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210. Introduction to Ethics (=GS Hum 292, HiPSS 210). The major portion of
this course consists of an examination of the most influential types of ethical
theory. After studying these theories, we turn to their practical applications.
Special attention is given to the implications of different theories for
ethical problems in medicine. A. Davidson. Autumn. (I)
234. Philosophy of Mind and Science Fiction (=GS Hum 297, HiPSS 254). Could
computers be conscious? Might they be affected by changes in size or time
scale, hardware, development, social, cultural, or ecological factors? Does our
form of life constrain our ability to visualize or detect alternative forms of
order, life, or mentality, or to interpret them correctly? How does the
assumption of consciousness affect how we study and relate to other beings?
This course examines issues in philosophy of mind raised by recent progress in
biology, psychology, and simulations of life and intelligence, with readings
from philosophy, the relevant sciences, and science fiction. W. Wimsatt.
Winter. (III)
235. Philosophy of Mind (=HiPSS 204). In this course, we take up the
so-called mind-body problem. This is the problem of the ontological status of
the mind and its relation to body. We start with Descartes and then look at
historical figures, such as Hobbes, Berkeley, Malebranche, Spinoza, Leibniz,
and Huxley. Then we look into the twentieth-century contribution to the topic.
We examine various forms of materialism, including behaviorism, identity
theories, functionalism, and eliminativism. Authors read include Ryle, Hempel,
Skinner, Chomsky, Smart, Putnam, Kripke, Davidson, Dennett, and Fodor.
M. Aydede. Spring. (III)
250. History of Philosophy I: Ancient Philosophy (=ClCiv 250). PQ:
Common Core humanities sequence. A study of some major texts and problems
of the classical period. Authors are selected from the pre-Socratics, Plato,
Aristotle, and later Greek and Roman philosophers of the period. I.
Mueller. Autumn.
253. Morals and Politics from Homer to Plato (=ClCiv 263). This course
concerns the manner in which the Greeks of the archaic and classical periods
evaluated themselves and others in moral and political terms, their reason for
finding such evaluations appropriate, and changes that occurred between the
time of composition of the Homeric poems and the death of Plato. We emphasize
the important practical problems created by these valuations and the manner in
which they were reinforced by traditional education. Plato's moral and
political philosophy are discussed in the light of this situation and studied
as an attempt to solve the problems. The course is based on close study of
texts in translation combined with discussion of some twenty Greek value-words.
A. Adkins. Autumn.
260. History of Philosophy II: Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy. PQ:
Common Core humanities sequence; Philos 250 helpful. This course surveys
the history of philosophy from the late medievals to Hume. D. Garber.
Winter.
270. History of Philosophy III: Kant and the Nineteenth Century. PQ:
Common Core humanities sequence. This course studies a number of important
moral and political philosophers of the late eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. Kant, Bentham, Hegel, Marx, Mill, Nietzsche, and others may be read.
D. Brudney. Spring.
Go to top of document 292-1-2-3. Junior Tutorial I, II, III. PQ: Open only to juniors who have
been admitted to the intensive concentration program. Staff. Autumn, Winter,
Spring.
293-1-2-3. Senior Tutorial I, II, III. PQ: Open only to seniors who have
been admitted to the intensive concentration program. Staff. Autumn,
Winter, Spring.
295. Junior Seminar. W. Tait. Autumn.
297. The Senior Essay. PQ: Consent of director of undergraduate studies.
Students hoping to write a senior essay must register for this
course in the autumn quarter of the senior year and for Philos 298 in
the spring quarter of the senior year. Staff. Autumn.
298. The Senior Seminar. Students hoping to write a senior essay
must register for this course in the spring quarter of the senior year
and for Philos 297 in the autumn quarter of the senior year. T. Cohen.
Spring.
299. Reading Course. PQ: Students are required to submit the College
Reading and Research Course Form. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.
The following courses are designed for College students and graduate
students.
300. Elementary Logic (=CFS 335, HiPSS 207). This course is an introduction
to formal logic. Formal languages for sentential and predicate logic are
introduced, together with the semantics for these languages (i.e., the notions
of interpretation, truth, and validity). The relation of these languages to
ordinary English (i.e., the logical structure of English) is discussed, and
techniques for determining the validity of arguments are explained. Time
permitting, the course ends with an informal discussion of more advanced topics
in logic--in particular, the Church undecidability theorem and the Gödel
incompleteness theorem--and their relevance to issues in the philosophy of
mathematics. D. Malament. Autumn. (II)
305. The Infinite (=CFS 363, HiPSS 218,). Discussion of conceptions of the
infinitely small and infinitely large from Aristotle to present times. Figures
discussed include Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, Leibniz, Berkeley, Kant, Bolzano,
Cauchy, Cantor, Dedekind, Brouwer, Hilbert, Weyl, and Gödel. W. Tait.
Winter. (II)
307. Greek Mathematics (=CFS 345, HiPSS 206). Lectures on ancient Greek
philosophy of mathematics. Main texts include Plato's Phaedo,
Republic IV-VII, and Philebus; Aristotle's Physics and
Metaphysics A, M, N; and Euclid's Elements. W. Tait.
Winter. (II)
310. Agents, Actions, and Ends (=GS Hum 307). In this course we read,
write, and think about the nature and force of reasons for action. Topics
discussed include the peculiarities of agency; the claim that action is only
intelligible insofar as it can be made out to aim at the good; the role of
pleasure or happiness in understanding human action; the role of conceptions of
practical reason in philosophical accounts of the nature of mental states; and
the relationship between general principles or practices and particular
actions. C. Vogler. Spring. (I)
313. Aesthetics (=GS Hum 305). This course is an introduction to problems
in the philosophy of art, with both traditional and contemporary texts. Topics
include the definition of art, representation, expression, metaphor, and taste.
T. Cohen. Autumn. (I)
Go to top of document 317. Readings in the History of Aesthetics. Selective readings in the
history of the philosophy of art, including some of these authors: Aristotle,
Hume, Kant, Santayana, Collingwood, Croce, and Dewey. T. Cohen. Winter.
(I)
325. Philosophy of Physics (=CFS 310, HiPSS 226). PQ: Knowledge
of calculus in several variables, linear algebra, and elementary formal logic
(Philos 300 or equivalent) required. This course samples a number of topics
concerning the foundations of quantum mechanics (e.g., Bell's theorem and
quantum logic) and the foundations of the special theory of relativity. D.
Malament. Spring. (II)
327. Philosophy of Biology (=CFS 376, GS Hum 301, HiPSS 227). This course
considers reductionism as a regulative assumption in evolutionary biology.
After a philosophical and methodological introduction on reductionism and the
nature of model building, we consider a variety of modern approaches to
modeling and explaining the evolution of organisms, including reductionistic
and nonreductionistic population genetic approaches, quantitative genetics,
nongenetic phenotypic optimization models, and various developmental models.
Topics include the units of selection controversy and a hierarchial multilevel
account of evolutionary change; the role of the phenotype and the environment
in evolution; and developmental constraints in evolution. The choice of
significant boundaries for analysis, problems with functional inference and
functional localization in neurobiology and evolutionary biology, and the
detection and correction of biases associated with reductionistic
problem-solving heuristics are considered. A computer lab gives hands-on
experience with simulation modeling. W. Wimsatt. Spring.
(II)
331. Mental Content (=HiPSS 238). This course is in an area that is of
common concern to both philosophy of mind/psychology and philosophy of
language. Both ordinary folk and cognitive psychologists routinely assume that
people have mental states, such as beliefs and desires, that are about
things and have intentional/semantic properties. One of the key concerns of
the philosophy of language, on the other hand, has been the explanation of the
semantic properties of spoken or written linguistic items. There are
many theories in this field that can with only slight modifications be brought
to bear on the explanation of mental content. This is the point of contact
between these two branches of philosophy. Authors read include Frege, Searle,
Quine, Putnam, Kripke, Kaplan, Donnellan, Burge, and Fodor. M. Aydede.
Autumn. (III)
335. Meaning, Knowing, and Understanding. Lectures on certain ideas about
these notions deriving from Wittgenstein's investigations and taking some
account of the more contemporary literature concerning them. W. Tait.
Spring. (III)
352. The Conceptual Development of Physics I (=CFS 311, HiPSS 252). PQ:
Some physics and mathematics very helpful. Must be taken in sequence unless
consent is given by the instructor. This three-quarter sequence treats the
development of some of the fundamental concepts and principles of physics.
Considerable attention is paid to the history of the subject, but the central
motive for this attention is one that can be described as "methodological" or
"epistemological." The historical scope of the sequence extends from ancient
science (Babylonian and Greek astronomy) to topics in late nineteenth- or early
twentieth-century physics. Highlights include the development of classical
(Newtonian) dynamics and gravitational theory, the wave theory of light, and
Maxwell's theory of the electromagnetic field. H. Stein. Autumn.
(II or IV)
Go to top of document 362. The Conceptual Development of Physics II (=CFS 312, HiPSS 262). PQ:
Philos 352 or consent of instructor. H. Stein. Winter. (II or
IV)
370. The British Empiricists: Locke, Berkeley, Hume (=CFS 387). A study of
the major works of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, with emphasis on the Cartesian
roots of empiricism, the priority it gives to epistemological concerns, the
influence of Newton, and the relations of the empiricist program to skepticism.
H. Stein. Autumn. (IV)
375. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (=Fndmtl 278). PQ: A
beginning philosophy course. In this course, we examine selected parts of
the Critique of Pure Reason with a view to achieving a general
understanding of the work. The course begins with a more general investigation
of the nature of Kant's critical enterprise as revealed in the Critique of
Pure Reason and other texts. M. Forster. Winter. (IV)
380. Nineteenth-Century Philosophy. This course provides an introduction to
the thought of five major philosophers from late eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century Germany--Kant, Hegel, Schleiermacher, Marx, and
Nietzsche--through a selection of topics and writings from each of them. M.
Forster. Spring. (IV)
382. The Conceptual Development of Physics III (=CFS 313, HiPSS 282).
PQ: Philos 362. H. Stein. Spring. (II or IV)
387. Marx. This course deals with the work of Marx up through The
Communist Manifesto. We situate Marx by examining Hegel's Philosophy of
Right and several works of Ludwig Feuerbach. We then look closely at Marx's
Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, "On the
Jewish Question," The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, the
"Theses on Feuerbach," The German Ideology, and The Communist
Manifesto. D. Brudney. Autumn. (IV)
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Philosophy Courses
The following courses are designed for College students.
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