is a course in the history of philosophy, we will be less concerned with the history than with understanding the philosophy as it is expressed in the philosophers writings. Text: Ariew and Watkins (eds.), Modern Philosophy: An Anthology of Primary Sources. Course number: PHIL 4343/001 CRN: Meeting time: R 3:00-6:00pm Course title: Early Chinese Philosophy Instructor: Olberding Category: Ethics and Values Description: This course will survey Chinese philosophy from the pre-qin era, typically considered a period of unmatched philosophical flourishing in China. The course will focus in particular on a cluster of distinctive features of philosophy in this period, including: the moral importance of prosaic social practices; the problems death poses for human well being; and how exemplars in multiple traditions are characterized and understood. We will read primary texts in translation including the Analects, Mengzi, Mozi, Zhuangzi, and Xunzi as well as a selection of contemporary secondary literature. Student coursework will consist primarily of essay exams and a research paper.

10 Course number: PHIL 4543/001 CRN: Meeting time: T 3:00-6:00pm Course title: Philosophy of Mind Instructor: Priselac Category: Knowledge and Reality Slashlisted with PHIL 5543 Description: This course will engage some of the core questions in contemporary philosophy of mind. What is a mind? How similar are minds and computers? Could a computer be or have a mind? These are all questions we will focus on in the first portion of the course. Having delved into the nature of the mind, we will then consider questions about how the mind fits in and relates to the world it inhabits. How are thoughts directed at the world? What determines the content of a thought? How can minds be causally efficacious? What is the nature of perceptual content? Course number: PHIL 4893/001 CRN: Meeting time: TR 10:30-11:45am Course title: Senior Capstone in Philosophy Instructor: Riggs Gen-ed: Senior Capstone Category: Core Description: The primary goal of this course is to facilitate the production of a highly-polished, well-researched paper by each student in the class on a philosophical topic of his or her choice. While no limitations will be placed on these topics, other than that they be clearly philosophical and are sufficiently narrow in scope to receive a properly thorough and rigorous treatment in pages, all topics must be approved by the instructor. Much of the class time during the semester will be taken with presentations of ongoing research and portions of students papers. There are several reasons for this. It provides motivation for each of you to make good progress throughout the semester, as you will look fairly silly if it is your turn to present and you have nothing to say. More importantly, it provides the opportunity for your peers to ask questions about your work to prompt you to clarify, expand on and defend the things you say in your presentation. This will help you write a better paper in the end. And it will also expose everyone in the class to a (presumably) wide range of different philosophical issues. Course number: PHIL 5333/001 CRN: Meeting time: R 7:00-10:00pm Course title: Studies in Ancient Philosophy Instructor: Huismann Category: Graduate Description: This course will be an advanced survey of Aristotle. We will address Aristotle s seminal contributions to metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, broadly construed (so as to include e.g. aspects of his natural philosophy and philosophy of mind).

11 Course number: PHIL 5343/001 CRN: Meeting time: R 7:00-10:00pm Course title: Early Chinese Philosophy Instructor: Olberding Category: Graduate Description: This course will survey Chinese philosophy from the pre-qin era, typically considered a period of unmatched philosophical flourishing in China. The course will focus in particular on a cluster of distinctive features of philosophy in this period, including: the moral importance of prosaic social practices; the problems death poses for human well being; and how exemplars in multiple traditions are characterized and understood. We will read primary texts in translation including the Analects, Mengzi, Mozi, Zhuangzi, and Xunzi as well as a selection of contemporary secondary literature. Student coursework will consist primarily of essay exams and a research paper. Course number: PHIL 5543/001 CRN: Meeting time: T 3:00-6:00pm Course title: Philosophy of Mind Instructor: Priselac Category: Graduate Slashlisted with PHIL 4543 Description: This course will engage some of the core questions in contemporary philosophy of mind. What is a mind? How similar are minds and computers? Could a computer be or have a mind? These are all questions we will focus on in the first portion of the course. Having delved into the nature of the mind, we will then consider questions about how the mind fits in and relates to the world it inhabits. How are thoughts directed at the world? What determines the content of a thought? How can minds be causally efficacious? What is the nature of perceptual content? Course number: PHIL 6203/001 CRN: Meeting time: W 3:00-6:00pm Course title: Seminar in Ethics Instructor: Snow Category: Graduate Description: This course will offer an overview of neo-aristotelian virtue ethics. We will begin by reading Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, then continue with Rosalind Hursthouse's On Virtue Ethics (1999). The next major book we will read is Daniel C. Russell, Practical Intelligence and the Virtues (2009). We will conclude with Virtuous Emotions (2018) by Kristjan Kristjansson. In this way, the course will provide a comprehensive overview of much of the major work in the field. Attention will be paid to topics of special interest, e.g., virtue development, the selfcenteredness objection, the problem of virtue ethical right action, the unity of the virtues, and the relation of virtue ethics to empirical psychology. Course number: PHIL 6393/001 CRN: Meeting time: M 3:00-6:00pm Course title: Seminar in History of Philosophy Instructor: Huismann Category: Graduate Description: This course will be a seminar on topics in Aristotle s natural philosophy and ontology. We will focus on issues that lie at the intersection of these disciplines, including the causal role of both substantial and nonsubstantial individuals, what luck and chance are, the metaphysics of change, and Aristotle s conception of causal powers.