Bryn Mawr College

   INTRODUCTORY COURSES

101 (01): Historical Introduction to Philosophy: Ancient

This course is an introduction to some of the central questions of philosophy: How is the mind related to the body? What is knowledge and truth? What is the good life and why should we be moral? What is philosophy? We will address these questons by considering some of the first philosophers of the western tradition. We will start with Socrates’ conception of philosophy and consider his influence on four philosophers with very different worldviews: Plato’s rationalism, Aristotle’s naturalism, Sextus’ skepticism and Augustine’s theism. In addition to understanding how these philosophers responded to each other, we will focus on evaluating their arguments and developing our own views.

101: Historical Introduction To Philosophy: Ancient

Robert Dostal

Fall 2009

T Th 11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

This is a College Seminar class open to all first year students.                                                Philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom: through it we aim to understand the world in order to lead a fulfilling, meaningful life. This course is an introduction to philosophy by way of its historical beginnings in ancient Greece. We will read the Pre-Socratics, Plato (the early Socratic dialogues, Republic) and Aristotle (De Anima, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics), concentrating on their views about the existence of God, the nature of mind, knowledge and the good life. In addition to considering how these philosophers responded to each other, we will focus on how they speak to us now across millennia, and more generally, how philosophy is both historically rooted and universal.

102: Introduction to Problems of Philosophy

This course is an introduction to philosophy through an investigation of some of the discipline's central metaphysical and epistemological problems: (1) Does God exist, and if so, can we prove it? (2) Do human beings enjoy freedom of the will? Or are all of our actions determined by circumstances "beyond our control"? (3) What is the nature of mind? Are minds immaterial substances, or wholly material parts of the natural order? Could a computer--or any machine--be intelligent, or conscious? (4) What is knowledge, and can we have it? Is it possible to have rationally justified beliefs? Or do our beliefs merely reflect contingent agreement among the members of our own social/political group? Finally, (5) Can we have knowledge of (culture independent) facts about what actions are right and wrong--i.e., is moral knowledge possible? If so, what is the nature of the facts known? Readings will be drawn from both classical and contemporary sources.

103:  Introduction to Logic

The purpose of this course is two-fold:  (1) to provide an overview of the nature of the subject; and (2) to train students to read and write proof discourses (i.e. those segments of writing and speech which express deductive reasoning).  The view is presented that logic has two basic concerns:  (1) the discovery and articulation of the logics underlying practice; and (2) the construction and study of those mathematical systems which are meant to model or represent the underlying logics.  Thus, there is some boundary between logic and other disciplines and logical concepts are presupposed by investigations in these disciplines.  Further, mathematical logic is a branch of applied mathematics.

201 (01): Historical Introduction to Philosophy: Modern

Bharath Vallabha

Spring 2010

M W  2:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

How is the ordinary human worldview related to the scientific worldview of the natural sciences? Can consciousness and thought be explained from a third-person perspective? Does the causal nature of the physical world imply that freedom, morality and religion are illusory? These questions in their modern form were first articulated in the early modern period (1600-1800), and in this course we will address them by reading four major philosophers of this period: Descartes, Spinoza, Hume and Kant. In opposition to both the Church authorities and nihilists of their day, these philosophers aimed to show in very different ways that the scientific revolution of Galileo and Newton is in fact compatible with our ordinary worldview and with leading a meaningful life. Our aim will be to understand and evaluate their views, and to thereby develop our own views.

201 (02): Historical Introduction to Philosophy: Modern

Robert Dostal

Spring 2010

T Th 2:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

In this course, we will read and interpret the works of major philosophers across the spectrum of modern philosophy, including writings by Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Kant.  The emphasis will be on metaphysics and the theory of knowledge.  The metaphysical questions posed by these authors concern the fundamental nature of reality: questions about the existence and attributes of mind, matter and God.  Other questions concern the characteristics and limitations of the human intellect and the human will: questions about the possibility of human freedom and about the sources and scope of human knowledge.                                                                       The aim of the course is not to provide a survey of philosophical activity from Descartes to Kant, but rather to focus upon selected writings appropriate to the above themes.  This will allow students to go beyond reading about the work of major modern philosophers, to the analysis and interpretation of the works themselves. Requirements: 4 papers (no exams) and participation in class discussion.

      INTERMEDIATE COURSES

202: Culture and Interpretation

This course will be concerned with the idea of interpretation as it pertains to such cultural entities as literary works, works of art, works of music, persons and cultures. It will pursue the question whether ideally one should pursue a single right interpretation of such entities. And it will also cast this question in the context of various ontologies, including realism and constructivism and constructive realism. The course will canvas a variety of views about the relation between the human studies and the natural sciences, and it will consider questions of cross-historical and cross-cultural interpretation.
Readings will be drawn from Paul Thom, Making Sense, David Norton, Imagination, Understanding and the Virtue of Liberality, Michael Krausz, Limits of Rightness, and the anthology, M. Krausz, ed., Is There a Single Right Interpretation?
Requirements: Three short papers and one seminar presentation.

203: Formal Semantics

Prerequisites:  Philosophy 103 or its equivalent.                                                                          This course is a continuation of Philosophy 103 intended for those interested in applications of logic to natural language.  The course focuses on the project of developing a model theoretic semantics for natural language.  Special attention is given to ambiguity and various types of linguistic presuppositions.

204: Readings in German Intellectual History

Study of selected texts of German intellectual history, introducing representative works of G. E. Lessing, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schiller, Georg W. F. Hegel, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Martin Heidegger, Werner Heisenberg, Theodor W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Hannah Arend and Jürgen Habermas. The course aims to introduce students to an advanced cultural reading range and the languages and terminology of humanistic disciplines in German-speaking countries, and seeks to develop their critical and interpretive skills. (Cross-listed with German 212)

209:  Philosophical Approaches to Criticism

Azade Seyhan

Fall 2009

M 1:30 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. 

An introduction to various methods of reading the literary text from the perspective of critical methods informed by philosophical ideas. In their quest for self-understanding and knowledge, literature and philosophy share similar forms of inquiry and imaginative modeling. Through investigations of perception, language, and memory, philosophers, ancient and modern, have pondered the question of how human beings are capable of knowledge. The literary text embodies the implications of the philosophical questions concerning the dialectics of reality and appearance, sign and representation, speech and writing, and necessity and freedom. It fleshes out, so to speak, the abstract skeleton of philosophy and lends it a material aesthetic form. Selected readings focus primarily on questions of language, understanding, interpretation, and the idea of the self in its relation to history, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics. One of the main objectives of the course is to provide the student with the critical tools necessary for an informed and critical reading of literary and theoretical texts. (cross-listed w/COMPL 209 & German 209)

211: Theory of Knowledge

Michael Krausz

Fall 2009

T 1:00 p.m - 3:30 p.m.

This course will be an introduction to the theory of knowledge, or epistemology.  We will examine in detail arguments about two central concerns of epistemologists in the 20th Century: skepticism about our knowledge of objects in the external world, and epistemological naturalism. 

      We will begin by considering arguments from Descartes, Barry Stroud, and others, who argue that our everyday beliefs about objects in the world around us might have no justification whatsoever.  We’ll then turn to responses to these arguments from J.L. Austin and others like him who offer reasons for suspicion about the philosophical validity of epistemological skepticism.  Finally, in the writings of W.V. Quine and others, we’ll consider epistemological naturalism.  In particular, we’ll seek to understand how this view develops the suspicion that the skeptical problem is somehow ill-posed or poorly understood, and seeks to use the resources of natural science (like, say, cognitive psychology) to answer philosophical questions about knowledge and the justification of belief.

Requirements:  2 papers, a final exam, and participation in class discussion.

212: Metaphysics: Free Will and Personal Identity

Prerequisite: at least one course in philosophy is recommended.
Metaphysics is the inquiry into some of the most basic features of the world and ourselves. In this course we will consider two central topics of metaphysics. In the first half we will focus on free will: What is free will and are we free? Is freedom compatible with determinism? Does moral responsibility require free will? In the second half we will focus on personal identity: What makes someone the same person over time? Can a person survive without their body? Is the recognition of others required to be a person? Throughout the course we will also consider the relation between free will and personal identity. Readings will include Frankfurt, Hegel, Parfit, Sartre, Strawson and Williams.

General Studies 214:  Modal Logic

Pre-Requisites: Philosophy 103 (or its equivalent).

This course examines the Kripke "possible world" semantics for a family of logics whose logical vocabulary contains 'necessity' and 'possibility'. Primary emphasis is given to sentential logics and the modal extensions. Techniques are developed for establishing completeness, compactness and interpolation results. Time permitting, both quantified modal logics and temporal logics will also be considered.
  

221: Ethics

Ethics is a branch of philosophy concerned with determining what we ought to do and why. This course extends this inquiry by exploring answers to the question “How should we live our lives and interact with others?” in the context of the “global village” in which we now live. Central to this inquiry is an exploration of the implications of human diversity for issues of public policy. We examine the works of theorists from around the world on the subjects of diversity and equality, kinds of discrimination within and across borders, and the nature of individual choice and social responsibility. Specific topics include: non-Western responses to Western conceptions of equality and justice; new accounts of social transformation including conceptions of human diversity and difference; sources of personal and community identity for those identified and treated as different within and across cultures; and frameworks for understanding notions of shared responsibility in areas such as discrimination, poverty, reproductive rights, euthanasia and health care, pornography and hate speech, and the environment. Texts: Moral Issues in Global Perspective. Christine Koggel (editor). Second Edition. Broadview Press, 2006.
Volume II: Diversity and Equality AND Volume III: Moral Issues

222: Aesthetics: The Nature and Experience of Art

Michael Krausz

Fall 2009

W 1:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Prerequisite: One introductory course in philosophy.

Here are some questions we will discuss in this course: What sort of thing is a work of art? Can criticism in the arts be objective? Do such cultural entities answer to more than one admissible interpretation? What is the role of a creator's intentions in fixing upon admissible interpretations? What is the nature of aesthetic experience? What is creativity in the arts? Discussions will be based on contemporary readings.
Requirements: Three papers (8-10 pages each) and one seminar presentation. Presentations should not exceed 20-30 minutes, devoted equally to explication and critique of the designated reading. These four assignments will be weighed equally for your final grade.

    Readings will be drawn from contemporary sources from the analytic and continental traditions, including John Dewey, Art As Experience, and works in Gary Iseminger, ed., Intention and Interpretation and Joseph Margolis, ed., Philosophy Looks at the Arts.

(Cross-listed w/COMPL 222)

226: Introduction to Confucianism

This course is an introduction to Confucianism, arguably the most influential intellectual and cultural tradition in East Asia. For a nuanced understanding of both its canonical foundation and practical implications, this course adopts two approaches. In the first half, this course will train students to read the condensed style of the Confucian canons-the so-called "Four Books": the Analects, the Book of Mencius, the Great Learning, and the Doctrine of the Mean-by examining different commentators' explanations of select passages. By comparing commentaries from various dynasties and examining how radically they differ at points, the course also aims to highlight not only the diversity of opinions within the Confucian tradition, but also the richness of the Confucian canons as literary and historical texts. In the next half of the course, we will critically analyze Confucianism in light of contemporary discussions of issues such as human rights, constitutionalism, virtue ethics, women's history, economic development, ecology and its comparison with Christianity, communitarianism, and political authority. This wide ranging thematic survey of Confucianism aims to provide students with the perspective from which to appreciate the implications of Confucianism in its larger, dynamic, and modern contexts.  (Cross-listed with East Asian Studies 226)

228: Introduction to Political Philosophy: Ancient and Early Modern
Stephen Salkever

An introduction to a tradition of discourse that draws attention to politics as a particular kind of human activity, and then turns that activity into a question--problematizes it, asking how, when, and why political activity is and/or isn't a good thing for human beings. Writers in this tradition then propose different and conflicting ways of discussing that question. To enter that tradition is to experience the strangeness of what is being said, to try to understand it, and to respond in your own terms. This is what you will be doing in the papers you write for this course. What is to be learned here is a set of different answers to the question, What are the basic questions we should ask about political life and about human life generally? In our time, we generally take those questions to be ones about human freedom or autonomy: What is genuine freedom, and under what circumstances can we best attain it? We will see that familiar formulation being invented by Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Rousseau. But our time isn't the only time, and this course concerns alternatives, primarily the alternative supplied by Greek political philosophy, by Plato and Aristotle.
     Requirements: Written work in the course will be 4 short (3-5 page) papers, and two take-home exams, a mid-term and a final. Both exams consist of identification and brief discussion of passages discussed in class. The papers will be based on the readings assigned for class, and should be treated as an extension of class discussion (rather than as research papers). Paper topics will be distributed in class one week before the paper is due; papers that are handed in on time will be returned one week after the due date with comments but without grades. Students may, at their discretion, hand in papers up to a total of ten days late over the course of the semester. More than ten days of aggregate lateness will result in a grade penalty. I determine course grades primarily on the basis of the papers, with exams as a secondary factor. Informed participation in class discussion is expected, and will count as one element in determining the final grade.

.(cross-listed with Political Science 228)

229: Concepts of the Self

Prerequisite: at least one course in philosophy or consent of the instructor.
This course is an examination of some central philosophical questions concerning the nature of the self. In particular, we will consider: What is it to be a self? What is it to be the same self over time? (This is the traditional problem of personal identity.) What is the relationship between the self and its organic body? Could a self persist across a change of the body? Or the brain? Could a self survive the death of its body? What are the relations among the properties of being a self, being a person, and being a subject of experience? What do psychological deficits, such as amnesia, or psychological disorders, such as multiple personality disorder, tell us about the self? Although we will examine what both contemporary and historical philosophers have had to say about these questions, you will have the opportunity to develop and defend your own views on these questions.

Requirements: 3 papers, an in-class presentation, and participation in class discussion.

230: Discrete Mathematics I
Rhonda Hughes
Fall 2008

M W F 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.

An introduction to discrete mathematics with strong applications to computer science. Topics include set theory, functions and relations, propositional logic, proof techniques, recursion, counting techniques, difference equations, graphs, and trees. (Cross-listed with Math 231 & Computer Science 231)

231:  Introduction to Political Philosophy: Modern

Prequisites: There are no prerequisites for this course, but it is not recommended for first semester freshwomen without consent of instructor.

This course can be seen as either a continuation of or preparation for Political Science 228, which is offered in the second semester and deals with ancient and early modern texts. Both courses are introductions to the study of a tradition of discourse that aims at explaining and evaluating political life by outlining some universal yet secular background against which the affairs of particular states and peoples can be considered. For the main line of European political philosophy from the 17th century onward, that background involves two basic concepts, the concept of nature and the concept of history. The works read this semester share the view that the purpose of politics is to secure liberty or freedom, but they differ over what states of affairs and ways of life should count as genuine human freedom. (Cross-listed with Political Science 231)

236: Plato: Early and Middle Dialogues

Prerequisite: an introductory philosophy course

This course studies the most important so-called “early and middle” dialogues of Plato: the Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Symposium, Phaedrus, and Republic. The course begins by asking “Who is Socrates?” and contrasting Plato’s treatment of Socrates with that of Xenophon and Aristophanes. The question about Socrates is a question about what is philosophy. These dialogues consider questions about knowledge, the good life, and their interconnection.

238: Science, Technology and the Good Life

Prerequisite: 1 philosophy course OR 1 lab science course

This course considers a set of questions concerning what is science, what is technology, and what is their relationship to each other and to the domain of ethics and politics. We will pursue this set of questions both historically and in the contemporary context. Historically we will consider how modern science defined itself in its opposition to Aristotelian science. We will read selections from Aristotle and Galileo. We will examine the Cartesian and Baconian scientific models and the self-understanding of these models with regard to ethics and politics. Against this background a number of contemporary developments in the philosophy of science will be considered, e.g., positivism, phenomenology, feminism, sociology of science. Some of the issues raised include claims that technology has become autonomous, that contemporary politics are necessarily technocratic, that a two-culture split makes conversation between the scientific realm and the humanistic realm impossible, that science and technology are “masculine” domains, that science has become ideological, and so on. Is the U.S.A. the republic of technology? Issues in biotechnology and information technology illustrate fundamental questions. The “science wars” of the 1990’s provide another set of debates (better: polemics) concerning science, technology, and the good life.

Readings  will include selections (some quite brief) from Aristotle, Galileo, Descartes, Bacon, Hobbes, Kant, Husserl, Sellars, Taylor, Habermas, Arendt, Heidegger, Longino, Merchant, Havel, Boorstein, Borgmann, Ellul, and other contemporary authors. Requirements: 4 or 5 short papers. (Cross-listed with Political Science 238)

243: History of 20th Century Continental Philosophy

Prerequisites: Philosophy 201 of Modern Philosophy or equivalent                                            This course will provide a survey of twentieth century continental philosophy:  phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics, Marxism and the Frankfurt school, structuralism, and post-structuralism and deconstruction.  Themes include meaning and truth, the basis for ethics and politics, embodiment, language, the other,feminism.  Philosophers discussed include Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Gadamer, Habermas, Derrida, and Foucault.

244: Philosophy and Cognitive Science

The aim of this course is to achieve an understanding of cognitive science--its styles of explanation, theories, and philosophically interesting claims. In the first half of the course we will consider in detail the theory of mind at the heart of much work in cognitive science: the computational/representational theory of mind. We will consider arguments for and against this theory, and consider which form of the theory is most plausible. The debate between classical theorists and connectionists will be especially important here. We shall also consider various problems that emerge in trying to understand the notion of representation, as employed by the theory. In the second part of the course, we shall turn to several core debates within cognitive science itself, including the nature of the visual process, whether we think in images, the extent to which humans are rational, the nature of concepts, and the question of the extent to which our cognitive structure is innate. We shall consider the extent to which these issues bear upon, or are clarified by, the debates examined in the first half of the course. We will finish by considering the relation of cognitive science to other sciences of the mind/brain, especially neuroscience, and the prospects and problems facing the future development of cognitive science.

245: Philosophy of Law

Jeremy Elkins
Fall 2009

T Th 2:00 p.m. -3:30 p.m.

This course explores a variety of topics in the philosophy of law such as: the nature and ends of law, law and pluralism, feminist jurisprudence, and civil disobedience. (Cross-listed with Political Science 245)

246: Philosophical Skepticism

How do you know that the sun will rise tomorrow? How do you know that you are not presently dreaming? How do you know that the people around you aren’t automata? In this course, we will examine philosophical arguments that purport to show that we cannot know the things we take ourselves to know. We will begin by considering beliefs about what we are not currently observing. We believe many things that go beyond our past and present experience: we have beliefs about the future and about things too small to perceive. These beliefs are supposedly based on what we have experienced: we assume that the sun will rise tomorrow, for example, because we have seen it rise every day in the past. But is this a reasonable assumption to make? In the second part of the course, we will go on to consider our beliefs about what we are currently observing. Perhaps you now believe that there is a piece of paper in front of you. You believe this because it appears that way to you. But how do you know that things are as they appear? In the third part of the course, we will turn to skeptical arguments about the existence of other minds. How do we know that the people around us have mental lives similar to our own? Is it reasonable to ascribe psychological states to other people on the basis of what they say and do? In the final part of the course, we will turn our attention to our knowledge of our own thoughts and experiences. Most skeptical arguments take such knowledge for granted: while I may not know whether anything in the physical world exists at all, I at least know what thoughts and experiences I am now having. We will question whether self-knowledge is, in fact, invulnerable to skeptical attack, and, if not, what affect this might have on the skeptical arguments we have previously considered.
     Readings will include works by Hume, Descartes, Moore, Putnam, and Strawson.
     Requirements: Four 5 page papers

250: Introduction to Chinese Philosophy

This course is an introduction to Chinese Thought (using translated sources). Rather than surveying the long history of Chinese thought, this course focuses on the major philosophical schools that originated in China: Confucianism, Mohism, Daoism, Legalism, and Neo-Confucianism. The doctrines associated with these schools, along with Buddhism, which came to China around the first century C.E., affected cultural developments in art, philosophy, religion, science, and politics throughout Chinese history. Readings include the writings of some of the most influential thinkers in Chinese history: Confucius, Mozi, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, Zhu Xi, and Wang Yangming. Thematically speaking, topics debated by these thinkers include self-cultivation, ritual, theories of human nature, the relation between personal and social good, and the relationship between humans and the cosmos.

(Cross-listed with East Asian Studies 210)

252:  Feminist Theory 

Christine Koggel
Fall 2009

T Th 2:30 p.m. -4:00 p.m.

Beliefs that discrimination on the basis of gender has been eliminated and that women have achieved equality have become commonplace in recent times. This course begins by challenging these assumptions through an examination of the concepts of patriarchy, sexism, and oppression. In the process of exploring these concepts central to feminist theory, we pay attention to the history of feminist theory as well as contemporary accounts of women=s place and status in different societies, their varied experiences, and how the phenomenon of globalization impacts on all this. This examination then forms the base from which we explore the relevance of gender to philosophical questions about identity and agency and with respect to moral, social, and political theory.
Our main text is Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives. The authors in the collection reflect the diverse perspectives of women and the importance of taking them into account in theory of all kinds. Throughout, we will discover that some of the challenges to feminism come from within by feminists who argue that factors other than gender are significant to both the analysis of the moral, social, legal, and political structures that perpetuate conditions of oppression for many and the project of challenging those structures. In the last part of the course, we apply what we have learned from feminist insights about the ways in which our identities, values, and relationships are shaped by experiences and social conditions, to feminist strategies for change in particular contexts and historical periods and to recent developments in feminist theory.  (Cross-listed with Political Science 253)

PHIL 254: Philosophy of Religion

Bharath Vallabha
Fall 2009
T Th 10:00 a.m. - 1130 a.m.

This course is an introduction to some of the principle topics in the philosophy of religion. Does God exist? Is belief in God compatible with reason and science? Is God’s existence compatible with deep suffering and pain? Does the fact that there are many religions show that there is no religious truth? Readings will be from eastern and western traditions, as well as from analytic and continental philosophy. Authors will include Aquinas, Aurobindo, Dalai Lama, Dennett, James, Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein.

257: Philosophy of Action

Bharath Vallabha

What are actions and how are they related to mental states and the physical environment? In this course we will first consider Davidson’s causal theory of action, according to which actions are physical movements caused by beliefs and desires. We will then consider the objection that the causal theory fails to capture the agent’s active role in performing an action by turning to two alternate theories: Anscombe’s neo-Aristotelian view and Frankfurt’s hierarchical theory. Among the more particular topics we will address are the nature of intentions, the relation between theoretical and practical reason, the distinctive knowledge an agent has of her actions, free will and weakness of the will.

     ADVANCED COURSES

300: Nietzsche, Kant, Plato: Modes of Practical Philosophy

Prerequisite: Two semesters of text-based work in political theory or philosophy, or consent of the instructor.                                                                                                                                                 A study of three important ways of thinking about theory and practice in Western political philosophy: the reduction of theory to practice in Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil; the envisioning of practice as a separate and transcendent realm of pure rational freedom in Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals; and the articulation of theory as a moment within practical reflection in some dialogue or dialogues of Plato—possibly the Gorgias or the Republic or the Laws, depending on student background and interest.   (Cross-listed with Political Science 300)

301: Hume

Prrequisite:  Philosophy 101, Philosophy 102 or permission of instructor.

This course will explore David Hume's theory of belief and the relationship between reason and sentiment in Hume's science of the mind.  Our discussions will emphasize understanding Hume's work in its 18th century historical context while maintaining a critical stance towards the truth of his theories.  Most of the course will be spent working with primary sources.  The final portion of the course will concentrate on a debate in the recent secondary literature concerning the (so-called New Hume) interpretation of Hume as a "sceptical realist." 
     Texts: Hume: A Treatise of Human Nature, Essays Moral, Political and Literary;  Read, Rupert and Kenneth A. Richman (editors).  The New Hume Debate;  Other primary and secondary literature on reserve at the library.
    Requirements: Weekly writing assignments and two longer papers.

310: Philosophy of Science

Co-taught by Michael Krausz (Philosophy) & Paul Grobstein (Biology) with occasional contributions from Elizabeth McCormack (Physics)

Pre-Requisites:  one course in philosophy or a natural science

This interdisciplinary course will examine aims of scientific explanation, the realist/anti-realist controversy in the philosophy of biology and physics, and the idea of growth of scientific knowledge. It will also consider the nature of scientific revolutions and the bearing of indeterminacy in physics, biology and neurobiology on the idea of truth and objectivity.
     Requirements: Three papers (8-10 pages each) and one seminar presentation. Presentations should not exceed 20-30 minutes, devoted equally to explication and critique of the designated reading. These four assignments will be weighed equally for your final grade.

314:  Existentialism

This course will trace the development Existentialist philosophy from its origins in the 19th Century through to its high-water mark in the mid-20th Century, with special attention paid to central existentialist ideas such as authenticity and bad faith.  Throughout the course, our concerns will include: existentialist conceptions of the self and of freedom (Do choices flow from the self?  Or are our selves created by our choices?); existentialist conceptions of faith and of morality (Can an existentialist believe in God?  If so, what must the character of her faith be?); existentialist views of death (How can a person face her own death authentically?); and existentialist perspectives on sex and gender (Do traditional gender roles make women or men lead inauthentic lives?). 

    Readings will include literature by Dostoyevsky, Sartre, and Camus, as well philosophical prose from Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, de Beauvior, and Camus.

    Requirements:  2 papers, a final exam, and participation in class discussion.

317:  Philosophy of Creativity

This course will address the following questions: What are the criteria of creativity? Is explaining creativity possible? If it is, what model(s) of explanation is appropriate for doing so? Should we understand creativity in terms of persons, processes or products? What is the relation between creativity and skill? What is genius? What is creative imagination?   Is there a significant difference between creativity in the arts and creativity in the sciences? What is the relation between the context of discovery and the context of justification? What is the relation between tradition and creativity? Is there a significant relationship between creativity and self-transformation? Analytic readings include those of Peter Lamarque, Arthur Koestler, David Davies, Tomas Leddy, Rom Harré, Carl Hausman, Berys Gaut, Denis Dutton, Paisley Livingston, Ian Jarvie, Dean Simonton, Noël Carroll, Francis Sparshott, Michael Polanyi, Albert Hofstadter and Karen Bardsley. Requirements: two seminar presentations and two papers. This course follows upon (PHIL 222) Aesthetics, but it does not presuppose it.

319: Philosophy of Mind: Philosophy of Emotions

Bharath Vallabha

Spring 2010

Prerequisites:  One course in philosophy or permission of instructor.

Our lives are filled with emotions such as love, happiness, envy, boredom and excitement, and they are central to our experience of the world. In this seminar we will focus on the following questions: What is the nature and phenomenology of emotions? Can there be unconscious emotions? Are emotions in the brain or are they forms of behavior? Are emotions guided by reason or are they beyond the control of reason? Readings will include Damasio, Freud, James, Nussbaum, Sartre, Soloman and others.

321:  Greek Political Philosophy (Aristotle: Ethics and Politics)

Stephen Salkever
Fall 2009

M 7:00 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.

Prerequisites: At least two semesters of philosophy or political philosophy, including some work with Greek texts, or consent of the instructor.
A careful reading of the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics, treated as a single series of lectures designed to lead its immediate Greek audience (the equivalent of Socrates’ interlocutors in Plato)—and perhaps us as well--more deeply into the questions and problems that are Aristotle’s theoretical basis for the paradigmatically human activities of practical reason (phronêsis) and thoughtful choice (prohairesis). Additional readings from Aristotle’s Greek contemporaries and predecessors (including Plato and Thucydides), and from recent work designed to bring Aristotelian perspectives to bear on the moral and political issues of our own time.
(Cross listed with Political Science 320)

322: Equality Theory

Prerequisites: Philosophy 201 or a Political theory course or consent of the instructor.

Liberal theory has had an enormous impact on our understanding of equality. Within the liberal tradition, theorists have provided ever more substantive interpretations of what people need to flourish in social relations heretofore marred by a legacy of discrimination and inequality. In this context, John Rawls's A Theory of Justice has been described as "the central work which has most shaped recent theoretical debate about equality as an ideal, both in terms of how it should be conceived and how it may be justified".
    We begin the course with a discussion of selections from Rawls's work provided in our text, Contemporary Political Philosophy. This discussion then serves as a base from which to examine the many varied liberal accounts that contrast with, build on, or reformulate Rawls's particular liberal account. We then explore the broad range of diverse theories of justice, equality, liberty, rights, and democracy that present serious challenges to liberal theory more generally. Among the works we examine will be accounts by socialist egalitarians, communitarians, and feminists; all of whom challenge traditional liberal understandings of foundational issues such as the nature of the self, knowledge, and social relations. The last part of the course deals specifically with feminist contributions to these areas of inquiry. In its analysis of concepts such as discrimination and oppression and of their relevance to an account of political structures and theory, feminist theory challenges traditional accounts and reconceives central concepts such as equality, justice, and rights.
     Readings: Goodin, Robert E. and Philip Pettit. Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology. Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies. Blackwell Publishers, 1997; Koggel, Christine. Perspectives on Equality: Constructing a Relational Theory. Rowman & Littlefield, 1998. Other supplementary readings may also be made available.
     Requirements: Five short assignments (no longer than 3 double-spaced pages); a short seminar presentation (approximately 20 minutes); class attendance and participation; and a final term paper (approximately 12 double-spaced pages).

323: Culture and Interpretation 

Michael Krausz
Fall 2009

Th 1:00 - 3:30 p.m.

Prerequisite: A 200-level course in Philosophy.                                                                           This course will pursue such questions as the following. For all objects of interpretation, must there be a single right interpretation? If not, what is to prevent one from sliding into an interpretive anarchism? Does interpretation affect the nature or the number of an object of interpretation? Does the singularity or multiplicity of interpretations mandate either realism or constructivism or any other ontology? Discussions will be based on contemporary readings.
     Requirements: Three papers (8-10 pages each) and one seminar presentation. Presentations should not exceed 20-30 minutes, devoted equally to explication and critique of the designated reading. These four assignments will be weighed equally for your final grade.    (Cross-listed with Comparative Literature 323)

325: Philosophy of Music: The Nature and Experience of Classical Music

Prerequisites: A 200-level course in philosophy or a course in music, music theory or criticism; or permission of the instructor.

What sort of thing is a work of music? Does a work of music have meaning, and how does it get it? Can a work of music embody or express emotions? What does it mean to be moved by a work of music? What is the relation between a score, its interpretations and its performances? Is there such a thing as a definitive performance? What moral issues are there concerning musical performance? What is the relation between music and other arts? Discussions will be based on contemporary readings.
     Requirements: Three papers (8-10 pages each) and one seminar presentation. Presentations should not exceed 20-30 minutes, devoted equally to explication and critique of the designated reading. These four assignments will be weighed equally for your final grade.

326: Relativism: Cognitive and Moral

Michael Krausz

Spring 2009

T 1:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Cognitive relativists believe that truth is relative to particular cultures or conceptual schemes. In an analogous way, moral relativists believe that moral rightness is relative to particular cultures of conceptual schemes. Relativistic theories of truth and morality are widely embraced in the current intellectual climate, and they are as perplexing as they are provocative. This course will examine varieties of relativism and their absolutistic counterparts. Readings will be drawn from contemporary sources.

Prerequisite: A 200-level course in Philosophy.

329: Wittgenstein

Prerequisites: at least one Philosophy course.                                                                     Wittgenstein is notable for developing two complete philosophical systems in his life time. In the first, Wittgenstein attempted to show that there is a single common structure underlying all language, thought, and being and that the job of philosophy was to make it clear. In the second, he denied that the idea of such a structure was even coherent and thought that the job of philosophy was to free philosophers from bewitchments due to misunderstandings of ordinary concepts in language. In this later work, as represented in the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein takes the meaning of concepts to be integral to the purposes and practices of people who use language in contexts.

    We begin with a very brief examination of his first system as outlined in Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus, enough to lay the ground for understanding his rejection of his own earlier ideas. This course focuses on his later work by examining his account of language and, in particular, of meaning as use in the Philosophical Investigations. Our examination of this work will include a study of other major topics such as referentialism, paradigms, definiteness of sense, family resemblances, the anti-private language argument, behaviorism, imagination, self-awareness, experience, mental states, and Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophy more generally. The course ends with an examination of Wittgenstein’s On Certainty. In the process of reading the Investigations and On Certainty, we will pay attention to Wittgenstein’s continuing influence in areas of Philosophy such as language, epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics, and moral and political theory by examining contemporary appropriations and interpretations of Wittgenstein on these topics and areas of Philosophy.

330: Kant

Prerequisite: 201 or the equivalent, or the consent of instructor.                                                  The significance of Kant’s transcendental philosophy for thought in the 19th and 20th centuries cannot be overstated. His work is profoundly important for both the analytical and the so-called “continental” schools of thought. This course will provide a close study of Kant’s break-through work: The Critique of Pure Reason. We will read and the discuss the text both with reference to its historical context (Descartes, Locke, Hume, Leibniz etc.) and with respect to its impact on later developments in epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, philosophy of religion as well as developments in German Idealism and 20th century phenomenology (Husserl and Heidegger). In the last three weeks of the course we will read selections from the other two Critiques and discuss Kant’s ethics (2 weeks) and his aesthetics which similarly profoundly shaped subsequent philosophical discussion of these areas. We will consider how the critical enterprise fits together—its systematic structure.
      Readings: Kant, I. 1781/7. Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Paul Guyer and Allen Wood (Cambridge Edition of the Works of Kant); Selections from Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason and Critique of Judgment
     Assignments: Class presentation(s) (1 or 2, depending on enrollment). Several short papers. Final longer paper involving research in the secondary literature.

336: Plato: Later Dialogues

Prerequisites: Political Science 228, 300, 320 or 364; or Philosophy 101 or 236; or equivalent.
An examination of several so-called “late” dialogues, primarily Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman, and Philebus.  Special attention is given to the literary character of the dialogues, with thematic focus on dialectic and dialogic inquiry, Aristotelian modes of explanation, and the Platonic images of the philosopher and the political leader. Fundamental ontological, epistemological, and political questions are considered in these dialogues.   (Cross-listed with Political Science 336)

338: Phenomenology: Husserl and Heidegger

Robert Dostal
Fall 2009

W 1:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Prerequisites: two philosophy courses, at least one at the 200 level.                             Phenomenology is one of the most important philosophical movements of the 20th century.  Existentialism, in large part, develops out of and in response to phenomenology.  Many of the leading post-modernist (post-structuralist) thinkers began within or in response to phenomenology, e.g., Derrida and Foucault.  This is an upper level seminar on the two seminal figures of the phenomenological movement:  Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger.   The approach of the seminar is textual.  We will look closely at a selection of Husserl’s texts which may include The Cartesian Meditations, selections from his lectures on time consciousness and from his late work, The Crisis of European Sciences (1936).  Our primary text by Heidegger is Being and Time (1927).  Some of the significant critiques of phenomenology will be considered.

       Questions the seminar addresses include the relation of phenomenology to modern philosophy, especially the philosophies of Descartes and Kant, the concept of truth, the notion of method in philosophy, the relation of philosophy phenomenologically-conceived to the empirical sciences and ordinary experience, and the understanding of time.  In reading Husserl we will consider the concept of "crisis" as well as the understanding of the "european" status of the sciences.  In reading Heidegger we will consider his dependence on and his critique of Husserl.  We will get clear on the "transcendental," "hermeneutical," and "existential" character of Heidegger’s enterprise.  And we will pay attention to the political ramifications of the work.

344:  Development Ethics

Pre-requisites: a Philosophy, Political Theory or Economics course or permission of the instructor.                                                                                                                    “Development” is a term that can be used in both a descriptive and a prescriptive or normative sense. In the descriptive sense, development is most often understood in terms of processes of economic growth, industrialization, and modernization that result in a society's achieving a high (per capita) gross domestic product. The descriptive sense tends to carry with it connotations of progress, transformation, and liberation as exemplified in the contrasting concepts of “underdeveloped” or “developing” countries and as measured by economists and organizations such as the World Bank. In the normative sense, a developed society is one that realizes or approximates worthwhile goals. Put like this, questions are then raised about what those goals ought to be. For development ethicists, while the central goal is overcoming economic and social deprivation, that goal is theorized in terms of underlying values such as human rights, equality, justice, democracy, well-being, and human flourishing.

    This course explores the questions and moral issues raised by development in the context of globalization. In what direction and by what means should a society develop? What are the obligations, if any, of rich countries to poor countries? What role, if any, should rich countries, international institutions, and non-governmental organizations have in the development or self-development of poor countries? What role, if any, does the globalization of markets play in systems of discrimination on the basis of race and gender? To what extent, if any, do factors of poverty, power, and oppression influence policies implemented by the “developed” countries of the North for “developing” countries of the South? To what extent, if any, does moral relativism challenge cross-cultural ethical inquiry about theories of human flourishing, human rights, and justice? Can universal principles and methods be devised for forging an international consensus committed to alleviating worldwide deprivation? Could such a cross-cultural consensus be respectful of societal differences in values and of a society's freedom to make its own development choices? How do factors such as gender and poverty affect our understanding of development and development processes? Answers to these sorts of questions will be explored through an examination of some of the most prominent theorists and recent literature in the area of development ethics.

    Readings: Koggel, Christine.  Moral Issues in Global Perspective. Volume I. Moral and Political Theory. Peterborough: Broadview, 2006; Sen, Amartya. Development As Freedom. New York: Random, 1999; Kane, Joe. Savages. New York: Vintage Books, 1996 (others to be determined).

    Requirements: Short assignments (about three of these no longer than 3 double spaced pages each); class presentation and write up of it; class attendance and participation; and final term paper.

(cross-listed with Political Science 344)

347;  Philosophy of Perception

In this course we will examine several interrelated questions about the nature of perceptual experience and its relation to thought. What exactly do we perceive?  Do we "directly" perceive tables and chairs, or do we infer their presence from something else that we directly perceive?  Is there something "given" in our experience that we cannot possibly be mistaken about?  What is the role of concepts in our experience? What is the relation between our perceptual experiences and the judgments we make on the basis of those experiences?  Does our capacity to think depend on our ability to perceive?

    Readings will include works by Descartes, Hume, Russell, Ayer, Strawson, Austin, Sellars, and McDowell.

    Requirements: Three 6-7 page papers.

349: Social and Political Theory: Perspectives on Consent

Prerequisites:  At least one course in philosophy or permission of instructor                    Feminists have criticized many different social roles as being sexist.  For example, many feminists argue that the traditional division of domestic labour is sexist because the social roles it assigns to women leaves them economically disadvantaged and unfairly dependent on their husbands.  People sometimes respond to these sorts of criticisms by claiming that because these roles are freely chosen the decision to comply with them ought not to be criticized.  The focus of this course will be an examination of this line of response.  In the first part of the course we’ll look at a number of feminist criticisms of conventional social roles, then turn to look at responses to these criticisms.  In the second part of the course, we’ll look at the idea of consent in liberal political theory, with an eye to understanding how this ideal relates to the feminist criticisms we have examined.  Does it undermine those criticisms?  Or does it support them?

    Specific questions we’ll address will include: Why might someone suppose that simply being freely chosen makes a decision outside the scope of what is appropriate to criticize?  When people say that the choice to participate in certain sexist social roles ought not to be criticized, it is not always clear whether they are appealing to moral or political considerations to justify this claim.  What exactly is the difference between these two kinds of considerations?  When, why, and how does consenting to something make it legitimate?  Are there limits on the sorts of things to which people can legitimately consent?

    Readings:  Selections from John Christman, Anita Superson, Susan Moller Okin, Linda Hirshman, Michael Levin, Christina Hoff Sommers, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke,  J. S. Mill, John Rawls, Robert Nozick, and Joel Feinberg.

    Requirements: course attendance and participation, two shorter papers (3-4 pages), and a longer final term paper (10-12 pages).

(Cross-listed with Political Science 349)

352  Feminism and Philosophy: Transnationalism

Prerequisites: a Philosophy, Political Theory, or Feminist and Gender Studies course or permission of the Instructor
This course explores feminist critiques of traditional conceptions of morality, the self, identity, culture, reason, and objectivity as well as feminist contributions to philosophical inquiry into the nature of equality, justice, human rights, and oppression. The particular focus of this course will be to explore the ways in which factors and features of globalization impact on and affect our understanding of these concepts and topics. These explorations, variously referred to as multicultural, global, transnational, Third World, and post-colonial feminism, allow us to raise and explore answers to a range of questions. How should feminists understand and engage with a colonial history of oppression and the continued suppression of human rights for many people throughout the world? What are the dangers and pitfalls for Western feminists in theorizing about Third World women and their experiences? How does this theorizing challenge traditional conceptions of morality, the self, and identity? To what extent, if any, do moral scepticism, moral relativism, national sovereignty, and universalism pose a challenge to cross-cultural ethical inquiry about theories of human flourishing, equality, human rights, and justice? Can principles and methods be devised for forging an international consensus committed to alleviating women's oppression in its diverse manifestations in various contexts with different conditions and circumstances? Can feminists avoid essentializing women's experiences and at the same time mobilize to address common sorts of inequalities and injustices experienced by women on the basis of reproduction, health care, education, and political, social, and economic participation? Can there be a global feminism respectful of societal differences in women's experiences, values, and practices?
     Readings: Narayan, Uma. Dislocating Cultures: Identities, Traditions, and Third World Feminism. Routledge, 1997; Narayan, Uma and Sandra Harding (eds.). Decentering the Center: Philosophy for a Multicultural, Postcolonial, and Feminist World. Indiana, 2000; Tong, Rosemarie (ed.). Globalizing Feminist Bioethics: Crosscultural Perspectives. Westview, 2001.
     Requirements: Short assignments (about 4 of them, 2 double-spaced pages each); a class presentation along with a rewrite of it (approximately 5 pages); and a final term paper (approximately 10 double-spaced pages). (Cross-listed with Political Science 352)

355: Descartes

Prerequisites: two courses in philosophy

This advanced seminar examines the major works of the seventeenth century philosopher René Descartes.  Through the Meditations, with responses and replies, the Principles of Philosophy, the Discourse on Method, etc., we will gain an appreciation of Descartes' philosophical sophistication and the richness of his positions.  Emphasis will be placed on the context of Descartes' work in the history of philosophy.
     Students will be asked to write both rough and final drafts of three 5-7 page papers on assigned topics.  Writing assignments will develop students' ability to make use of selected secondary sources that will be on reserve at the library.

359: Sacrifice, Identity and Law

Prerequisites:  A total of two courses in any combination of the following: political or social theory (or philosophy), Constitutional Law, cultural anthropology, literature, religious studies

This course will explore the role of various forms of sacrifice--involving relinquishment, renunciation, destruction and/or tribute--in the construction of both individual and social-political identity. The course will roughly be divided into three parts.  The first part of the course will focus on individual identity. It will draw on a variety of literatures, including philosophy, political theory, Freudian psychoanalysis, anthropology, religious and mythical texts, and contemporary fiction. The second part of the course will focus on the construction of social and political identity relying primarily on texts from social and political theory. The third part of the course will focus on the role of law in the construction of political identity and will include readings in jurisprudence and judicial cases. 
    Texts for this course include, but are not limited to: Isaiah Berlin, "Two Concepts of Liberty"; Freud, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis; Jonathan Lear, from Love and Its Place in Nature; Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals; Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals; The Piano (film); Foucault, Discipline and Punish; Callins v. Collins (petition for certiorari); Che Guevara, Che Guevara Speaks; Ronald Dworkin, "Liberty and Moralism."

361: Interpretation Theory: Gadamer

This seminar will undertake a careful contextual reading of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Truth and Method (1960) which provides a theory of interpretation. Inasmuch as this work is, in part, a reading and appropriation of major texts of the philosophical tradition, participants in the seminar will read selections from Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Heidegger and possibly Boekh and Dilthey. Important critiques of the work will be considered.

364: Irony and Inquiry: Plato and Nietzsche

Prerequisites: 2 semesters work in history of Philosophy OR consent of instructor.

In the work of both Plato and Nietzsche, there is a special and important relation between substance and "style"- between, that is, what is said, how it is said, and what it is meant to do. Through a close reading of primary texts, this course will explore this relation. In thecourse of our inquiry, we will explore such questions as the relationship of truth and power, immanence and transcendence, the relationship of thought, action and the good life, and the notion of philosophical irony.

    Enrollment limited to 18 students. Preference to Senior & Junior POLS, PHIL or COML majors.

(Cross-listed with Comparative Literature 364 & Political Science 364)

367: Hegel: Philosophy of Right

Prerequisites: two of the following: Phil. 101, 201, German 212; or two of the following: Phil./Political Science 228, 231, German 212; or consent of instructor.                                                                    Hegel's Philosophy of Right/Law, his major work of political philosophy and jurisprudence, is an account of the ethical basis of the state and of the relationship of politics, law, and morality. In this course, we will engage in a close reading of the full text of the Philosophy of Right, along with Marx's critique of the last part of the book.  (Cross-listed with Political Science 367)

368: The Enlightenment and Its Critics

How do we make sense of the fact that the philosophical elaboration of universal rights and popular sovereignty coincided with political systems riddled with forms of inequality? Are these inequalities produced by Enlightenment thought, or are they its historical exceptions, to be corrected by the gradual inclusion of those left out? This course will take up these questions through critical engagements with the Enlightenment tradition from the perspectives of class, race, gender, and sexuality, as well as in recent debates in postcolonial theory.  (Cross-listed with Political Science 368)

371: Topics in Legal & Political Philosophy

(Cross-listed with Political Science 371)

This course examines a variety of topics on the relationship between justice, authority, community, violence, and law. Specific issues include the role of violence in liberal polities and legal regimes, civil disobedience, the relationship of law, state and society, morality and war, and hate speech.

372: Artificial Intelligence

Deepak Kuman
Fall 2009

T Th 10:00 a.m.. - 11:30 a.m.

Prerequisites: Computer Science 206

A study of how to program computers to behave in ways normally attributed to human "intelligence." Topics include: heuristic vs algorithmic programming; cognitive simulation vs machine intelligence; problem solving; inference; natural language understanding; scene analysis; learning; and decision making. These are illustrated by programs from literature and programming assignments in appropriate programming languages (Common Lisp and Prolog)

(Cross-listed with Computer Science 372).

380: Persons, Morality and Modernity

What demands does the modern world impose on those who live in it? What kinds of persons does the modern world bring into being? What kinds of ethical claims can that world make on us? What is the relationship between public and private morality, and between each of us as public citizens and private persons? This course explores such questions through an examination of a variety of texts in political theory and philosophy.

384: Islamic Political Thought on War, Social Justice & Modernity

The course is concerned with Islamic political thought both as philosophy and as engagement with its contemporary historical world. Readings will be drawn from the rational and philosophic tradition in Islam, al-Farabi, Ibn Rushd (Averroes) Ibn Sina (Avicenna), and al-Ghazali, as well as from later thinkers who engaged issues of authoritarianism, non-Islamic rule, modernity and change; Ibn Taimiya, al-Afghani, Abduh, Mawdudi, Qutb, and Khomeini. While the platonism and tension between reason and revelation that characterize the rationalist philosophers suggests that they wrote for a narrow intellectual elite, the broader problem of political authority and its conflict with Islamic ethics unite Islamic thinkers across time. With the 19th century Western expansion, Islamic thinkers began to include, adapt, and critique Western and liberal ideas in order to confront contemporary political crises. Their reinterpretations of earlier Islamic thought have reshaped the Muslim world; bringing down monarchies, founding regimes, impelling social movements, and transforming world politics.

(Cross-listed with Political Science 384)

390:  American Regime: Philosophical Foundations of American Politics

Prerequisites:This is a 300-level course and requires junior or senior standing and at least one semester (one year preferred) of philosophy or political philosophy.  It would be desirable for students to have taken one course in American history or American politics or American constitutional law.  (It will be necessary to have a non-optional extra class or two on how to read a constitutional law case for those who have never had any con law.)
This is a course conceived in Aristotle ("For the regime (politeia) is the way of life (bios) of a polis" [Politics 4, 1295a40-b1]) and dedicated to the proposition that the American polity is neither to be revered nor to be trashed, but to be understood; and to the proposition  that understanding in this case doesn't mean either discovering some basic values or principles  or  discovering a set of basic behavioral or economic laws -- but becoming more familiar with a set of debates and questions about what the United States can and should be.
     Primary focus will be on three of these debates: religion and politics, "race" and politics, and "class" and politics  (or the economy and the polity); we will concern ourselves with the meaning of freedom of religion, of the aftermath of slavery, and of the stress on individual enterprise in a commercial republic.  In each of these issue areas, we will think through basic debates and ask about the light shed by these debates on present-day questions of public policy.  This is the rationale for the course: my belief that present-day public policy issues can be seen more fully and clearly when considered in the light of a philosophical context, broadly understood.
Readings for the course will be drawn from major texts in American political thought, from leading Supreme Court cases in constitutional law, and from modern commentary, both philosophical and policy-oriented.

(Cross-listed with Political Science 390)

398: Senior Seminar

Christine Koggel

Fall 2009

T 7:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.

The senior conference is a required course for majors in Philosophy. It is the course in which the research and writing of an undergraduate thesis is directed both in and outside of the class time. Students will meet sometimes with the class as a whole and sometimes with the Professor separately to present and discuss drafts of their theses.

399: Senior Seminar

Christine Koggel

Spring 2010

T 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

The senior conference is a required course for majors in Philosophy. It is the course in which the research and writing of an undergraduate thesis is directed both in and outside of the class time. Students will meet sometimes with the class as a whole and sometimes with the Professor separately to present and discuss drafts of their theses.