Description: 

This course will address several contentious moral issues, with the aim of identifying and evaluating some fundamental disagreements about the nature and extent of our moral obligations. We will consider our obligations to help those in need, and to obey our country's laws. We will also discuss the morality of euthanasia, affirmative action, abortion, prostitution, and raising animals for meat. Grades will be determined on the basis of exams, papers, and class participation. Texts will include: Living High and Letting Die, by Unger; The Moral Life, edited by Luper-Foy and Brown; The Problem of Abortion, edited by Dwyer and Feinberg; and a packet of xeroxed articles.

Description: 

This course is an introduction to philosophical reflection about human nature. After a brief general overview of philosophy, we will discuss the mind-body problem, personal identity, and immortality (Plato’s Phaedo and John Perry’s Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality). We then examine two classical accounts of human nature and the human condition (Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Augustine’s Confessions) and two modern accounts (Thomas Hobbes’s Human Nature and Joseph Butler’s Five Sermons).

Description: 

This course examines the development of various theories of the nature of individuals and governments, and the obligations, if any, they have to each other. When possible, these theories are placed within the larger context of the historical and intellectual climate in which they were expressed. Readings include The Republic by Plato, Leviathan by Hobbes, Social Contract by Rousseau, and On Liberty and Utilitarianism by Mill.  Discussion sections are taught by staff.

Description: 

In this course we will explore some of the methods and principles that distinguish logically correct from incorrect reasoning. We will also learn to use formal techniques to evaluate the cogency of everyday argumentation. Most of the semester will be spent becoming familiar with a variety of elementary logical techniques and rules: analyzing simple and complex statements and arguments, distinguishing valid and invalid arguments, learning some of the rules for syllogisms, truth tables and propositional logic. Some find this material fascinating in its own right. Others value logic for the light it casts on everyday argumentation, and for its uses in philosophy, mathematics, and computing. Logical skills are not only an important component of aptitude tests such as the GRE and LSAT, but are also valuable in almost any course or job that involves using analytical techniques. The course satisfies the General Education requirement in Quantitative and Formal Reasoning. It is also a good way of preparing for the more advanced class, Introduction to Symbolic Logic (26:103), which is a requirement for the major, although intending majors with an aptitude for logic are not required to take Principles of Reasoning.

To learn logic is to learn a set of skills; logic needs to be learned by practice, much like a foreign language. Coursework involves attending and taking part in classes, doing a relatively small amount of scheduled reading from the textbook, and working on the homework exercises at the end of each section in the textbook. A large part of each class meeting is spent discussing how to do the next set of exercises and reviewing the more difficult problems from the previous set of exercises. Full answer keys are available at the library so students can check their answers, and there is also a software package that allows those who wish to do those homework exercises on a PC, and to get a certain amount of immediate feedback. Exams are closely modeled on the textbook exercises.

The required text is A Concise Introduction to Logic, by Patrick Hurley, eighth edition, packaged with the software programs Learning Logic (which provides a review of the material in each section of the book) and Logic Coach (which offers an electronic version of most of the exercises at the end of each section). Use of the software is not required, but is strongly recommended. Copies are available at the IMU bookstore.

Description: 

In this course we will read selections from historical and contemporary philosophers addressing the following questions. What is knowledge? Can we have any? How is the mind related to the body? Do we have freewill? What makes right actions right? What is it for a society to be just?

 This course surveys central positions held by philosophers on several central issues in philosophy such as skepticism, the mind/body problem, the existence of God, and the justification of moral norms. Arguments for and against these positions are presented and discussed, and students are encouraged to participate in the discussion. The text is Cahn's (ed.) Classics of Western Philosophy.

Description: 

In this course we shall consider such questions as: Are moral judgments objective or subjective? Is moral disagreement resolvable through rational argument? Are rational people egoists? Is the rightness or wrongness of an action solely a function of its consequences? Text: Course pack - IMU Bookstore

Description: 

In this course students examine the following questions: Can moral judgments be true or false? If so, what makes them true or false? What does it mean to say that an action is right or wrong or that a state of affairs is good or bad? What constitutes a good or valuable life for a human being? Is the rightness of actions determined solely by the consequences of actions? What role, if any, do an agent's motives play in determining the rightness or wrongness of her actions?

Description: 

This course will cover propositional and predicate logic (including relations, identity, and descriptions), as well as translation of English into symbolic notation. Topics include: induction vs. deduction, validity, soundness, tautology vs. logical truth. The propositional calculus will be shown to be decidable by the mechanical method of "truth tables". A formal system of natural deduction will be taught for the propositional and predicate logic, and the predicate logic (with relations) will be shown (informally) to be undecidable by any mechanical process. Relevant philosophical issues and problems will be discussed. More information on this course is available on the Web at http://www.uiowa.edu/~c026103. Text: to be determined.

Description: 

This is an introduction to the basic techniques of symbolic logic. We shall cover propositional and predicate logic, dealing with translation from English into formal symbols, the notions of validity, soundness, and consistency, and a variety of formal proof-techniques. Relevant philosophical issues and problems will be discussed. Text: The Logic Book by Bergmann et. al. No prerequisites, not open to first-year students.

Description: 

This course will introduce major issues in the philosophy of science through science fiction films.  We discuss the nature of empirical evidence and its relation to scientific theory, the meaning of theoretical statements, the nature and function of scientific theories and explanations, and the problem of distinguishing science from pseudo-science. In connection with the latter, we will consider some alleged examples, e.g., scientific creationism. In the process, we will also survey the historical development of 20th-century philosophy of science. Text: to be determined.

Description: 

This course provides an introduction to major issues in the philosophy of science, including the nature of empirical evidence and its relation to scientific theory, the meaning of theoretical statements, the nature and function of scientific theories and explanations, and the problem of distinguishing science from pseudo-science. In connection with the latter, students consider some alleged examples (e.g., scientific creationism). In the process, students also survey the historical development of 20th-century philosophy of science. Readings are from a course pack with selections mainly from Readings in the Philosophy of Science by Brody (ed.) and Abusing Science by Kitcher.

Description: 

The focus of the course this semester will be Greek metaphysics and its relation to the pursuit of the human good. The texts, which may be purchased at the University Bookstore, are Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy: Thales to Aristotle, ed. by Cohen, Curd and Reeve, and Greek and Roman Philosophy After Aristotle. ed. by Saunders, Plato's Sophist, a Translation with a Detailed Account of its Theses and Arguments, by the instructor, and a course pack, all of which are available from the University Bookstore. In the course pack there are outlines of lectures, some readings, and one translation of a reading. There will be four examinations and one paper, which will be an essay on a topic of interest in Plato's Sophist. The grade on each of the four examinations will account for one-fifth of the final grade, the final fifth being assigned on the basis of the quality of the paper. Plus and minus grades will be assigned.

Description: 

This course is a survey of medieval Latin philosophy from Augustine to Ockham, with particular emphasis on Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas. Course requirements include a midterm and final exam as well as a fair bit of writing (probably about 20 pages in all).

Description: 

Much of philosophy in the 17th Century is an adjustment of the new mechanist science to theological and other pre-mechanist commitments: There were particles and laws of nature, but only in ways allowed by proper conceptions of matter and causation; there was free will and agency, but only in ways allowed by a proper conception of God.  The adjustment, of course, went both ways, and in particular, insight in science suggested and then guided revisions of belief in theology.  In this course se examine central components of the philosophical systems of Rene Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, Nicholas Malebranche, Margaret Cavendish, John Locke, Anne Conway, and G.W. Leibniz.  We will consider arguments surrounding the following topics: science and religion, the nature and existence of God, the nature and existence of the physical world, skepticism, the place of minds in a physical universe, and the limits of human cognition.  Course requirements are a midterm exam, a final exam, a few short papers, and one longer paper (6-8 pages). Text(s) to be determined.

Description: 

This course will introduce students to some of the major figures in early modern western philosophy: Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant.  Discussion will focus on their metaphysical and epistemological views, broadly construed.

Description: 

A study of the main figures of twentieth-century analytic philosophy, including Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Austin, Quine, Putnam, and Kripke. There will be a midterm and a final exam. A 15-page paper is also required. Texts: to be announced.

Description: 

This course will introduce some of the fundamental issues of Western political philosophy through a reading of both historical and contemporary works. The following are among the questions to be addressed: What rights do individuals have? Do individuals have a right to liberty? Do individuals have private property rights? If so, what sorts of constraints does this place on the government's ability to redistribute resources? Do we have a right to equality? When liberty and equality conflict, which has priority? Should the government attempt to promote some one conception of the good life? Texts: Social Ideals and Policies: Readings in Social and Political Philosophy, ed. by Steven Luper. No prerequisites; not open to first-year students.

Description: 

This course will cover central issues in 20th-century philosophy of history including the objectivity of historical knowledge, methodological issues underlying the interpretation of historical data, the nature of historical explanations as compared to scientific explanations in general, and the nature and existence of laws governing history. The question of reductionism, whether history is the sum total of the activities of individual people, will also be discussed. Text: UI Coursepak. 

Description: 

This course will focus on questions concerning the nature of law and the relationship between law and morality. We will also discuss questions concerning constitutional interpretation, the role of the judiciary, and the nature of legal reasoning. Required text: Philosophy of Law, edited by Feinberg and Gross.

Description: 

This course is an introduction to some of the central issues in the philosophy of mind, with an emphasis on the mind-body problem, consciousness, and intentionality.  Texts:  to be determined.

Description: 

This course will focus on questions concerning the nature of law and the relationship between law and morality. We will also discuss questions concerning constitutional interpretation, the role of the judiciary, and the nature of legal reasoning. Required text: Philosophy of Law, edited by Feinberg and Gross.

Description: 

We will explore the chief preoccupations of the existentialist philosophers. We will grapple with the idea that because human beings can evaluate themselves, they have the burden of choosing which criteria, or values, they will treat as guides to their actions. How, exactly, does this "radical choice" work? Why does "authentic" human existence require a "leap of faith"? How does faith pose a threat to moral requirements? What are the limitations on our ability to justify ourselves and our actions? What do these limitations imply? We will read the work of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Sartre, and others. Works of literature will supplement the philosophical texts.

Description: 

20th century continental phenomenology and existentialism. Readings from Husserl, Heidegger, and Sartre. There will be a midterm and a final exam. A short paper will be due on the last day of classes. Texts: to be announced.

Description: 

Repeatable: May be taken 2 times.

In this course we shall compare and contrast the theory of persons of Candrakirti, a seventh century Indian Buddhist philosopher, with a number of different contemporary Western reductionist and non-reductionist theories of persons, according to which we are or are not reducible in existence to our bodies and mental states.. Candrakirti argued that although we do not possess a real essence by virtue of which we exist and have identities by ourselves, we are not reducible in existence to our bodies and mental states. The course will be of interest both to students of Indian thought and to students of contemporary Western philosophy.  The texts, which include English-language translations of Tibetan and Sanskrit texts, will be available from the University Bookstore.

Description: 

Same as: 032:174

In this course we shall read and discuss basic works of Indian philosophers. The text, A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy, which contains translations of these texts, will be available at the University Bookstore, along with a course pac in which other readings are included. A secondary source, yet to be chosen, will also be available there. There will be two examinations.

Description: 

Same as: 032:175

This semester students will be introduced to Buddhist philosophy by means of a study of two important Indian Buddhist philosophical texts. We shall first study Santideva's A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, translated by S. Batchelor. Along with this book we shall read a Buddhist commentary on it, entitled Meaningful to Behold, by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. Finally, we shall read a selection from Candrakirti's Introduction to the Middle Way, which is available as part of the course pack. The course pack also includes lecture outlines for the first part of the course and introductions to the selections. All texts are available from the University Bookstore in the Union. An overview of Indian Buddhist philosophy will first be presented within the context of the Buddha's teachings on suffering, its cause, its cessation, and the path to its cessation. The teachings on the path to the cessation of suffering are divided by the Indian Buddhists into two parts, those on skillful means and those on wisdom. There are two schools of thought on what constitutes skillful means on the path, the Mahayana and the Hinayana (or Theravada). A study of the first eight chapters of the A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life will provide us with an overview of the Mahayana teachings, which include many of the Hinayana teachings as a part. There are four schools of thought on what constitutes wisdom, called the Vaibhasika, Sautrantika, Cittamatrika, and Madhyamika, and each of these is composed of a number of subschools. Instead of studying the whole of the ninth chapter of the A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life , which concerns the Madhyamika version of the Buddha's teachings on wisdom, but presents many difficulties for students new to Buddhist philosophy, we shall read only the first five verses, along with its commentary, which present the Madhyamika teachings on the two realities or truths. Then we shall review the material studied and take a midterm examination. After this we shall read the selection from Candrakirti's Introduction to the Middle Way, which is also composed from the point of view of the Madhyamika school. It concerns that part of the teachings on wisdom that deals with the selflessness of persons. Students are required to take a midterm examination, attend all classes, and write a term paper on the topic of Indian Buddhist theories of persons. Available from the University Bookstore, as an aid to the writing of the paper, is a recommended reading, entitled Indian Buddhist Theories of Persons: Vasubandhu's ““Refutation of the Theory of a Self,”” which was composed by the instructor. The grade on the midterm examination will count as one-fourth of the final grade; the grade on attendance will count as one-fourth the grade; and the grade on the term paper will count as one-half of the final grade. The term paper is due at the time of the final examination period.

Description: 

Repeatable: May be taken 3 times.

This course is an introduction to some of the central issues in the study of metaphysics. Topics to be addressed include the nature of existence, identity and necessity, properties and causation, the mind-body problem, and realism and antirealism

Description: 

Repeatable: May be taken 3 times.

The topic for this course will be the free will debate, and especially, the question of what distinct varieties of the libertarian position can be constructed and what arguments can be given in favor or against the differing positions and libertarianism as a whole.  We shall examine positions relying upon causal indeterminism, agent causation, and the invoking of non-causal non-accidental relations between mental events, and between mental and physical events.  Text:  Tim O’Connor’s Agents, Causes, and Events, and possibly some other readings.  This course taught by Fales.

Description: 

Repeatable: May be taken 3 times.

This course is a history of views on the relation between mind and body. For the first 10 weeks or so, we read Plato, Lucretius, St. Augustine, Rene Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, Ralph Cudworth, Anne Conway, G.W. Leibniz, Mary Shepherd, and Friedrich Nietzsche. In the last part of the course we focus on more contemporary philosophers including Paul Feyerabend, J.J.C. Smart, Jerome Shaffer, Thomas Nagel, Paul Churchland, and John Searle. The main issues will include -- how the concept of matter changes over time, and what kinds of considerations are relevant to its revision; the relation between the mind and the brain; and auxiliary issues including the relative values of mind and matter and also free will. Course requirements include a midterm exam, a final exam, a number of 1-page papers, and one 6-8 page paper. 

Description: 

Repeatable: May be taken 3 times.

An instructor number and approval are required for registration in this course. Contact the instructor (or designated individual) for the instructor number, which you enter as the section number when you register. At the same time you should make the required semester hours, time, and place arrangements.

Description: 

Repeatable: May be taken 3 times.

In this course, we shall do a careful analytical study of the different presentations of the Indian Buddhist theory that we lack real essences by virtue of which we exist and possess identities by ourselves, apart from being named or conceived. The primary texts will be the instructor's translations of those parts of Candrakirti's Introduction the Middle Way and Clear Worded Commentary (on Nagarjuna's Treatise) that present and argue for this theory.  Other texts are yet to be chosen. Texts will be available at the University Bookstore. 

Subtitle: 

Love and Friendship

Description: 

In this course we shall study what the ancient Greek philosophers wrote about love and friendship and their relation to the attainment of the human good. Texts are yet to be determined, but they will include at least Plato's Phaedrus and Symposium, Aristotle's discussions of friendship in Books 8 and 9 of the Nicomachean Ethics, et. al. Texts and course packet will be available from the University Book Store. There will be one examination and a term paper. Generally open to students who have previously studied ancient philosophy, but exceptions can be made in special circumstances

Description: 

This course is designed as an intensive graduate-level survey of early medieval philosophy, with particular emphasis on Augustine, Anselm, and Abelard. The course has four aims: (1) to develop students’ familiarity with key medieval philosophical texts so as to deepen their understanding of the history of philosophy; (2) to offer an overview of the main systematic topics discussed by early medieval philosophers; (3) to enable students to claim a legitimate teaching competence in medieval philosophy; and (4) to prepare interested students for more advanced work in medieval philosophy. (These four aims apply to the comparable survey of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century philosophy to be taught in Spring 2005; all students, but especially those concerned with [3] and [4], are encouraged to consider taking both surveys.) Careful reading and analysis of selected primary texts in English translation will be complemented by lectures and secondary literature on broader topics.

Texts include Augustine’s Confessions; Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy and De hebdomabibus; Anselm’s Monologion, Proslogion, Three Philosophical Dialogues, De concordia, and Cur Deus Homo; and Abelard’s Logica ‘ingredientibus’ and Ethics: or, Know Thyself.

Description: 

This course is designed as an intensive graduate-level survey of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century philosophy in the Latin West. The course will be organized around major topics rather than particular authors, but Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, and William Ockham will receive the greatest attention. The course has four aims: (1) to develop students’ familiarity with key medieval philosophical texts so as to deepen their understanding of the history of philosophy; (2) to offer an overview of the main systematic topics discussed by thirteenth- and fourteenth-century philosophers; (3) to enable students to claim a legitimate teaching competence in medieval philosophy; and (4) to prepare interested students for more advanced work in medieval philosophy. Careful reading and analysis of selected primary texts in English translation will be complemented by lectures and secondary literature on broader topics.  After an overview of the recovery of the full Aristotelian corpus and the controversies that attended it, we will look at some general metaphysical themes, using Aquinas’s On the Principles of Nature and Paul Spade’s “The Warp and Woof of Metaphysics” as a starting point, and concluding with an examination of the problem of universals in Scotus and Ockham. Then we will examine some key controversies within medieval theories of cognition, including logic (which is more like what we would call semantics), with special attention to Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, Scotus, Peter John Olivi, Ockham, and Walter Burley. We will conclude by looking at Aquinas’s and Scotus’s widely divergent accounts of the foundations of ethics.

Description: 

In this course students engage in an intensive study of the philosophical systems of Baruch Spinoza and G.W. Leibniz. One of the projects is to consider ways in which these systems are a response to perceived adequacies and inadequacies in the philosophy of Descartes. Another is to examine the extent to which the two thinkers end up revising the fairly orthodox views and concepts that serve as their point of departure. There are also fundamental questions of interpretation that students have to tackle. Requirements include short presentations and a term paper.

Description: 

This course provides a survey of important issues and trends in twentieth-century (and early twenty-first century) analytic ethics. We will focus primarily on metaethical issues: the nature of moral properties, the meaning of moral terms, and how or whether we can come to know moral truths. The debate in the first half of the century between the intuitionists and the non-cognitivists sets the stage for later attempts (such as contractarianism and reflective equilibrium) to avoid the ontology of the intuitionists without succumbing to non-cognitivism. We will finish by looking at one of the most prominent normative debates of the century, the debate concerning the viability of utilitarianism or consequentialism more generally.

Description: 

This course offers a survey of the major ethical theories from the ancient Greeks through late Scholasticism. Students read Plato's Protagoras, Gorgias, and Symposium; Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics 1-3, 6-7, and 10; selections from Epicurus, Epictetus, and Cicero's De officiis; selections from several works of Augustine; Abelard's Ethics; selections from Aquinas' Summa theologiae; selections from Scotus' Ordinatio; and selections from Ockham. Requirements include class participation, a term paper of 4,000-6,000 words, and a final exam. Further information is available at the course web site http://www.uiowa.edu/~phil/williams.

Description: 

In this course, we will survey the development of ethical theory from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. The focus will be on the British moralists (Hobbes, Clarke, Hutcheson, Butler, Hume, Price, Bentham, Mill and Sidgwick), although some attention will also be given to other figures such as Grotius, Pufendorf, and, of course, Kant. We will discuss some of the most prominent debates in this period, such as the nature of moral knowledge and the moral faculty, the rise of utilitarian moral theory, changes and developments in natural law theory, opposition to and defense of divine voluntarism, the nature of moral motivation, and the nature of moral properties. Texts: Moral Philosophy from Montaigne to Kant, Volumes I and II, ed. by J.B. Schneewind, and others to be determined.

Description: 

In this course students examine and critique contemporary liberal political theory, taking Rawls's A Theory of Justice as the focus of discussion. Some communitarians have argued that liberal theories such as Rawls' are too individualistic, and, thus, are unable to support an adequate notion of political community. Others have argued that Rawls' method of deriving principles of justice in abstraction from shared communal understandings and traditions is the wrong approach to issues of distributive justice. Students examine a feminist critique of both liberal and communitarian theories that charges that neither approach has paid adequate attention to issues of gender and the family. The course is taught by Jeske.

Description: 

Same as: 103:163

A survey of some of the main issues in contemporary philosophy of language.  The course will cover a variety of approaches to questions such as:  What is the nature of language? How do words get their sense? What is it to say something?  What kinds of objects can we talk about, and how do we do so? What is the relationship between language and reality?  How is it possible to understand what someone else says?  Topics may include: theories of meaning, truth, interpretation, translation, speech-acts, rule-following, reference, naming, demonstratives, propositional attitudes, and metaphor. We will read work by a wide variety of authors, including Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Quine, Tarski, Austin, Strawson, Grice, Searle, Chomsky, Davidson, Kripke, Putnam, Kaplan, Foucault, Wittig, and Butler.  Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

Texts: The Philosophy of Language, ed. A. P. Martinich.  OUP 2001 (4th edition).
Philosophy of Language: The Big Questions, ed. Andrea Nye.  Blackwell 1998.

Description: 

A presentation of some central meta-theorems relating to decidability; computability, completeness, and model theory; a treatment of second-order logic. Text: to be determined.

Description: 

An introduction to the major techniques and systems of modal logic. Roughly two-thirds of the semester will be spent in developing facility with proof-techniques and formal semantics; the last third of the semester will investigate some central philosophical issues in modal logic. Three exams and two papers will be required. Texts: G.E. Hughes & M.J. Cresswell, An Introduction to Modal Logic; and Michael Loux, The Possible and the Actual.

Subtitle: 

Philosophy of Religion

Description: 

Repeatable: See department for maximum times/s.h.

The intellectual influence of religious traditions upon the history of philosophy has been profound, and vice versa. This course will examine central questions in the philosophy of religion, both classical and contemporary. Issues will include the nature of religious knowledge and experience, the existence and nature of God, divine-command ethics, the problem of evil, and the interpretation of religious texts and rituals. Class discussion will be emphasized. No prerequisites; not open to first-year students. Texts: Readings in the Philosophy of Religion, edited by Brody and Philosophy of Religion, by Hick. 

Subtitle: 

Philosophy and Human Nature

Description: 

    The course will explore the nature, extent, and legitimacy of concern in philosophy with human beings –– with their cognitive faculties, well-being, or language. Such anthropocentrism in philosophy will be examined in relation to the tension between subjectivism and naturalism in epistemology and in ethics, and between realism and antirealism in metaphysics. Readings will include selections from Descartes, Kant, Mill, Moore, Wittgenstein, Quine, and Putnam.

Description: 

This seminar focuses on fundamental issues concerning the metaphysics of mental states. Students critically examine various versions of dualism and physicalism (including versions of the mind/brain identity theory, functionalism, and behaviorism). In the context of discussion of dualism, students distinguish substance dualism, property dualism, event dualism, and fact dualism--distinctions that require discussion of the respective categories (substances, events, properties, and facts). Students also discuss issues in the philosophy of language that bear on the nature of informative identity claims. Readings include both historical and contemporary selections, among others, selections from Descartes, Ryle, Smart, Armstrong, Churchland, Kim, Kripke, Russell, Maxwell, and Block.

Description: 

This course will focus on a range of contemporary responses to the challenge of skepticism - in particular, skepticism concerning perceptual knowledge.  We will compare the strengths and weaknesses of internalist and externalist approaches to answering the skeptic.  We will pay particular attention to Hilary Putnam's BIV (Brain in Vat) argument for realism and to the pressures that drove Putnam to retreat to "internal realism."  Text: Keith DeRose and Ted Warfield, Skepticism: A Contemporary Reader.

Description: 

This course will discuss central topics in the philosophy of perception.  Topics will include, among others, the structure of experience, perceptual content, direct and indirect realism, perceptual knowledge and justification, and phenomenal consciousness.

Description: 

This seminar aims to explore some of the implications of Wittgenstein’s writing in the philosophy of social science and the philosophy of logic; we will pay particular attention to the relationship between his conception of practice and the nature of mathematical and logical necessity.  Discussion will be an important component of class meetings.  Texts: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations: Peter Winch, The Idea of a Social Science; Stephen Turner, The Social Theory of Practice; Alice Crary and Rupert Read (eds.), The New Wittgenstein.

Description: 

This seminar will address two questions: (i) what is a realist conception of ethics?, and (ii) is some version of ethical realism plausible? We will examine some prominent objections to realism, including worries about the alleged ‘queerness’ of objective moral values and the alleged explanatory impotence of such values. We will then look at some alternatives to realism, including the views of Korsgaard, McDowell, and Blackburn. We will finish the seminar with a close examination of Russ Shafer-Landau’s recent defense of moral realism. Required texts: Moral Realism: A Defense, by Russ Shafer-Landau; Moral Discourse and Practice: Some Philosophical Approaches, ed. by Stephen Darwall, Allan Gibbard, and Peter Railton; course pack of additional readings.  This course taught by Jeske.

Description: 

In this course we will attempt a systematic reading of the philosophy of David Hume. Topics will include -- belief; skepticism; naturalism; ethics; theism; human nature; the respective merits of empiricism and rationalism; Hume's influence on Kant and others. Course requirements are a research paper and two brief presentations.

Description: 

An instructor number and approval are required for registration in these courses. Contact the instructor (or designated individual) for the instructor number, which you enter as the section number when you register. At the same time you should make the required semester hours, time, and place arrangements.

Description: 

Ethical thought, with emphasis on its implications for contemporary moral controversies. Text(s): To be determined.

Description: 

This is a Saturday & Evening version of the spring daytime offering of the course Philosophy and Human Nature. During each class, students view videotapes of Professor Thomas William's lectures for the course and engage in discussion with the course leader. The course is an introduction to philosophical reflection about human nature. Among the questions to be discussed are the following: Is the human mind something distinct from any physical object (such as the brain)? Can human beings continue to exist after the death of their bodies? Class size is limited to 30.

Description: 

This is a Saturday & Evening version of the fall day-time offering of Philosophy and the Just Society. During each class students view a videotape of Professor Fumerton's Monday/Wednesday lectures for the course and engage in discussion. The course examines the development of various theories of the nature of individuals and governments and the obligations, if any, they have to each other. When possible, these theories are placed within the larger context of the historical and intellectual climate in which they were expressed. Class size is limited to 30.

Description: 

Students explore methods and principles used to distinguish correct from incorrect reasoning. Topics include recognizing arguments, analyzing statements and arguments, definitions, fallacies, valid and invalid arguments, syllogisms, truth-tables, propositional logic, and inductive reasoning. The aim of the course is to improve our ability to clarify and evaluate the reasoning we encounter in our everyday lives. Class size is limited to 30.

Description: 

This class examines the nature of philosophical investigation, the nature of the world, and the nature and extent of our knowledge of the world. Class size is limited to 30.

Description: 

This course is an introductory study and discussion of philosophical issues and arguments. Many issues will be presented in the context of a philosophical discussion of the history of science. For instance, we begin with the debate between Platonic and Aristotelian science and discuss the return to Platonism embodied in the Copernican revolution and the mechanical philosophy of Galileo and Descartes. Here arguments for God's existence, the demarcation of science and religion, as well as some problems of epistemology and philosophy of mind are discussed. For example, Is mind distinct from matter?, Are there other minds?, What is Free Will?). From there we follow epistemological issues, discussing Berkeley and the "New Copernican Revolution" of Kant. Finally, we take up three theories of ethics, Platonic, Kantian and Utilitarian. Texts: to be determined

Description: 

Authors will include both ancient and modern writers. Class size is limited to 30.

Description: 

We shall cover propositional and predicate logic, dealing with translation from English into formal symbols, the notions of validity, soundness, and consistency, numerical claims (claims about a specific number of objects) and definite descriptions, and a variety of formal proof-techniques. Relevant philosophical issues and problems will be discussed. Texts: to be announced

Description: 

This course covers the phenomenology and existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre. Specific topics covered include the influence of Husserl and Heidegger on Sartre's philosophy, Sartre's theory of consciousness and its relation to contemporary philosophy of mind, Sartre's theory of the imagination, his theory of the emotions, his theory of the ego, his theory of human relationships, and his so-called existential psychoanalysis. Texts include Sartre's well-known books The Transcendence of the Ego, The Emotions : Outline of a Theory, The Psychology of the Imagination, and Being and Nothingness, and his less well-known essays "Intentionality: A Fundamental Idea of Husserl's Phenomenology," and "Self-Consciousness and Self-Knowledge."