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Course Criteria
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4.00 Credits
What is it to have a mind? Does the mind have boundaries (for example, the boundaries of the brain)? How could creatures like us exhibit such a phenomenon as consciousness? Could we build a robot that was able to experience the world in the same way we do? This course will introduce students to the way that philosophers think about the mind, harnessing contemporary work in brain and cognitive science to help us answer these questions. No prior background in either philosophy or cognitive science is presupposed. This course will be largely discussion-oriented.
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4.00 Credits
The study of contemporary feminist theory. The course considers the conception of women expressed through our practices, laws, theories and literature. Is this conception that of an inessential Other as one philosopher has argued? Other topics to be discussed include: equality and equal rights, sex roles and gender specific language, power relations and self-determination, marriage and maternity.
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4.00 Credits
The course will develop the main philosophical responses of the 17th and 18th centuries (other than Kant's) to the new science and scientific methodology found, for example, in Galileo. We'll start out by reading some Galileo and then go on to study Descartes' universal methodology. Motion, space and time, causality, and the mind-body problem (including the problem of perception) will also turn out to be important topics. The next part of the course will consist of Leibniz and of Newton and Locke, to be followed by Berkeley and Hume. The problems listed above will continue to occupy center stage. There will be both lectures and discussion meetings. Texts: Galileo, Discoveries and Opinions (tr. S. Drake; Doubleday); Descartes, Philosophical Writings (tr. J. Cottingham; Cambridge); From Descartes to Locke (ed. Smith & Grene; Phoenix); Berkeley, Hume, and Kant (ed. Smith & Grene; Phoenix).
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4.00 Credits
The central goal of this course is to study some of the most surprising and important results about the inherent limitations of logic, including Gödel’s first incompleteness theorem, Tarski’s theorem on the indefinability of truth, and Church’s theorem on the undecidability of logic. Topics covered along the way include Turing computability and Gödel’s completeness theorem for first-order logic. The focus throughout will be on developing an understanding of the relations between truth, validity, provability, and computability.
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4.00 Credits
Medicine now produces some of the most troubling ethical questions that our society faces. We are now confronted with extremely premature infants, elderly people incapacitated by Alzheimer's Disease, and others have sunk into permanent vegetative state. We can now diagnose horrible diseases with genetic testing, we have a myriad of options of reproduction if the old-fashioned way is not possible, and we now have the option to replace the failing organs and even to enhance our mental and physical abilities. In this class, we will examine some of these ethical controversies, both in lectures and in small groups in which students will have more opportunity to present their own views and explore those of others.
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4.00 Credits
Medicine now produces some of the most troubling ethical questions that our society faces. We are now confronted with extremely premature infants, elderly people incapacitated by Alzheimer's Disease, and others have sunk into permanent vegetative state. We can now diagnose horrible diseases with genetic testing, we have a myriad of options of reproduction if the old-fashioned way is not possible, and we now have the option to replace the failing organs and even to enhance our mental and physical abilities. In this class, we will examine some of these ethical controversies, both in lectures and in small groups in which students will have more opportunity to present their own views and explore those of others.
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4.00 Credits
This course will examine the nature of law in common law legal systems. It will proceed historically, beginning with Aquinas, mentioning Blackstone, examining Bentham and Austin, mentioning Gray, examining Holmes, Hart, and Dworkin. Topics emphasized will include the relation between Law and Morality, the nature of legal interpretation, with emphasis on the role of precedent in common law, the nature of legal rules, and the issue of the completeness of law.
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4.00 Credits
This course will examine the nature of law in common law legal systems. It will proceed historically, beginning with Aquinas, mentioning Blackstone, examining Bentham and Austin, mentioning Gray, examining Holmes, Hart, and Dworkin. Topics emphasized will include the relation between Law and Morality, the nature of legal interpretation, with emphasis on the role of precedent in common law, the nature of legal rules, and the issue of the completeness of law.
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4.00 Credits
Difficult questions about meaning in life are of perennial concern to philosophers and many other reflective people. The course will look closely and critically at these questions and traditional and contemporary answers.
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4.00 Credits
This course is an overview of the recent history of philosophy of mind, focusing on the relationship between the mind and the physical world. The aim is to appreciate some of the central debates. Topics covered include the identity theory, functionalist theories of the mind; the prospects for integrating consciousness and mental content within a physicalist worldview; and the problem of mental causation.
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