Courses
PHIL 150: Philosophies to Live By
This course is dedicated to the proposition that philosophy can make life better. It can provide wisdom to guide choices and clarify values. It can offer new perspectives and new worldviews. And it can provide the insight necessary for self-knowledge and growth. In this course, students read works by philosophers, both ancient and contemporary, concerned with the question of how to live meaningful lives. The goal is to find ways to apply those philosophies anew so that our own lives are enriched.
PHIL 195: Introduction to Logic
An investigation of the nature of valid reasoning, coupled with training in the skills of critical thinking. Close attention is paid to the analysis of ordinary arguments.
PHIL 210: Philosophy of Cognitive Science
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary study of the mind, including psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, computer science, and philosophy as its core. This course examines the conceptual foundations of cognitive science, and different approaches to integrating findings and perspectives from across disciplines into a coherent understanding of the mind. Students also consider issues in the philosophy of science, the nature of mind, self, agency, and implicit bias. Prerequisite(s): one course in philosophy, psychology, or neuroscience.
PHIL 211: Philosophy of Science
Science has become our model for what counts as knowledge. This course examines that model and discusses how far its claims are justified in light of the nature and history of science. Topics include scientific explanation, scientific reasoning, the role of values in science, social construction and objectivity, scientific progress, similarities and differences among scientific fields, and science’s relations to society and to other views of the world. Readings include traditional and contemporary work in the philosophy of science.
PHIL 213: Biomedical Ethics
Rapid changes in the biological sciences and medical technology have thoroughly transformed the practice of medicine. The added complexity and power of medicine has, in turn, revolutionized the responsibilities and duties that accompany the medical professions. This course explores the values and norms governing medical practice; the rights and responsibilities of health care providers and patients; the ethics of organ transplants and the determination of death; the justification for euthanasia; and problems of access, allocation, and rationing of health care services. Not open to students who have received credit for FYS 362 or PHIL S26.
PHIL 214: Environmental Ethics
What do we owe to nonhuman animals? How ought we treat plants and other nonsentient organisms? Are ecosystems appropriate objects of moral concern? This course focuses on moral issues that arise as a result of human interaction with the environment. Students discuss mainstream Western philosophers as well as challenges from the point of view of indigenous cultures, Buddhism, and ecofeminism.
PHIL 233: Making Moral Minds: Nature, Nurture, and the Sources of Morality
This course examines the origins and mechanisms of moral judgment and decision making. How much is our moral cognition shaped by culture as opposed to evolved nature? How much is it shared with nonhuman animals? What motivates us and drives our evaluations? What weaknesses, limitations, and biases might we face? In addressing these questions, students read from classic philosophical texts, recent philosophical publications, research in psychology, and popular science writing. Along the way, they attempt to glean practical lessons for how we think about ourselves, our decisions, and our moral community.
PHIL 235: Philosophy of Mind
Our minds are simultaneously the most intimately familiar things imaginable and the most mysterious. We live every minute in and with our minds, and we only experience the world through them (perhaps, we even are our minds), and yet we may not know them as well as we think. Despite recent progress in the sciences of the mind, it even remains difficult to place the mind in the physical universe. In light of these puzzles, this course asks: How should we relate to our minds and their operations? How do our thoughts and experiences connect to the external world? How could a conscious, first-person perspective arise in a physical universe?
PHIL 236: Theory of Knowledge
Is knowledge possible, and if so, how? The course investigates how we can know the ordinary things we take ourselves to know. Students are introduced to major philosophical theories concerning when our thoughts about ourselves and the world are rationally justified.
PHIL 245: Metaphysics
This course introduces students to some of the central issues in metaphysics. Questions considered may include: Which kinds of things exist? What is one saying when one says that something "exists"? What does it mean to say that something causes something else? What is one saying when one says that something might possibly be other than it is? What does it mean to say that something is the same identical thing at one time that it is at another?
PHIL 255: Human Nature, Politics, and Morals
What is the essence of human nature? How does human nature inform our understanding of the difference between right and wrong? Which political institutions are appropriate for creatures like us? This course considers answers to these questions offered by philosophers throughout history, but from Western and from Confucian perspectives.
PHIL 256: Moral Philosophy
An introduction to moral theory and moral principles, including egoism, utilitarianism, Kantian deontology, and virtue theory. The course considers whether morality is a matter of custom, convention, or individual preference, and asks how we can determine what is morally right and what is morally wrong. Topics typically include the relationship between morality and religion, moral motivation, moral relativism, conceptions of justice, and finding meaning in life.
PHIL 257: Moral Luck and Social Identity
Our lives are deeply subject to luck. This course provides an introduction to philosophical analysis and the moral philosophies of Aristotle and Kant. The course also considers social luck: luck in one’s identity and how that identity is regarded by one’s culture. The course focuses on racism, with particular attention to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany and slavery in the United States. Students examine ongoing white supremacy in the United States and consider racism as a kind of social and moral luck. Topics also may include moral responsibility for implicit bias, the nature of evil, and responsibility and reparations for slavery.
PHIL 258: Philosophy of Law
What is law? What are the relationships among law, justice, and morality? What is the nature of judicial reasoning? Particular legal issues typically include the nature and status of liberty rights, the legitimacy of restrictions on speech and expression, and the justification of incarceration and the death penalty. Readings include contemporary legal theory, case studies, and court decisions.
PHIL 260: Philosophy of Religion
A consideration of major issues that arise in philosophical reflection upon religion. Particular issues are selected from among such topics as the nature of faith, the possibility of justifying religious beliefs, the nature and validity of religious experience, the relation of religion and science, and the problem of evil.
PHIL 262: Feminist Philosophy
What is gender? What is race? What is oppression? What does it mean to experience discrimination or oppression? Feminist philosophy uses philosophical methods to think carefully about gender, the way gender intersects with other identities, the lives of historically marginalized voices, and the concepts employed in feminist political movements and similar social movements such as those centered around race, class, sexual identity and orientation, and disability. Additional areas of study may include science and society; gender and science; sex and sexuality; reproduction; family; gender in popular culture; and the body and appearance.
PHIL 268: Capitalism and Its Critics
Some consider a capitalist economy an environment ideally conducive to human flourishing, while others consider it a significant threat. Debates over the merits of capitalism have raged among philosophers for generations. This course considers some of capitalism’s most able defenders, as well as some of its most incisive critics. The course also examines some hybrid views, which attempt to harness capitalism’s capacity for good, while mitigating its ability to harm.
PHIL 271: Ancient Philosophy
What’s the best way to live? For pleasure or for virtue? For oneself or for others? By the conventions of one’s time or by some timeless truths? The fascination the ancient Greeks had with these questions was inextricably linked with others: What is the nature of the universe in which we live? What is the status of our knowledge of this universe? How can we understand the processes of change we see everywhere, including in ourselves? And what is the nature of philosophy itself? The course begins with the person who most famously asked these questions, Socrates, and on the writings in which he is most vividly portrayed, the dialogues of his student Plato. Students continue to pursue these questions through the writings of Aristotle as well as the famous schools of ancient philosophy, the Stoics, the Epicureans, and the Skeptics. No prior familiarity with philosophy is assumed; this is a perfect place to begin one’s study of philosophy.
PHIL 272: Philosophy in the Modern Era (1600-1800)
In this course students discuss problems surrounding knowledge, mind, reality, and reason as they developed from the birth of modern philosophy until their culmination in Kant. The course considers thinkers such as René Descartes, Princess Elisabeth, Margaret Cavendish, John Locke, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant.
PHIL 273: Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century: Persons, Power, and Freedom
At the end of the 18th Century, Kant addressed the problem of skepticism by re-conceiving knowledge as a matter of human beings projecting our categories of understanding onto the world, thus in a sense mentally constructing the very world we live in. In this course, we will think through the implications of this idea as worked out through the course of the 19th C. by the German philosophers who followed Kant: Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard (Danish, but educated in Berlin), Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. In particular, we will explore the ways in which these thinkers came to believe that we construct ourselves in the same way that we construct our world, thus setting the stage for the Existentialist concept of individual self-creation.
PHIL 274: 20th C European Philosophy: Consciousness and Reality
A survey of the leading figures of Twentieth Century European philosophy. The subtitle of the course indicates that the primary philosophical theme at this place and time was the relationship between human consciousness and human reality, which our thinkers approach via the concept of phenomenology – the study of how humans experience the world. Two more major themes that emerge from the phenomenological approach are the philosophical attempt to find meaning in modern life and the role of philosophy in understanding and criticizing contemporary society. All three of these are, obviously, still fully relevant for life in the 21st C.
PHIL 310: Buddhist Philosophy
This course explores Buddhist philosophy with a special emphasis on moral and political philosophy. Philosophical topics include the Four Noble Truths, the doctrine of impermanence and codependent arising, the doctrine of no-self, and the concept of emptiness. The relationships among Buddhist philosophy, insight meditation, and moral virtue are a primary focus of the course. Prerequisite(s): two courses in philosophy.
PHIL 321L: Topics in Contemporary Mind and Language: Language and Power
Language helps us communicate and create important connections with others. Yet it can be used to disparage, marginalize, or subordinate people. With the help of classic ideas from the philosophy of language, students analyze a number of contemporary issues around power and the effects of social discourse. Topics may include: free speech; the impact of hate speech, pornography, slurs, and other harmful speech; generalizations (so-called generics); propaganda and ideology; the representation of gender, race, and other social categories in language; the relationship between our social position and the effect of our speech; and resistance to harmful speech. Prerequisite(s): two courses in philosophy.
PHIL 323E: Philosophy of Evolution
Evolutionary theory raises many deep and complicated philosophical issues as well as questions about how science operates: Are concepts like function, selection, and optimality scientifically legitimate? How do we make inferences about the unobserved past? Can thinking about the evolutionary past help us understand how biological processes, such as the mind, work today? It also raises questions about who we are and where we come from: How do we relate to other species? Can we better understand our moral and intellectual strengths and weaknesses by looking to evolution? In this course, students approach these questions from an interdisciplinary perspective, including philosophy, biology, and the cognitive sciences. Prerequisite(s): one of the following: PHIL 211; two courses in philosophy; or one course in philosophy and one course in biology.
PHIL 324A: Seminar: Kantian Ethics
Immanuel Kant’s moral theory is one of the most systematic and influential ever offered, taking up such questions as: Where does morality come from? What are the roles of reason and emotion in an ethical life? Are there universal moral principles? Are there exceptionless moral rules? Is it ok to sacrifice one life in order to save two? The course will cover Kant’s ethical works themselves, in addition to contemporary objections and defenses of his view. Prerequisite(s): Two philosophy courses.
PHIL 324C: Liberty, Equality, and Community
Liberty and equality are the central values of contemporary political philosophy. These values, however, seem inevitably to conflict. Unlimited freedom leads to inequalities and remedies for inequalities restrict liberty. This seminar focuses on competing accounts of the proper balance between liberty and equality. In particular, students focus on John Rawls’ theory of justice and competing theories of justice, including utilitarian liberalism, Nozick’s libertarian theory, communitarian theories, feminist theories, and multicultural approaches. Prerequisite(s): two courses in philosophy.
PHIL 324E: Virtue and Emotions
Virtue ethics emerged as an important kind of moral theory during the last half of the twentieth century. There are many virtue theories, but they share a focus on the morality of character rather than the morality of individual actions. Many seek an answer to the question, "How shall I live?" rather than, "What should I do?" This course explores both the historical roots of virtue theory found in Aristotle and, according to some scholars, Kant. It also examines several contemporary theories of virtue as well as critics of this approach to moral theory. Prerequisite(s): two courses in philosophy.
PHIL 325C: Moral Realism and Irrealism
This course examines contemporary views on the meaning of moral language, the possibility of moral knowledge, the possibility of moral facts, the nature of moral arguments, the relationship among morality, emotion, and reason. Some background in moral or political philosophy is recommended. Prerequisite(s): Two courses in philosophy..
PHIL 341: Aristotelian Ethics
Aristotle’s ethical theory is one of the most ambitious and influential ever offered, taking up such questions as: What does living a good life consist in? What are the roles of reason and emotion in an ethical life? What dispositions should we consider to be virtues? Do human beings flourish by engaging in good activity or contemplation? What does it mean to be a good friend? The course will cover Aristotle’s ethical works themselves, in addition to contemporary defenses of, and objections to, his view. Prerequisite(s): one course in philosophy.
PHIL 350B: Seminar on Major Thinkers: Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Music
Nietzsche wrote more about music than any other single subject. This course examines his philosophy of music both for its own sake and as a point of entry into his general philosophy. Prerequisite(s): one course in philosophy or instructor permission.
PHIL 350C: Seminar on Major Thinkers: Plato on Love, Death, & the Soul
A close reading of Plato’s middle period masterworks – Symposium (on love), Phaedo (on death), Republic, books IV-VII & X (on the soul and the ascent to the Forms), and Phaedrus (on love and philosophical writing) – supported by the twentieth century interpretive comments of Martha Nussbaum and Alexander Nehamas. Prerequisite(s): one course in philosophy or instructor permission.
PHIL 360: Independent Study
Students, in consultation with a faculty advisor, individually design and plan a course of study or research not offered in the curriculum. Course work includes a reflective component, evaluation, and completion of an agreed-upon product. Sponsorship by a faculty member in the program/department, a course prospectus, and permission of the chair are required. Students may register for no more than one independent study per semester.
PHIL 362: Consciousness in Science
Consciousness is arguably the deepest mystery remaining in the standard scientific worldview. Science, in general, describes an unfeeling, mechanical world. But we undeniably have conscious, first personal experiences of it. These conscious experiences don’t seem to fit in the world that science describes. How is it that consciousness could arise in a mechanical world? What would a physical explanation of a particular conscious experience even look like? How can we tell which other animals are conscious? Can we proceed scientifically even if we do not have convincing answers to these questions? Do we need a radical revision in our science? These have been topics of increasing interest in philosophy of mind, philosophy of cognitive science, and the cognitive sciences themselves, especially since the 1990s, and we will read from all these disciplines to consider them.
PHIL 365D: Reparations and Responsibility
Colonialism, the genocide of native and Indigenous peoples, and the enslavement of Africans and African Americans, are foundational wrongs in the United States. It is essential to ask whether the United States-as a society, as a government, or as individuals-must pay reparations to Black and brown people and to Indigenous people for these wrongs. This course examines what it means to make reparations, whether and under what circumstances humans in the present can repair wrongs done by others, and done in the past. The course considers the difference between paying reparations for past wrongs and ending ongoing injustices. Finally, the course asks what the goal of reparations is, whether it is morally required to pay them, and morally justified to demand them. Prerequisite(s): two courses in philosophy.
PHIL 457: Senior Thesis
Students register for PHIL 457 in the fall semester. Majors writing an honors thesis register for both PHIL 457 and 458.
PHIL 458: Senior Thesis
Students register for PHIL 458 in the winter semester. Majors writing an honors thesis register for both PHIL 457 and 458.
PHIL S17: The Ethics of Care
What is it to care? Whose concerns are centered and whose are marginalized or ignored in caring? This course may consider the ethics of caring/not caring in health care/midwifery, in movements for birthing justice, in the paid workforce, at home, for the unhoused, throughout history (in whose stories are centered in discussions of institutionalized slavery or colonization), and at the margins of life. This course focuses on the way social oppressions, historical and ongoing, affect caring and not caring.
PHIL S21: The Late Wittgenstein
Late in his career, the great twentieth century thinker Ludwig Wittgenstein came to believe that the philosophical problems preoccupying philosophers were, in fact, pseudo-problems. Our language, he said, tricks us into seeing problems where none exist. What is needed, then, is someone to help us see through the tangle created by language, dissolving philosophy’s traditional puzzles as opposed to solving them. This course focuses on the enormously influential works in which Wittgenstein takes up this task. Prerequisite(s): two courses in Philosophy.
PHIL S29: Logic: Possibility, Proofs, and Paradox
Building on PHIL 195 (Introduction to Logic), students consider the relationship between logic and reasoning, learn about modal logic (the logic of possibility and necessity), Turing machines, and alternative logics, prove some surprising metalogical results, and puzzle through some logical paradoxes. Prerequisite(s): PHIL 195.
PHIL S32: Teaching Philosophy: Course Design and Classroom Instruction
The line between practicing philosophy and teaching it has always been a blurry one, enough so that being a philosopher is often thought to involve being a teacher. In this course, students assume the role of philosophy instructor. The course covers works by a number of contemporary authors writing on course design and innovative teaching methodology, and students design a week-long introductory philosophy mini-course targeted at high school students. Prerequisite(s): three philosophy courses.
PHIL S34: What is Philosophy? Metaphilosophy and Philosophical Methodology
This seminar explores the nature of philosophy. What is distinctive about philosophy? Philosophy departments typically offer a reply to this question. Do these characterizations of the nature of philosophy capture the diversity of philosophical methods and questions? This seminar explores this question by considering common criticisms of the value of philosophy, non-Western philosophy, ethnophilosophy, and empirically informed approaches to the study of philosophy. The seminar is designed for philosophy majors and minors to study the diversity and unity of the philosophical enterprise. Prerequisite(s): Four Philosophy courses.
PHIL S50: Independent Study
Students, in consultation with a faculty advisor, individually design and plan a course of study or research not offered in the curriculum. Course work includes a reflective component, evaluation, and completion of an agreed-upon product. Sponsorship by a faculty member in the program/department, a course prospectus, and permission of the chair are required. Students may register for no more than one independent study during a Short Term.