PHIL 1610 Discovering Philosophy (4 Credits)

In this course we explore a range of philosophical questions and examine the replies that have been made by historical figures.  We also think through the methods and strategies that have been used for thinking through those replies and explore these questions further on our own.  Topics may include how do we know what actions are moral?  What is knowledge?  What is the basic structure of the world? What is justice? What assumptions are made by the disciplines that take themselves to study the natural world? This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 1988 Study Abroad Resident Credit (0-18 Credits)

PHIL 2001 Philosophy and Fiction (4 Credits)

Examination of diverse aspects of the relationship between philosophy and fiction. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2003 Philosophy and Popular Culture (4 Credits)

This course critically explores philosophical questions and issues in the context of contemporary popular culture. On the one hand, it considers more general questions about the nature and function of popular culture, including how popular culture has been defined and "theorized"; the connections between popular culture and the traditional and new media; the economic bases and functions of popular culture; and the political implications of popular culture. On the other, it explores particular philosophical issues--historical, ethical, political, aesthetic, and metaphysical--as they appear in selected areas or examples of popular culture: literature, film, the visual arts, digital media, graphic novels, music, television, etc. The aims are both to enhance students' critical understanding of the ways in which philosophical assumptions and ideas underlie popular culture and to present traditional and contemporary philosophical arguments, movements, and ideas using examples drawn from popular culture as reference points. As examples, we might explore ethical dilemmas posed in the "Sopranos" or "Mad Men"; mind-body problems in the "Matrix" or "Avatar"; or metaphysical issues in "Donny Darko" or "Run, Lola, Run." This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2004 Philosophy of Race (4 Credits)

This course is a systematic study of the scientific, metaphysical, ethical, and political issues surrounding the notion of race. We undertake a critical study of the following questions: Is race a scientifically legitimate concept, or is it a social construct? Is race a legitimate census category? How should questions of race be decided, and by whom? Why do we think of humans in terms of race--for evolutionary or psychological reasons? Religious reasons? What is racism? Why is racism morally wrong? What do psychological studies show about our racist tendencies? Does affirmative action provide a morally acceptable way of achieving racial justice? What race is a mixed race person? This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2005 Philosophy of Religion (4 Credits)

What is God? Can God be known or is faith precisely a relationship to something that cannot be known in the ordinary sense? What is the relationship between God and morality? Between God and science? Is it more reasonable to believe that your religion is the only path to God or more reasonable to believe that God is manifest in many ways across different cultures? Is it reasonable to believe in God at all? If it is reasonable to believe in God, what are the reasons? And if believing in God is not based on reasons in the ordinary sense, are there philosophical grounds for believing in God anyway? This course takes a "God friendly" approach to philosophical questions about religion, setting out to investigate ontological and epistemological questions about belief-in-God toward the goal of understanding different ways that philosophers over the years have philosophically gone about developing, upholding, and talking about relationship with God. The course includes consideration of philosophers from analytic and continental traditions, from American and European schools of thought, from ancient, medieval, modern and post-modern traditions, and from Greek, Islamic, Jewish, and Christian traditions. Thinkers to be addressed include Pascal, Anselm, Plantinga, Van Inwagen, Hick, Hume, Descartes, Spinoza, Plato, Aristotle, Ibn Tufayl, Averroes, Maimonides, James, Levinas, Marion, Badiou, Rosenzweig, Aquinas, Buber, Cohen, Mill, Lycan, Kant, Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard, and Kafka. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement. Cross listed with RLGS 2005.

PHIL 2007 Philosophy and Video Games (4 Credits)

Traditional and novel metaphysical, ethical, political, and aesthetic issues both arising within video games and posed by this still developing medium. No prerequisites. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2008 Stereotyping and Violence in America Today (4 Credits)

This course is cross-listed with JUST 2008, COMN 2008, RLGS 2008. This course offers students the opportunity to explore key issues relating to diversity and inclusion in the contemporary United States, focusing on the themes of stereotyping and violence, from multiple disciplinary perspectives. Students will engage with scholarly and popular culture artifacts to examine the kinds of stereotyping and types of violence, visible and invisible, that characterize and challenge political, social, cultural, economic, religious, and educational life in today’s United States, and will do so by working with the course instructor as well as faculty members from across the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Students will work together to connect the given week’s speaker’s assigned readings and insights to readings and insights from previous weeks’ speakers; assignments and classroom discussion will in this way be very interdisciplinary and will compare and contrast multiple diverse points of view and disciplinary lenses on the question of stereotyping and violence. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2010 Existentialism (4 Credits)

Philosophical, religious, literary and psychological views of the existentialists including Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Camus. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2014 Religious Existentialism: Christian and Jewish (4 Credits)

Existentialism focuses on the human experience of living, often with a focus on the sheer freedom of the human condition. Religious existentialism subtly modifies this picture through its own vision of human freedom as the ultimate encounter between the human subject and God (with 'God' understood in various ways). The religious existentialist in this sense philosophically explores that which is most-fully-human as a moment of relation and encounter between self and that which is beyond self. Starting with Sartre's non-religious statement of existentialism in Existentialism is a Humanism (1946), we go on to examine the Christian and Jewish existentialisms of Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Tillich (1886-1965), Buber (1878-1965), and Heschel (1907-1972). In the course of our reflections, we compare non-religious with religious approaches to basic questions about self, God and world, and we consider the relationship between Christian and Jewish existentialist approaches to these questions. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement. Cross-listed with RLGS 2014 and JUST 2014.

PHIL 2025 Coexistence (4 Credits)

Building skills for ethical, emotionally-intelligent, and equity-minded encounter, this course is about facing neighbors responsively, responsibly, and non-violently—even when our values clash, and even as we work to defeat each other in the voting booth. Exploring new civic modes of “dialogue across difference” and serving as an antidote to polarization and rising tides of hate, the course invites students to consider new ways of holding onto their own views, values, and identities without erasing others—but also without necessarily embracing or being embraced by them. And it does so while helping them understand and utilize “phenomenology,” a philosophical method for assessing “lived feels” in complex relation to human meaning-making in a range of personal, professional, and political contexts. Focused in particular on interhuman coexistence, the course attends to the three-fold human cord of “our structures, our neighbors, and our selves.” It invites students to navigate between structural equity, interpersonal ethics, and personal authenticity. And it equips students to consider the “feels,” “flavors,” and “temperatures” of different coexistence strategies: from the lukewarm framework of tolerance to the warm embrace of friendship to the complicated contours of responsibility-without-friendship in such thinkers as BIPOC thought-leader Martin Luther King, Jr, philosopher and Holocaust Survivor Emmanuel Levinas, and political theorist Karl Marx. Helping students consider what sorts of coexistence goals are most and least appropriate for different contexts and why, the course asks questions like: When it comes to opponents, should we be aiming to befriend them or is it sometimes OK to set the bar lower? Should we try to “find common ground” or is it sometimes OK to “agree to disagree”? Is bridge-building always the best goal, or do we sometimes need to learn to live alongside one another without violence but also without bridges? Drawing on an inclusive reading list of BIPOC, Jewish, Islamic, Christian, African, Indigenous, and Japanese traditions, the course delves into Ubuntu principles of coexistence alongside Aztec principles of selfhood, BIPOC principles of justice alongside spiritual and atheist existentialisms, Queer Chicana feminism alongside the practice of Kintsugi, spiritual calls to love alongside political calls to respect, multicultural calls to recognition alongside social justice critiques of such calls, philosophical traditions of friendship alongside critiques of civility, and ancient wisdom traditions hand-in-hand with popular contemporary insights from Brené Brown’s work on vulnerability and Harvard’s near-century-long study of happiness. The course also explores the dangers of Islamophobia and Antisemitism; includes a visit to the campus’ Holocaust Memorial Social Action Site inspired by “radical ethics”; considers new modes of activism; and invites participants into a “Belonging and Expression” framework for navigating possibilities and tensions in important joint calls to social justice and freedom of expression.This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement. This course is crosslisted with PHIL and JUST.

PHIL 2026 Race: Black, Jew, Other (4 Credits)

In its investigation of philosophical writings on race and racism, this course explores a range of existential and phenomenological lenses for interrogating race and racism, with a focus on the shared theoretical and practical intersections of anti-Black and anti-Jew discourse. The course aims to help participants read and understand difficult primary philosophical (and some theological) texts—many of which are cited and engaged by contemporary writings across a number of disciplines. In this respect, we work through philosophical writings related to race, exile, “negritude,” “the wandering Jew,” and “otherness” by engaging such authors as: Sartre, Wright, De Bois, Levinas, Senghor, Fanon, Freud, Appiah, Jankelevitch, and Cone, alongside Gilman’s work on the “Jew’s Body” and “Jewish Self-Hatred,” Bernasconi’s work on the phenomenology of race, and discourses of “Other-as-disease” in American and Nazi eugenics. In all of its content, the course aims to engage participants with key issues and questions around race and racism, including extending the implications of anti-Black and anti-Jew discourses / practices to a range of other anti-Other discourses / practices at play in the world around us. This course is cross-listed with JUST 2026 and RLGS 2026. This course counts for the AI:Society requirement.

PHIL 2040 Practical Logic (4 Credits)

In this course students will learn how to identify and understand real arguments, the kinds of arguments that they confront everyday in the media, textbooks and periodicals, in addition to those made in philosophical writings. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: The Natural and Physical World requirement.

PHIL 2050 Jewish Philosophy (4 Credits)

This course sets out to explore the self and the sacred in Jewish tradition by exploring the nature of faith and reason, the call to ethical response, and the meaning of divine revelation in multiple Jewish philosophical voices across the ages, including Philo, Saadya, Halevi, Maimonides, Soloveitchik, Buber, Rosenzweig, and Levinas. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement. Cross listed with JUST 2050.

PHIL 2100 Philosophy of Mind (4 Credits)

Topics include nature of persons, consciousness, criteria of personal identity, the relation between mental and physical, and the role of neuroscience in the study of the mind--epistemological and ethical. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2101 Philosophy of Language (4 Credits)

What do linguistic expressions mean, and how do we use them to communicate? What value judgments are embedded in linguistic practice? In our study of it? How can logical tools illuminate language? What are the limitations of formalism for modeling meaning and language? How might tools in philosophy of language need to be revised in light of investigating oppression and injustice in linguistic communication? This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2110 Classical Greek Philosophy (4 Credits)

The philosophical thought of classical Greece that developed between about 500 and 300 BCE is the basis of all subsequent European philosophy and, arguably, of European culture itself. Besides its indisputable historical importance, it is also rich in ideas and insights that are as striking and relevant today as they were over 2000 years ago. This course serves as an introduction to this seminal period of philosophy, its historical and cultural context, and in fact, to philosophy itself. In the course, we focus primarily on the teachings of Socrates, the dialogues of his student Plato, and the writings of Plato's student Aristotle. In addition, we begin by considering the cultural and intellectual context, including the Homeric epics and the tragedies, that enabled such thinkers to arise and concludes with a brief look at the paths Greek philosophy took after the "Golden Age of Greece' has passed. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2111 Greek Moral Philosophy (4 Credits)

In this course we examine the "Good Life" in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus and Lucretius and in selected Greek drama. Questions to be explored are as follows: What is justice? Why should I lead a just life? What is friendship? What is happiness? This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2120 Nature & Limits of Human Knowledge (4 Credits)

A study of both traditional and contemporary answers to the following questions: What is knowledge? How do we acquire it? What is the extent of our knowledge? This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2130 Philosophy of Early Modern Age (4 Credits)

Problems of reason and experience, mechanistic view of human beings, new interpretations of mind from Descartes, Spinoza, Leibinz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Kant. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2140 Kant to Nietzsche (4 Credits)

German idealism; human beings as self-consciousness; counter-concept of alienated existence; Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2144 20th-Century Philosophy (4 Credits)

A general overview of prominent 20th-century philosophers and philosophical movements. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2145 Between Deleuze and Foucault (4 Credits)

Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault are widely accepted to be central figures of post-war French philosophy. Philosophers, cultural theorists, and others have devoted considerable effort to the critical examination of the work of each of these thinkers, but despite the strong biographical and philosophical connection between Foucault and Deleuze, very little has been done to explore the relationship between them. This course addresses the critical deficit by providing rigorous comparative discussions of the work of these two philosophers. The relationship between Foucault and Deleuze, however, is as strong as it is disparate: it is perhaps best described as a parallelism. As Deleuze says, “I never worked with Foucault. But I do think there are a lot of parallels between our work (with Guattari) and his, although they are, as it were, held at a distance because of our widely differing methods and even our objectives.” While the two were drawn together through their novel readings of Nietzsche, their commitment to a non-teleological theory of history, their activism in contemporary politics (with prisons, ’68, Palestine, etc.), their return to the stoics, and a theory of the event, Deleuze and Foucault were often decisively divided in their methods and motivations. Through primary and secondary readings, this course focuses on the similarities and differences in between these two thinkers. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2150 Philosophy of Law (4 Credits)

Principles, aims and methods of legal reasoning (judicial decision making); relationship between legal and moral reasoning. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2160 Symbolic Logic (4 Credits)

Principles and methods of formal reasoning, their practical and philosophical applications. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: The Natural and Physical World requirement. Cross listed with MATH 2050.

PHIL 2180 Ethics (4 Credits)

Alternative theories of morals and values, ethical problems and solutions offered by classical and contemporary thinkers. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2181 Aesthetics & Philosophy of Art (4 Credits)

Although critical reflection about art goes back at least to Plato, developments both in modern philosophy and in the arts themselves have produced an unprecedented, intense, and ongoing dialogue between artists and philosophers that has deeply affected the practices of both. Just as modern philosophers have come to view the arts as vitally important ways of experiencing and knowing, so modern artists have drawn heavily on philosophical ideas and views in creating their own works. The focus of this course is on some of the major ways in which new developments in the arts have influenced philosophical thought and have, in turn, been influenced by it. In particular, we consider some of the most representative artworks (many contemporary) that have raised the question, "Why is this art?," together with the major philosophical and critical theories that have attempted to respond to this question. Besides discussing specific works of art, we read and discuss some of the major statements and theories about them by both classical and contemporary philosophers, art historians and critics, and the artists themselves. This course is of interest both to students of philosophy wishing to explore contemporary developments in the arts as well as to art and art history students interested in a deeper understanding of the philosophical views that underlie so much modern and contemporary art. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2182 The Making of the Modern World: Science, Art, and Philosophy (4 Credits)

A combined on-campus/travel course exploring the ways in which the complex interactions among science, the arts, and philosophy served to create and define the 'modern world.' This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2183 Popular Film and Philosophy (4 Credits)

This course explores philosophy and film in popular culture. Film, like other art forms, deals with profound philosophical questions: What is the nature of reality? What is that we desire? What is God? What is the right thing to do? What is love? Film remains one of the most popular cultural expressions and dramatizations of these questions.

PHIL 2186 Feminist Ethics: Justice and Care (4 Credits)

In the late 1950’s psychologists began to theorize a notion of human moral development and they created instruments with which to measure such development. By the 1970’s there were claims that even well-educated women were—on average—stunted in their moral competence according to these measures. Once a sufficient number of women were engaged in moral theory in both psychology and philosophy, they began to diagnose these theories and instruments as prejudiced by what we would today call ‘while, cisgender, male privilege.’ The scales were centering a detached notion of justice and equality for all, whereas researchers found that women centered notions of care and engaged in relational (rather than detached) thinking when asked ethical questions. Thus, was born the discipline of Feminist Ethics. While many women (and some men) celebrated the alternative ‘ethics of care’ over an ‘ethics of justice,’ others worried that these women had been harmed by their male dominated society and were showing signs of a ‘slave mentality’ in their moral reasoning that was to be overcome and not celebrated. Predictably (in hindsight), women of color complained that their perspective was not taken into account by these ‘caring’ white female professors. In this class we will look at this conversation as it unfolded. In the process we will evaluate these theories from a philosophical perspective and see which parts seem most helpful for thinking about current ethical issues. Many or all of the readings were probably written before you were born. In fact, there is very little philosophical literature that labels itself ‘feminist ethics’ or ‘ethics of care’ that was written in the 21st century. We will ponder why this is the case. Are these ideas outdated, or have they been sufficiently incorporated into mainstream academic thinking that they no longer wear the label of marginalization? This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2200 Social & Political Philosophy (4 Credits)

Topics covered include the relation of the "social" to the "political," the nature and role of political ideology, issues in democracy and globalization. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2260 Philosophical Perspectives on Perception and Reality (4 Credits)

An examination of the theoretical hypothesis that our perceptions match up with, and therefore give us information about, an external and independent reality (what we call "the physical world"). In order to engage this issue, we look at the philosophical explorations of a number of historical figures in the Western philosophical tradition. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2346 Philosophy of Nature (4 Credits)

This course will discuss the nature of nature, the ethics of nature, our knowledge of nature, the politics of nature, the history of the philosophy of nature, physics, and aesthetics. We will read, poetry, philosophy, and literature to pose and answer these questions.

PHIL 2401 Social Justice in a Global Context: Theory and Practice (4 Credits)

Theories of social justice, beginning with the ancient Hebrews and Greeks and running up through the modern era. The religious sources of these ideas, drawn primarily from the monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, are profiled. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2402 London and Paris: Medieval to Postmodern (4 Credits)

This is a 3-week summer session course involving one week on campus and two weeks travel to London and Paris. It traces the development of philosophical ideas, politics, social institutions, architecture, and the visual arts from the Middle Ages to the present as they occurred in these two major capitals. Its approach is both historical and comparative and emphasizes understanding and interpreting the contemporary experience of these cities in light of their shared as well as divergent historical paths. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2555 The Philosophy of Technology (4 Credits)

Serious thought about technology commences with the beginnings of philosophy itself, although it becomes an urgent theme and explicit field of philosophical inquiry only in the 20th century. This course will approach the theme of technology from five perspectives: (1) Historical: How did technology arise as a philosophical concern and how did the development of technology influence thought about it? (2) Metaphysical: What role does technology play in our understanding of ‘reality’? Is technology one element among others in what we take to be ‘real,’ or does it determine our views of ‘reality’? (3) Epistemological: What is the relation between science and technology? Is technology a result or application of ‘scientific knowledge,’ or does technology govern or drive science itself? (4) Ethical/Political: In what ways does technology influence and/or challenge our views about what is ‘valuable’ about our individual and collective ways of living? Is the development of technology something to be embraced or rejected/limited with respect to human values and aspirations? (5) ‘Futurist’: Can the ‘digital revolution’ be understood as continuous with the history of technology itself or does it represent some new metamorphosis of both what it means to be ‘human’ and of ‘reality’ itself? This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2700 Biomedical Ethics (4 Credits)

Discussion of some of the most pressing ethical issues engaged by contemporary developments in biology and medicine. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2701 Topics in Philosophy (1-4 Credits)

PHIL 2702 Topics in Philosophy (1-4 Credits)

PHIL 2703 Topics in Philosophy (1-4 Credits)

PHIL 2704 Topics in Philosophy (1-4 Credits)

PHIL 2705 Topics in Philosophy (1-4 Credits)

PHIL 2706 Topics in Philosophy (1-4 Credits)

PHIL 2707 Topics in Philosophy (1-4 Credits)

PHIL 2708 Topics in Philosophy (1-4 Credits)

PHIL 2709 Topics in Philosophy (1-4 Credits)

PHIL 2710 Topics in Philosophy (1-4 Credits)

PHIL 2711 Topics in Philosophy (1-4 Credits)

PHIL 2770 Philosophy of Science (4 Credits)

This course provides an introduction to some major topics in the philosophy of science focusing on issues concerning what science is and how it works, the scientific method, the objectivity of science and the goal of science. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.

PHIL 2785 Environmental Ethics (4 Credits)

A study of current issues and controversies regarding the natural environment from a variety of philosophical and ethical perspectives, including anthropological, animal rights, "land ethic," deep ecology, eco-feminism, and postmodern approaches.

PHIL 2988 Study Abroad Resident Credit (0-18 Credits)

PHIL 3000 Plato's Metaphysics (4 Credits)

A systematic study of Plato's Middle and Late Period Dialogues that focuses on his arguments for the existence of abstract objects and the development of Plato's theory of Forms. Prerequisite: At least Junior standing or permission of instructor.

PHIL 3003 Plato's Theory of Knowledge (4 Credits)

A systematic investigation of Plato's treatments of knowledge throughout the dialogues with a focus on the theory of recollection, Forms as objects of knowledge, the relationship between the Forms and perceptual experience, and the challenges posed by notions of true and false belief. Prerequisites: At least Junior standing or permission of instructor.

PHIL 3005 Cosmopolitics (4 Credits)

This class will be a close reading of Plato's dialogue Timaeus, with a special focus on the cosmological, theological, and political dimensions of the text.

PHIL 3010 Great Thinkers: Aristotle (4 Credits)

A study of Aristotle's central theories and doctrines. Prerequisite: junior standing or instructor's permission.

PHIL 3011 Great Thinkers: Virginia Woolf (4 Credits)

In this course we will read Virginia Woolf as a philosopher. We will discuss her philosophy of nature, knowledge, art, politics, science, sensation, gender, and materialism throughout her fiction and non-fiction writings.

PHIL 3023 Great Thinkers: Maimonides: Politics, Prophecy and Providence (4 Credits)

Using "The Guide for the Perplexed" as our central text, we explore the complex philosophical ideas of Moses Maimonides (1135-1204), one of the central figures in medieval philosophy and Jewish thought. Our study includes analyses of his ideas on principles of faith, human perfection, intellectual vs. "imaginational" approaches to truth, pedagogy and politics, reasons for the commandments, the nature of God and divine will, the limits of human knowledge, the mechanics of prophecy, and the parameters and implications of providence. Cross listed with RLGS 3023 and JUST 3023. Prerequisite: junior standing or instructor's permission.

PHIL 3024 Maimonides: Greek, Islamic, and Christian Encounters (4 Credits)

Using the "Guide of the Perplexed" as our central text, we explore the complex philosophical ideas of Moses Maimonides (1135-1204), a central figure in the history of philosophy and in the history of Jewish thought. In this course, we examine in depth the relationship between Maimonides’ core ideas and various Greek, Muslim and Christian thinkers, including: Aristotle, Plotinus, al-Farabi, Avicenna (Ibn Sina), al-Ghazali, Averroes (Ibn Rushd), and Aquinas. Topics to be explored include: what is "metaphysics?"; God’s unity and essence as existence itself; the mystery of knowing and not knowing God (including a consideration of God’s ways as well as "negative theology"--viz. the extent to which we do not know God); God as pure intellect; the nature of the cosmos and the "separate intellects"; creation vs. eternity vs. emanation: philosophical and religious perspectives on the origins of the universe and implications for "living in the world with/out God." In our study, we will also address the methodological implications of cross-religious and cross-language analyses, and how to spot and address (in your own work and in the work of others) tacit cultural biases at play in the interpretive process. Cross listed with JUST 3024 and RLGS 3024. Prerequisite: Junior standing or instructor's permission.

PHIL 3026 Levinas and the Political (4 Credits)

Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995), famous for his arresting insight of “ethics as first philosophy,” is a key figure in the histories of phenomenology, metaphysics, and theology. In this class, we examine the implications of Levinas’ thought for politics and the political through close readings of his insights on peace, proximity, and justice in such works as “Reflections on the Philosophy of Hitlerism” (1934), Totality and Infinity (1961), Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence (1974), and “Peace and Proximity” (1995) in dialogue with key companion works in political thought and political theology, including Benjamin on Divine Violence, Butler on postmodern politics, Connolly on agonism, Critchley on anarchism, Marxist intersections, and Derrida and other “Jewish theologies” of messianistic impossibility. Themes addressed include: Justice; Covenant; Law; the grounding and paradox (or betrayal) of politics-with-ethics; phenomenologies of hospitalities and strangers, friends and enemies; liberalisms, socialisms, fascisms; revolutions and anarchies; agonisms v. antagonisms; impossibility; messianisms without Messiahs; logics of works v. logics of grace; on the role of love v. justice; anarchic grounds; temporalities of covenant and justice; fraternity; forgiveness and its limits; “the 3rd”; rational peace, peace between the wars, and impossible peace. This course is cross-listed: PHIL and JUST. Pre-reqs: This course is open to juniors and seniors except by special permission of the instructor.

PHIL 3050 Great Thinkers: Hume (4 Credits)

A detailed study of Hume's "radical" empiricism and its impact on contemporary analytic philosophy. Prerequisite: junior standing or instructor's permission.

PHIL 3061 Kant's Ethics/Aesthetics/Politics (4 Credits)

A study of Kant's "value theory" and its historical significance. Prerequisite: junior standing or instructor's permission.

PHIL 3062 Kant's Epistemology and Logic (4 Credits)

A study of Kant's theory of knowledge, logic and related issues. Prerequisite: junior standing or instructor's permission.

PHIL 3063 Kant on Religion (4 Credits)

A study of Immanuel Kant's major writings on religion and their subsequent influence on theology and the philosophy of religion. Prerequisite: junior standing or instructor's permission. Cross-listed with RLGS 3456.

PHIL 3070 Great Thinkers: Hegel (4 Credits)

Hegel's "Phenomenology," later system and place in the history of modern philosophy. Prerequisite: junior standing or instructor's permission.

PHIL 3075 Marxism (4 Credits)

This course is a survey in the theoretical and political work influenced by the writings of 19th century philosopher and economist, Karl Marx. The course covers both the historical traditions in Marxism in the 19th, 20th, and 21st century as well as the geographical traditions of these time periods in France, Germany, England, Italy, Russia, China, and America. It is not necessary that students have a prior background in Marx's work, but it is highly recommended. Cross listed with ECON 3075.

PHIL 3090 Great Thinkers: Heidegger (4 Credits)

Study of "Being and Time" and related essays by a major 20th-century philosopher. Prerequisite: junior standing or instructor's permission.

PHIL 3092 Great Thinkers: The Later Heidegger (4 Credits)

Study of the works of Heidegger after 1930. Prerequisite: junior standing or instructor's permission.

PHIL 3100 Great Thinkers: Wittgenstein (4 Credits)

The course introduces students to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s two masterworks, the Tractatus (1922) and Philosophical Investigations (1953), both of which provide fresh, often counterintuitive and conflicting, insights into topics ranging from logic and language to ethics, religion, art and culture. The course explores how the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the pressures of an incipient modernity impacted the style, direction and substance of Wittgenstein’s thought, developments that had profound existential and spiritual import for him as he wrestled with the many contradictions of his life and thought. The course concludes with a consideration of the relationship between Wittgenstein’s later philosophy and the existential-phenomenology of Martin Heidegger, both of whom insist upon humanity’s radical finitude and the pre-ontological understanding (forms of life) that always already conditions and guides our questions about reason, truth, beauty and meaning.

PHIL 3101 Great Thinkers: Kierkegaard (4 Credits)

Each year, the philosophy department offers at least two courses in great thinkers. Specific figures may vary from year to year. Cross-listed with RLGS 3102. Prerequisite: 10 hours of Philosophy at the 2000 level or permission of instructor.

PHIL 3120 Metaphysics (4 Credits)

In the course of this study, we will cover a broad range of philosophical topics falling within metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, and epistemology. Prerequisite: junior standing or instructor's permission.

PHIL 3130 Knowledge Problems (4 Credits)

Problems in the foundations and justifications of claims to knowledge. Prerequisite: junior standing or instructor's permission.

PHIL 3146 Great Thinkers: Levinas (4 Credits)

Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995), famous for his arresting and original idea of "ethics as first philosophy," is an important figure in the histories of phenomenology, metaphysics, and theology. In this course, we set out to explore Levinas’ insights on ethics, alterity, and infinity, including the connection of his ideas to Plato, Descartes, Kant, and Husserl, as well as his critical responses to Heidegger and his positive contributions to Derrida. In this course, we work through Levinas’ two major works, Ethics and Infinity and Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence, as well as a number of shorter writings—including material from his Talmudic commentaries. Themes to be covered include: Being, Goodness, Risk, Ethics, Alterity, Transcendence, Law, Judaism, Gift, Forgiveness, Politics, Theology, and Justice. This course is cross-listed with JUST 3146.

PHIL 3152 Philosophy Meets Mysticism: A Greek, Jewish and Islamic Neoplatonic Journey (4 Credits)

Neoplatonism is a unique genre--somewhere between philosophy and mysticism. In this course, we investigate some of the leading themes of Neoplatonism, tracing the Greek ideas of Plotinus (the third century “father of Neoplatonism”) into later Jewish and Islamic textual traditions. As part of our journey, we will investigate a host of philosophical writings, including the Theology of Aristotle and the Liber de Causis, as well as works by Plato, Plotinus, Proclus, Ibn Tufayl, Acecenna, Isaac Israeli, Solomon Ibn Gabirol, and Abraham Ibn Ezra. Themes to be covered include emanation and creation, apophatic discourse, divine desire, the theological significance of imagination, inward reflection and the call to virtue. Prerequisite: junior standing or instructor's permission. Cross listed with JUST 3152.

PHIL 3175 Morality and the Law (4 Credits)

A systematic study of various elements of the relation between law and morality. Are we obligated to obey every law the government enacts? Why? If we do have an obligation to obey the law, are civil disobedients like Martin Luther King, Jr. justified in disobeying the law? Are immoral laws, laws at all, or must a law connect with some higher moral truth to have any authority? To what extent is it morally permissible for the law to restrict our personal freedoms? To what extent is it morally permissible for the law to enforce morality in general? If it is not permissible for the law to enforce morality, do we incur any obligation to obey the law? Prerequisite: junior standing or instructor's permission.

PHIL 3178 Metaethics (4 Credits)

This course systematically and critically examines the metaphysical, semantic, and epistemic issues central to the study of metaethics. Do moral properties exist? If so, how are they related to natural properties? Do moral properties exist independent of human agency, or do we construct morality? If moral properties exist, how can we come to have justified belief about them? Is it possible to know that a moral belief is true? Doesn't the phenomenon of widespread, intractable disagreement about moral matters establish that there are no objective moral truths? Is the process of gaining scientific knowledge really that different from the process of gaining moral knowledge? Prerequisite: junior standing or instructor's permission.

PHIL 3179 Virtue Ethics (4 Credits)

Virtue ethics purportedly provides a distinct approach to moral deliberation, moral reasoning, moral decision-making, and moral justification. This course is a systematic study o the nature of virtue ethics, the nature of a virtue, and the alleged superiority of virtue ethics over its more familiar consequentialist and deontological alternatives. We also study various responses to the following questions: Have moral psychologists generated any valuable studies on the nature of virtue? What virtues ought we to endorse? At least Junior standing required or permission of the instructor.

PHIL 3185 Philosophy of Action and Agency (4 Credits)

Wittgenstein once asked, "What is left over if I subtract the fact that my arm goes up from the fact that I raise my arm?" Understanding the difference between mere happening and an intentional action became central to the philosophical investigation of action and agency in the 20th century. In this course we examine this distinction and why it should matter to us. Our topics include intentional action, the causal theory of action, the metaphysics of action, agent causation, basic action, acting and trying to act, intentions, weakness of will, strength of will, and mental action. Requires junior standing or permission of instructor.

PHIL 3201 Wittgenstein, Quine, & Kripke on Necessity and a Priori Knowledge (4 Credits)

A study of Wittgenstein, Quine, and Kripke on the nature of necessity, a priori knowledge and their relation to understanding philosophy. Prerequisite: junior standing or instructor's permission.

PHIL 3210 Philosophy of Movement (4 Credits)

Everything is in motion. Yet, philosophers have consistently considered motion to be a derivative or secondary form of being. Why? What are the political and metaphysical consequences of marginalizing motion in the history of philosophy? The aim of this class is to read the history of philosophy with a unique focus on the status of movement and motion from the ancient to contemporary period.

PHIL 3211 Contemporary Pol Philosophy (4 Credits)

This class focuses primarily on the philosophical problems generated by thinking about political authority and justice. We discuss the nature of political authority, justice, rights, equality and the role of property in a modern state.

PHIL 3212 Philosophy and Mythology (4 Credits)

Before philosophy there was the myth of chaos. In this class we will read the oldest recorded myths in the world to see how their vision of cosmogonic chaos gave birth to form and order. We will track the birth, rise, and fall of creation stories from chaos and identify what may have caused these major shifts, including the rise of philosophy, the state, and imperialism. Specifically we will read the earliest Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Indian, Greek, and Chinese creation stories.

PHIL 3215 Modern Jewish Philosophy (4 Credits)

Prerequisite: junior standing or instructor's permission. Cross listed with JUST 3215.

PHIL 3333 Logic, Language, and Metaphysics (4 Credits)

This course provides a systematic exploration of the foundations of contemporary philosophy—namely, logic and language—and their metaphysical implications. The class can be divided in three broad modules. Our starting point is the collapse of Kant’s system due to staggering discovering in physics and geometry. Next, we shall discuss the subsequent development of mathematical logic and the philosophy of language in the work of Frege, Russell, Tarski, and Goedel. The last portion is devoted to philosophical applications of these logical results in the field of metaphysics. Specifically, we shall explore the work of Carnap, Quine, and Kripke. Junior or senior standing required (or instructor permission).

PHIL 3445 Cultural Theory and Critique (4 Credits)

This course will provide an overview of the major theories of culture and cultural critique, as well as a consideration of some of the major controversies and recent developments in this field. It will proceed roughly chronologically, beginning with liberal humanist critique and continuing with hermeneutics, materialist and Marxist critique, psychoanalysis, the Frankfurt School, structuralism, post-structuralism, and contemporary British cultural studies. It will also consider more recent developments, such as feminist critique, GLBT critique, and postcolonialism. While the approach will be mainly philosophical, implications for other areas such as literature, art, emergent media, religion, and politics will also figure in the discussions, so it is appropriate for students in many fields, not just philosophy. Prerequisite: Junior standing or permission of the instructor. Note that this course will serve as a foundational offering for students interested in participating in the Critical Theory specialization.

PHIL 3446 Philosophy in the American Tradition (4 Credits)

The course introduces students to the thought of the three premier American Transcendentalist writers: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Henry David Thoreau. These three writers—by turns friends, rivals, neighbors, and even housemates in nearby Concord, Massachusetts— created what Emerson called “a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition” and laid the foundations for American philosophy and literature as we know it today. They also led the first countercultural movement in American history, advocating causes as varied as environmentalism, abolitionism, women’s rights, and the “higher law” of the individual conscience in an age of unbridled capitalism and populism. We will consider the Transcendentalists as both writers and reformers, examining their calls for a uniquely American literature and their romantic sacralization of nature as well as their deep commitment to reform and their engagement with the turbulent politics of their time. In the final weeks of the course, we will explore the Transcendentalists’ profound influence on American cultural history, ranging from their contemporaries (Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Nathaniel Hawthorne) to ours (Marilynne Robinson, Terrence Malick, and W. S. Merwin).

PHIL 3448 Theory of the Subject: From Hegel to Zizek (4 Credits)

The great French philosopher Michel Foucault in his Collège de France lectures in the early 1980s characterized the theory of the subject as the very key to the development both of Western philosophy and Western thinking in general. This course will explore Foucault’s thesis with reference to different theoretical models of subjectivity and “subjectification” (as Jacques Lacan calls it). It will do so through close readings of selections from the works of G.W.F. Hegel, Søren Kierkegaard, Lacan, Alain Badiou, and Slavoj Žižek as well as select portions of Foucault’s 1981-82 lectures entitled The Hermeneutics of the Subject. This course is cross-listed with RLGS 3448.

PHIL 3450 Phenomenology and Theology (4 Credits)

Cross listed with RLGS 3455. Prerequisite: junior standing or instructor's permission.

PHIL 3460 Nietzsche & the Death of God (4 Credits)

This course involves an intensive reading and discussion of Friedrich Nietzsche's 'Thus Spake Zarathustra,' together with relevant associated materials, especially 'The Gay Science.' Prerequisite: junior standing or instructor's permission. Cross listed with RLGS 3460.

PHIL 3465 Derrida and Postmodernism (4 Credits)

Cross listed with RLGS 3465. Prerequisite: junior standing or instructor's permission.

PHIL 3466 Contemporary Continental Philosophy (4 Credits)

A critical study of current trends in European philosophy, focusing on such thinkers as Deleuze, Badiou, Zizek, Meillassoux, or Laruelle. Prerequisite: junior standing or instructor's permission.

PHIL 3610 Advanced Topics in Philosophy, Psychology, and Cognitive Science (4 Credits)

This course provides an advanced survey of conceptual and methodological issues that lie at the intersection of philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science. More specifically, our main goal is to engage in a critical discussion of how the study of the mind requires an interdisciplinary approach that integrates empirical findings with conceptual and philosophical theorizing. Cross listed with PSYC 3610. Prerequisites: PSYC 1001 and junior standing (or instructor approval).

PHIL 3611 The Boundaries of Scientific Knowledge: A Philosophical Exploration (4 Credits)

Despite its staggering successes, public trust in science is disquietingly low. What has gone wrong? Why is a substantive portion of the population unwilling to trust the advice of specialists? A central problem lies in the tendency of scientists, philosophers, and various pundits to hype, bloat, and overemphasize the promises and results of scientific research. This leads to scientism, broadly conceived as the imperialist tendency to reduce all knowledge to scientific knowledge. But what exactly is scientism? Despite the pejorative connotation of the term, is it an intellectual sin or a virtue? The aim of this course is to map the terrain, exploring various dimensions of scientism, and how it affects the public dimensions of scientific research and its relation to the humanities, religion, and other domains of knowledge, culture, and society.

PHIL 3612 AI and Robotics (4 Credits)

In this interdisciplinary seminar we will discuss foundational issues regarding artificially intelligent systems. We will seek to understand how recent advances in AI research bear on our understanding of the nature of the mind, intelligence, agency, rationality, and consciousness. We will also discuss how philosophical advances can advance empirical progress. Additionally, we will discuss some barriers to progress that these technologies might pose. In particular, we will be focused on three groups of questions: 1. What special opportunities and challenges are presented by deep neural net and deep learning technology regarding building and understanding artificially minded intelligent agents? 2. What is the role of the body and environment in producing intelligence? 3. Deep neural net algorithms are already commonly used to predict recidivism rates, diagnose illnesses, and make advertising more effective. In what ways might such algorithms be approaching human or animal intelligence, or shed light on such intelligence? In what ways might human and animal intelligence be importantly different? In what ways might contemporary intelligence research perpetuate injustice and oppression? This seminar is designed to be interdisciplinary, and I welcome students working in philosophy, robotics/AI, and cognitive science who want to work hard and dig deeper. There are no strict prerequisites, but some background knowledge in relevant disciplines will be highly useful.

PHIL 3618 Philosophy of Biology (4 Credits)

A survey of conceptual issues that lie at the intersection of biology and philosophy: the central concepts of evolutionary theory (such as natural selection, fitness, adaptation and function), the relation of biology to other “lower” sciences (can it be reduced to physics and chemistry?), whether there are genuine scientific laws in biology, and the relation between biology and other fields like cognitive science and ethics. At least Junior standing required.

PHIL 3620 Philosophical Perspectives on Economics and Social Sciences (4 Credits)

This course provides an advanced survey of conceptual and methodological issues that lie at the intersection of philosophy, economics, and the social sciences. More specifically, the main goal is to engage in a critical discussion of how sciences such as psychology, sociology, and neuroscience can challenge and modify the foundations and methodology of economic theories. The course is structured around three broad modules. After a brief introduction, we begin by discussing the emergence of rational choice theory which constitutes the foundation of classical and neoclassical economics and present some paradoxical implications of expected utility theory. The second module focuses on the relationship between economics and psychology. More specifically, we examine the emergence of behavioral economics, the study of the social, cognitive, and emotional factors on the economic decisions of individuals and institutions and their consequences for market prices, returns, and resource allocation. Finally, the third module focuses on the implications of neuroscience on decision making. We discuss some recent developments in neuroeconomics, a field of study emerged over the last few decades which seeks to ground economic theory in the study of neural mechanisms which are expressed mathematically and make behavioral predictions.

PHIL 3699 Proseminar in Philosophy (4 Credits)

Philosophy is a diverse discipline with various subfields, most of which are becoming increasingly specialized and methodologically autonomous. Specialization is often (rightly) perceived as an indicator of disciplinary progress and intellectual development. However, it is important that students of philosophy pursue breadth as well as depth. The goal of this course is to provide an overview of a series of seminal texts in philosophy, from a variety of subfields, epochs, and traditions. Each weekly meeting is devoted to the presentation, analysis, and discussion of a text that any student of philosophy should read at some point in her or his career. Requires junior standing or instructor's permission.

PHIL 3700 Topics in Philosophy (1-4 Credits)

Prerequisite: junior standing or instructor's permission.

PHIL 3701 Topics in Philosophy (1-4 Credits)

Prerequisite: junior standing or instructor's permission.

PHIL 3702 Topics in Philosophy (1-4 Credits)

Prerequisite: 10 hours of Philosophy at 2000 level or permission of instructor.

PHIL 3703 Topics in Philosophy (1-4 Credits)

Prerequisite: 10 hours of Philosophy at 2000 level or permission of instructor.

PHIL 3704 Topics in Philosophy (1-4 Credits)

Prerequisite: 10 hours of Philosophy at 2000 level or permission of instructor.

PHIL 3988 Study Abroad Resident Credit (0-18 Credits)

PHIL 3991 Independent Study (1-8 Credits)

PHIL 3995 Independent Research (1-8 Credits)

PHIL 3999 Philosophy Assessment (0 Credits)

This course involves a required assessment of graduating philosophy majors' knowledge of the discipline based on coursework taken after completing 75% of their coursework. It is available to anyone who has completed at least 30 credits of philosophy courses and is required for graduation.