PHIL

When political power is exercised, what makes it legitimate? Political theorists have long wondered how to justify political rule, which in general is any system whereby certain people get to make decisions on behalf of others and direct them to comply with the decisions, often ensuring their compliance through the threat or use of force. What justification can be provided for the normative standing of such systems of rule? The question of legitimacy is distinct from whether political rule is just or whether it is lawful (exercised according to a constitutional order), although those questions are not entirely separable. In this seminar, we will examine the possible grounds on which we might begin to establish why and how a particular political order is legitimate. We will begin with the paradigmatic case of the state, but we will also look at sub-national and international forms of political rule. We will examine and assess the prominent kinds of answers offered to this question: the common good / social welfare, individual freedom / natural rights, the social contract, and the democratic ideal of equality. Readings will include philosophers such as Plato, Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, as well as contemporary theorists such as Hannah Arendt, John Rawls, and Joseph Raz.

In this class, we will explore the idea that political philosophy is practical. We will address questions such as the following. What is the best interpretation of this idea? How might we defend it against skepticism? What consequences does it have for method? What is it for a political philosophy to be utopian? Is there a good and a bad way of being utopian? How are these to be distinguished? What is it for a political philosophy to be cynical? Does “human nature” place constraints on our political theorizing? What ought we to mean by “human nature” in this context? How do concepts like scarcity and abundance relate to utopian enterprise? (I)

The Workshop will consider important philosophical defenses of free speech and critics of those rationales. Topics will include the idea of the "marketplace of ideas," autonomy interests in free speech, the harms of speech, and the problem of propaganda and other manipulative speech.  Note: This is a seminar/workshop many of whose participants are faculty from various related disciplines.  It admits approximately ten students.  Its aim is to study, each year, a topic that arises in both philosophy and the law and to ask how bringing the two fields together may yield mutual illumination. Most sessions are led by visiting speakers, from either outside institutions or our own faculty, who circulate their papers in advance.   The session consists of a brief introduction by the speaker, followed by initial questioning by the two faculty coordinators, followed by general discussion, in which students are given priority. Several sessions involve students only, and are led by the instructors. Students write a 20-25 page seminar paper at the end of the year.  The course satisfies the Law School Substantial Writing Requirement.   There are approximately four meetings in each of the three quarters.  Students must therefore enroll for all three quarters: Autumn, Winter, Spring.

In this class, we will look at various forms of non-deductive reasoning and will try to understand the relationships between them and the problems that surround them. Of particular interest will be the nature of inductive reasoning, the nature of abductive reasoning (inference to the best explanation), and the relationship between them. Some have argued that both of these forms of inference should be viewed as autonomous and independent forms of non-deductive inference, while others have argued that one should be subsumed under the other. We will also look at criticisms of both induction and abduction. We will begin by looking at the writings of Pierce, and will use this as a springboard to the modern literature. (II)

The workshop involves discussion of general issues in writing the essay and student presentations of their work. Although students do not register for the Summer quarter, they are expected to make significant progress on their preliminary essay over the summer.

The purpose of this course is to introduce the main themes and the method of phenomenology, by focusing on the 1913 standard exposition of the « idealist turn » of Husserl. By an internal and close reading of this text, one will discover that phenomenology does not consist first in a doctrine or a set of theoretical propositions, but mostly and above all in a series of intellectual operations, intended to allow things to appear as themselves, and not as what we commonly assume they are.

The course is an introduction to the major varieties of philosophical feminism: Liberal Feminism (Mill, Wollstonecraft, Okin, Nussbaum), Radical Feminism (MacKinnon, Andrea Dworkin), Difference Feminism (Gilligan, Held, Noddings), and Postmodern "Queer" Feminism (Rubin, Butler).  After studying each of these approaches, we will focus on political and ethical problems of contemporary international feminism, asking how well each of the approaches addresses these problems. (A)

In this seminar I shall present a new reading of Nietzsche’s most famous work. Thus Spoke Zarathustra combines philosophy and poetry, wisdom and prophecy, solitude and politics, speech and deed, preaching in riddles and parody of the Gospel. The work is a challenge to faith in revelation and a task for philosophical interpretation. In the spring of 2014 I interpreted books I and II. Books III and IV I shall teach this spring. This procedure may be justified in light of Nietzsche’s own procedure: He published each of the books before the following book was written and in fact without announcing that one, two or even three books would follow the first one. At the beginning of the seminar I shall summarize my interpretation of books I and II.

We shall read “Letter on Humanism” and discuss Heidegger’s understanding of philosophy as originary ethics (i.e., ethics of being) in which the traditional division between practical and theoretical philosophy is canceled. We shall also focus on Heidegger’s discussion of language and the being of human beings in this essay.