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Course Criteria
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4.00 Credits
Traditionally, the terms "self" or "subject" refto the locus of a given individual's experience, consciousness, and/or agency. For some philosophers, these notions are central to an understanding of the human subject as a coherent, unified, and autonomous entity. Other thinkers, especially in the 20th and 21st centuries, have argued either that the self or subject is in some way fragmented or dispersed, or even that there is no such thing-that the "self" is a metaphysicafiction. This course examines classic and contemporary views on both sides of this debate. Readings include treatments of the self in modern Western philosophy (Descartes, Locke, Hume), radical criticisms of traditional conceptions (Foucalt, Deleuze, Butler), and contemporary attempts to "rehabilitate" or "reconstructsome elements of a unified conception of the self (Taylor, Moran, Sorjabi). Finally, students discuss approaches to these questions through the philosophy of language, focusing on accounts of the first-person pronoun "I."
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4.00 Credits
In attempting to explain important features of our experience of art and nature, philosophers from the 18th century forward have proposed the existence of a mental faculty or type of judgment not wholly reducible to either sense perception or conceptual thought. "Aesthetic" isthe most common term for this faculty, and the judgments for which it is responsible. This course examines various accounts of the notion of the aesthetic-and closely related issues concerning art, taste, and beauty-through in-depth scrutiny of historically important texts: FrancisHutcheson, "Inquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue"; David Hume, "Of the Standardof Taste"; and Immanuel Kant, "The Critique ofJudgment." The course ends with a sampling of significant 20th-century approaches to the same themes.
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4.00 Credits
This detailed examination of the content and methods of a number of classic works of American philosophy emphasizes issues in epistemology. Authors include Dewey, William James, Mead, Peirce, Royce, Santayana, and more recent writers. The philosophical movements discussed include transcendentalism, pragmatism, empiricism, and realism. The investigation of these works involves problems in the philosophy of religion, ethics, aesthetics, the philosophy of language, the philosophy of education, and social and political philosophy.
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4.00 Credits
What is a just way of distributing the goods and resources of society? How do various ideals of justice interact with economic realities? Are there important distinctions to be made among the concepts of justice, fairness, equity, and equality? Some writers argue for an ideal of equal opportunity, while others prefer the notion of equality of outcomes. This course focuses on these questions as applied to the United States. It examines not merely issues of values, but also matters of historical/political fact: What is the current distribution of wealth in this country? What has it been in the past? How did we come to have the tax (and subsidy) system that we have? In short, we consider interrelated issues of fact and value, of ideals and the possible, of philosophy and economics and history. Authors studied include John Stuart Mill, Richard Musgrave, Robert Nozick, John Rawls, and Amartya Sen. Prerequisites: at least one related course in philosophy, economics, or a related area and permission of the instructor.
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4.00 Credits
Since the early 20th century, philosophical inquiry into the nature of language has revolved around the notion of meaning, and questions of how it comes about that our words can make "contact" with the world, our thoughts, and eachother. This course explores two living traditions that attempt to answer these questions. The "semantic" approach, associated with GottlobFrege, Bertrand Russell, and Saul Kripke, emphasizes reference and the logical structure of language; while the "pragmatic" approach associatedwith LudwigWittgenstein, J. L. Austin, and Paul Grice emphasizes communication and our everyday uses of language. Through readings from these and other philosophers, students assess the strengths and limitations of both approaches. The course concludes with a discussion of metaphor, a linguistic phenomenon often thought to present difficulties for philosophical theories of language.
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4.00 Credits
Philosophical questions about music include the following: Are definitions and classifications helpful? Is tonality natural or conventional? Other topics explored are music and language, the parallels and differences; and music, politics, and ideology. Students engage these topics through readings, listening to music, seminar presentations, and class discussions. Readings include Plato, Aristotle, Schopenhauer, Hanslick, ttgenstein, and a number of recent and contemporary writers.
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4.00 Credits
This Upper College seminar combines elements of two disciplines-law and philosophy-toexamine the premises that support the ideal of a just society and the reasons utilized in making legal and moral arguments. Is there such a thing as "natural law," which can provide a standard ofwhat law "ought" to be? What are the criteria of"justice" to which law ought to conform? Jointlytaught by a faculty member of the Philosophy Program and a constitutional lawyer. Readings include current court decisions involving issues of equality, sexuality, the death penalty, and the right to die and philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham, Isaiah Berlin, Ronald Dworkin, Lon Fuller, H. L. A. Hart, J. S. Mill, and John Rawls.
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4.00 Credits
What is free will? Do we have it? What difference does it make whether we have it or not? The problem of free will is one of the most familiar, enduring, and difficult problems of Western philosophy. This course begins by studying some classic texts that offer a wide range of answers to these central questions about free will, and goes on to review "state-of the-art" writings aboutfree will from such philosophers and philosophically minded thinkers as Daniel Dennett, Robert Kane, Benjamin Libet, Timothy O'Connor, and DanielWegner.
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4.00 Credits
German Studies An introduction to one of the classic texts of Western philosophy, Kant's magnum opus, The Critique of Pure Reason. Prerequisites: a previous course in philosophy and permission of the instructor.
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4.00 Credits
German Studies This course consists of readings from two of the four works Hegel saw to publication, The Phenomenology of Spirit and The Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, and from two of his four posthumously published lecture cycles, Lectures on the Philosophy of History and Lectures on Aesthetics.
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