PHIL

This course is a survey of some of the central issues in contemporary metaphysics, the area of philosophy devoted to understanding the fundamental level of reality. Topics of the course may include existence and nonexistence, identity, personal identity, possibility and necessity, time and persistence, realism and antirealism, and free will. Featured philosophers may include W.V.O. Quine, Saul Kripke, David Lewis, Judith Jarvis Thomson, and Derek Parfit.

This course is an introduction to philosophical systems of Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, J.S. Mill, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. Topics include the nature of history and historical change, the extent of human freedom, the relation between individuals and their cultures, the historical and psychological importance of religious, moral, and philosophical consciousness, and the nature of truth.

This course consists of a careful reading of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, designed to provide a thorough introduction to the epistemological aspect of Kant's critical philosophy.

Formal logic is the science of reasoning and argumentation. It uses mathematical structures to establish a formal language to express thoughts and evaluate the coherence of series of thoughts. Students learn about and work with two logical systems in this course: truth-functional logic and first-order logic.

This course investigates the ways in which power relations--such as racism, sexism, and ableism--structure two significant areas of individual and collective behavior: language and knowledge. It shows the necessity of philosophizing in critical engagement with the world by connecting social phenomena with social scientific theories. It also shows philosophy's strength in making fundamental inquiries and bridging academic disciplines by drawing on diverse types of empirical evidence.

Existentialism describes an influential set of views that gained prominence in Europe following World War II, stressing radical human freedom and possibility, as well as concomitant responsibility and anxiety, in a world bereft of transcendent significance. This course examines the nineteenth-century philosophical roots of such views, their leading twentieth-century philosophical and theological expression, and a few of their most compelling incarnations in literature.

The course assesses the reasonableness of various forms of religious belief and of irreligion. Noted historical and contemporary authors are read. Students attempt to develop personal views on the truth of religion and its place in life.

Representative philosophical topics, such as mind and body, the grounds of knowledge, the existence of God, moral obligation, political equality, and human freedom, are discussed in connection with contemporary philosophers and figures in the history of philosophy.

This course is focused on the interconnection between value judgments and a scientific perspective on the world and human psychology. Drawing on philosophical work that connects to and draws implications from attempts to study human behavior scientifically, the course explores answers to questions like: What motivates ethical action -- is it emotions, reasoning, or something else? What is the connection between a person's values and their behavior?

Anger, fear, joy, sadness, disgust, surprise, envy, pride, jealousy, love, grief -- without emotions our experience of the world would be flat and grey, void of the upheavals, accelerations, and turns that make the journey of life so exciting. But what are emotions? What kind of mental state are they? Are there universal emotions, or are all emotions culturally-relative? What does it mean to feel fear -- as opposed to think -- that something is scary? How can we know that someone is envious? Is disgust always bad? Can joy be inappropriate?