PHIL G105 CONTEMPORARY MORAL & SOCIAL PROBLEMS 4 Credits
This course will explore a number of important moral and social issues in the second half of the 20th Century, including such issues as the bombing of Hiroshima to end World War II, abortion, gun control, capital punishment, and mercy killing. Instruction will be provided in a variety of critical and creative thinking skills that can be used to think carefully and constructively about these issues. Independent research, class discussion, and group projects will all be structured into this course.
PHIL G 109 MORAL DEBATE IN SOCIETY 4 Credits
This course will study some contemporary problems of social ethics, particularly abortion, the death penalty, pornography and censorship, world hunger and global justice. We will learn about varied positions on the issues, and the justifications that have been offered to support them. This course will develop the ability of each student to clearly articulate her position and defend it persuasively.
PHIL G110 EQUALITY AND JUSTICE 4 Credits
This course will examine several forms of inequality: oppression and exclusion based on race and gender; the differences between born and unborn humans, and between humans and non-human animals; and inequality in access to social goods such as health care. The course will also examine the issues of moral inclusion, justice and rights that underlie these inequalities.
PHILG206 IDEA OF GOD 3 Credits
The Idea of God is an Intermediate Seminar course. Its methods are intended to sharpen the student’s abilities to read, write and speak well, and so will require a good deal of reading, writing and speaking. The course will emphasize the clarity and precision of expression.
The questions we will look at include: What are the origins of religious belief? How should we understand the notions of “God,” “ultimate reality,” “supreme being,” “spirit,” “source of life,” and related terms for designating divinity? What must something be like to be God? Can God be meaningfully referred to? What are the essential properties of the divine in various concepts of God? How does the concept of God develop? What are the practical implications, for individuals and groups, of believing in a particular concept of God?
PHIL 100 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY 3 Credits
An introductory examination of the problems and scope of philosophy.
PHIL 108 MORAL & SOCIAL PROBLEMS
Important moral and social issues of current concern will be examined and debated. The course covers several problems each semester from a list including: criminal punishment, war, abortion, racism, violence, the death penalty, private property, sexism and hunger.
PHIL 120 LOGIC 3 Credits
Study of valid reasoning using formal methods of proof with truth functions, deductions and quantifiers. Analysis of logical structure of language related to philosophical questions of truth, paradox, and reference.
PHIL 200 AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY 3 Credits
This course offers an alternative and critical examination of the concepts of personhood and human beings. These taken-for-granted concepts are at the core of the perennial moral, legal, and cultural debates regarding matters of life and death. The course encourages the critical examination of fundamental presuppositions in philosophy as well as fosters and deepens intellectual sensitivity to the plurality of cultures.
PHIL 210 PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION 3 Credits
This course will begin by examining the views on education, explicit and implicit of central figures in the Western philosophical tradition, such as Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Spinoza, Rousseau, Hegel, Marx and Dewey. In the second half of the course we will read contemporary advocates of a standardized curriculum that has a system of exams to measure its implementation and contemporary advocates of a more diverse approach to curriculum creation.
PHIL 220 ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS 3 Credits
An examination of the place of humanity in the natural world and implications for ethics of this place. Topics include the environmental crisis and the need for a new environmental ethic, the ethical dimensions of environmental policy issues, human-centered ethics, obligations to future generations, the intrinsic value of the natural world, animal rights, wilderness, and the preservation of species.
PHIL 222 MORAL ISSUES IN MEDICINE 3 Credits
An examination of the moral problems facing health-care practitioners, their patients, and others involved with the practice of medicine in today’s society. Issues include euthanasia, the ethics of medical experimentation, the use of reproductive technologies, genetic counseling and genetic engineering, truth-telling and confidentiality in doctor-patient relationships, and the cost of availability of medical care.
PHIL 224 PHILOSOPHY OF ART 3 Credits
Late-twentieth century art has insistently challenged us to develop a clear understanding of the very nature of the artwork. This course is a survey of the major theories of the nature of art, with special emphasis on the views that art is a representation or imitation of reality, that art is inherently the expression of emotion, that art is a special kind of symbolic form. We will also address questions such as the role of art history in a theory of aesthetic interpretation and in the constitution of the artwork, the problem of forgery, the issue of artistic responsibility and recent debates over censorship of the arts.
PHIL 227 EXISTENTIALISM & PHENOMENOLOGY
An inquiry into the broad philosophical movement of existentialism, through a reading of major existentialist thinkers including Sartre, Beauvoir, Camus, Merleau-Ponty, Marcel, Kierkegaard, Jaspers and Heidegger, and some post-modern thinkers including various literary and artistic sources. Topics to be considered may include: - Existence*The Phenomenological method* authentic vs inauthentic existence*subjective vs objective knowing* alienation and self-deception* being-towards-death* technology and mass society* Existential psychotherapy* The Holocaust and existential meaning* gender and significance* Existentialism and the beat generation* post-modernism and deconstruction* Education and existence*- Art and existence
PHIL 290: PHILOSOPHY OF LAW 3 Credits
This course explores fundamental questions concerning the nature of law and the relation between law and justice. It examines questions concerning the source of the obligation to obey law, the limits of the obligation to law, and the moral conditions that make law possible. This exploration leads to an examination such of different judicial philosophies of constitutional interpretation as original intent, judicial restraint, and judicial activism. The course continues with a study of some perplexing questions about the meaning of equality and justice as they arise in legal cases dealing with race and/or gender. It examines various philosophies of punishment and questions notions of crime and harm as well as contract and agreement.It concludes with an investigation of the moral basis of international law by way of a critical analysis of the Nuremberg Trial and with an exploration of the basis for justice in reconciliation by way of a critical analysis of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commissions.
PHIL 297 ASIAN PHILOSOPHY 3 Credits
This course examines the philosophical traditions of Asia, in particular, Confucian, Taoist, Hindu, and Buddhist philosophies. We will pay particular attention to their views on values, the nature of reality, and the nature of the self. For the first half of the semester, we will focus on the classical Chinese texts of Confucius, Mencious, Laotzu, and Chuang-tzu, exploring their ideas of human virtues, values, good life, human nature, and ultimate reality. For the second half, we will explore the concepts of Hinduism and Buddhism as they developed in India (as well as in China and Japan in the case of Buddhism), such as the concepts of the self, the mind, emptiness, and reality.
PHIL 311 MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY 3 Credits
In this course we shall read one or two major medieval Christian philosophers (e.g. Augustine and Aquinas), one or two major medieval Muslim philosophers (e.g. al-Ghazali and ibn Rushd (Averroes), & one or two major medieval Jewish philosophers (e.g., Saadia & Maimonides). The themes upon which we shall focus will include some or all of the following: God’s existence, God’s nature, God’s justice, the creation of hte universe, the priority of reason versus faith, the literal versus metaphorical nature of religious language, & the soul’s immortality.
PHIL 312 MODERN PHILOSOPHY 3 Credits
This course will offer an introduction to the works of some of the principal philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries. We will read, interpret, and examine the writings of Descartes Locke, Hume, and Kant. We will pay particular attention to their metaphysical views on the existence and nature of matter, mind, God, and freedom, and to their epistemological views on the scope and limits of human knowledge.
PHIL 345 THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 3 Credits
Knowledge - its nature, forms, methods, scope, and validation. What are the relations of knowledge and justification to sense experience? For example, does knowledge of our surroundings rest upon a foundation of sense experience? Is knowledge of the so-called truths of reason in some way independent of evidence provided by sense experience? How is a body of knowledge related to an individual knower? Does the justification of one’s beliefs depend upon what psychology reveals about the reliability of methods for acquiring the beliefs? Readings from contemporary sources.
PHIL 450 RIGHTS 3 Credits
Often people claim rights and protest when rights are violated but what are rights? Which rights do we have? Why do we have rights? Are there any natural rights? Are there any absolute rights? Are human rights inalienable and inviolable? What are the grounds for their justification, and what is the range of their application?
This course examines the philosophical basis of rights discourse. It considers different rights-based approaches and contrasts them with non-rights-based theories. It examines a range of contemporary theories including those of Rawls, Nozick, Feinberg and Dworkin, outlines the classical tradition and introduces the work of legal positivists like Austin and Hart. It also explores criticisms of rights systems put forward by contemporary communitarians, virtue theorists and feminist theories.
The course continues by studying specific rights (such as liberty, property, security, right to life-and right to die-subsistence) along with some of the philosophical and practical questions raised by conflicting interpretations. Some offering of this course explore how special rights attend to group differences by way of a critical analysis of gay rights and women rights.
PHIL 452 ARISTOTLE 3 Credits
“Aristotle died in 322 BC. He was sixty-two and at the height of his powers: a tireless scholar, whose scientific explorations were as wide-ranging as his philosophical speculations were profound; a teacher who inspired — and who continues to inspire — generations of pupils; a controversial public figure who lived a turbulent life in a turbulent world. He bestrode antiquity like an intellectual colossus. No man before him had contributed so much to learning. No man after him could hope to rival his achievements.” Jonathan Barnes.
Aristotle’ approach to philosophical problems is built around his down-to-earth common sense, his rationalism, his modest respect for ordinary people’s intuitions and for the good ideas of other philosophers, his suspicion of mysticism, obscurity, and pretentiousness, and his keen observation and massive breadth of knowledge.
In this class we will read a range of Aristotle’s works, including selections from the Categories, Metaphysics, Physics, De Anima, Ethics, and Politics. We will examine his account of substance, his accounts of change, cause, time, and chance, and his thoughts on the mind-body problem; also, his famous ethical system, and his political theory. Our approach will be partly historical, partly critical. Working out the Aristotelian system can help us to understand the entire western philosophical tradition; but we will also examine and evaluate his ideas considered independently of their historical setting, and compare them to modern approaches to the same questions.
PHIL 455 HEGEL 3 CREDITS
This course is an introduction to the philosophy of Hegel and to the Hegelian tradition, through a reading of Hegel’s major work The Phenomenology of Spirit. Other readings for the course include excerpts from Philosophy of History and The Philosophy of Right, as well as some early writings.
PHIL 470: WITTGENSTEIN 3 Credits
Perhaps more than any other 20th Century philosopher, Wittgenstein has become a legendary figure in the “linguistic turn” of 20th Century philosohy. This course briefly covers Wittgenstein’s early period, influenced by Frege and Russell, in the Tractatus on universal logical form, the picture theory of language and the doctrine on showing vs. saying. Chief emphasis is put on his later work, in the Philosophical Investigations. Topics examined include language garnes, forms of life, essentialism, the concept of a rule, the model of a private language and a critique of hte self in Western philosophy. Course explores Wittgenstein’s influence on 20th Century philosophy and other fields relating to human language. Students are encouraged to pursue an independent project and term paper of their choice. Also encouraged are projects connecting Wittgenstein to a range of disciplines; Linguistics, philosophy of law, social sciences, postmodern and cultural studies, art, and psychology.
PHIL 481 SPECIAL TOPICS: SPEECH ACTS 3 Credits
People use language to accomplish myriad tasks: we report, we promise, we praise, we blame, we apologize, we question, we warn, we threaten, we implore, we lament, we express our feelings, and sometimes we just play with our words. Language is the medium within which we live; so often it is transparent to us but sometimes we do notice it, and ask how it is that we can do so many things with this versatile tool. Some 20th century philosophers developed an influential set of views, which came to be known as “speech act theory”. Instead of looking at language as a formal system, of the sort one finds in mathematics, built into computer programs, and in science, speech act theorists tended to start with ordinary language used in ordinary settings by ordinary people. This approach, pioneered by Wittgenstein, Austin, Grice, and Searle, sets the stage for our inquiry this semester.
The central types of speech act we will address are promising, apology, hate speech, and pornography. In the last decade, legal and political activism has led to the development of speech codes on college campuses, within workplaces, and in communities across the world, particularly in Europe and the USA. The focus of these speech codes has been on “hate speech,” which is usually construed as the face-to-face hurling of a racist epithet. In the paradigm case the hurler is a member of the racial power majority, and the target is a member of a racially subordinate group. This course will look at speech act theory as developed in the 20th century and ask how it can help us to understand how hate speech functions. We will also explore the extension of such hate speech analysis beyond the paradigm of racial contexts to pornography, sexist epithets, and other subordinating or potentially subordinating practices. Such an exploration will take us through issues such as the role of individual intentions in the meaning of a speech act, the power of community norms to create, shape, limit or enhance individual meaning, the question of authority--its grounding and its scope, and many issues of the relation between linguistic practices with non-linguistic collateral norms and practices. This inquiry will take us into large social questions about the relation between language and politics, and it will also take us to questions about language and individual identity formation. We are social beings, and the fabric of our social lives is woven through and through with the many-layered hues and tones of our discourse. How do our linguistic practices, the speech acts we sanction and those we forbid, make some forms of life possible, while rendering other forms difficult or even impossible?
PHILOSOPHY AND LAW PROGRAM COURSES
(CPCS)
Philaw 210 LEGISLATIVE LABYRINTH 3 Credits
Using employment issues and workers’ rights as the context, this course will introduce and examine some of the basic formal and informal processes by which governmental bodies make decisions about fundamental issues affecting the rights of citizens.
Philaw 300 BASIC LEGAL REASONING AND RESEARCH 3 Credits
This course will combine the basic conventions and skills of legal argument with learning the effective use of a law library. Students will learn how to research and argue statutes, cases, and administrative regulations.
Philaw 400 ADVANCED LEGAL REASONING & RESEARCH 3 Credits
Students will build on the skills of legal reasoning paying special attention to analyzing groups of cases, analogizing and distinguishing precedent, and constructing legal arguments. Students also will learn to utilize a broad range of legal research material in their arguments, including secondary sources and computerized legal research. To accomplish these goals, students will research and write several legal memoranda, often on a “frontier” legal question. Each student will argue his or her case.