PHIL

This course is devoted to one of the most important philosophical books of the continental tradition, Levinas's Totality and Infinity. We will propose a systematic reading of Levinas's masterpiece in order to show the main aspects of Levinas's philosophical elaboration. The first aspect of our course will be to insist on the way Levinas takes position in the field of German and French phenomenology, in what consists exactly his technical and systematic critique of Husserl, Heidegger and Sartre's conceptualities. We will, for that reason, propose to make Totality and Infinity in resonance with the most important sections of Husserl's Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and a Philosophical Phenomenology, Heidegger's Being and Time and Sartre's Being and Nothingness. This preliminary step will give us the conceptual means required in order to understand the exact philosophical position of Levinas towards the concept of society - that Levinas inherits directly from the French Sociological tradition (Durkheim in particular). Once such a background clarified it will become possible to understand Levinas's own elaboration towards the notion of society and for what reason the social experience coincides for him with a metaphysical experience - in other words in what sense Levinas can claim that the social relationship articulates what Descartes called the Idea of the Infinite. Such a second step will lead us to a last step which constitutes the ultimate demonstrative goal of our course: we will indeed try to show the necessity to overcome with Levinas the universalization of the notion of phenomenon coming from Husserl and Heidegger, to propose, in other words, a deflationist understanding of the notion of phenomenon. Such a deflationist understanding does not imply nevertheless the abandonment of the notion of phenomenon. On the contrary the metaphysics of society that we will propose, will lead us to think society as the fundamental presupposition from which the notion of phenomena coming from the Phenomenological tradition can find its logical meaning. What will be at stake is nothing else than the possibility of thinking anew the notion of Metaphysics in order to overcome the so-called "end of Metaphysics" proclaimed by Heidegger and Derrida.

In this class we will investigate what it is for a society to be just. In what sense are the members of a just society equal? What freedoms does a just society protect? Must a just society be a democracy? What economic arrangements are compatible with justice? In the second portion of the class we will consider one pressing injustice in our society in light of our previous philosophical conclusions. Possible candidates include, but are not limited to, racial inequality, economic inequality, and gender hierarchy. Here our goal will be to combine our philosophical theories with empirical evidence in order to identify, diagnose, and effectively respond to actual injustice. (A)

Graduate students planning to go on the job market in the fall of 2014. Course begins in late Spring quarter and continues in the Autumn quarter.

This course will be based on a direct confrontation between Sartre’s and Michel Henry’s phenomenological works. The main goal of this course will be to reintroduce the concept of immanence in a phenomenological sense beyond its critique by the philosophies of existence – of the so-called extatic dimension of human existence. The main goal of this course will be then to introduce two Sartre’s and Michel Henry’s phenomenological masterpieces (mainly Sartre’s The Transcendence of the Ego (la Transcendance de l’Ego) and Henry’s The Essence of Manifestation  (L’Essence de la manifestation)). Does the discovery of our intentional or existential openness to the world implies necessarily the renunciation to the notion of immanence or do we have to elaborate a phenomenological meaning for the concept of immanence in order to go further in the comprehension of the transcendent nature of our being? This will be the leading question of our seminar.

Linguists and philosophers have traditionally examined the role of language and thought as a medium for (mis)representing objective facts about the world we are living in. However, language is also an important tool for sharing subjective perspectives with others, and clearly not all thoughts are objective. Taking subjectivity as a sui generis phenomenon that does not reduce to another instance of descriptive talk and thought has repercussions that go beyond the traditional distinction between linguistics and philosophy: it impacts philosophical attempts to understand the nature of normative thoughts no less than the way linguists tend to think to about the nature of linguistic meaning. This is the first in a two-course sequence that addresses the exciting resulting challenges in a systematic manner, to be offered jointly by Professors Chris Kennedy and Malte Willer. The first course will be taught by Malte Willer and focus on foundational philosophical issues surrounding subjectivity in language and thought, including issues pertaining to normativity and general considerations about the shape a theory of natural language meaning must have to take the phenomenon of subjectivity seriously. The second course will be taught by Chris Kennedy in the Winter Quarter, 2015 and focus on linguistic issues surrounding subjectivity, including a rich variety of empirical questions and the impact that treating subjectivity as a sui generis phenomenon has for theoretical linguistics. Despite their slight differences in focus, both courses are interdisciplinary by design and will appeal to linguists and philosophers alike. Students may take either one of these courses for credit without taking the other for credit. The two-course seminar is also the launching event for a three-year interdisciplinary working group on the nature of subjectivity in language and thought, led by Chris Kennedy and Malte Willer and funded by the generous support of the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society. (II) 

An examination of the works of some of the most significant twentieth-century philosophers of Judaism. In the first part of the seminar we will examine the philosophical, theological, and ethical foundations of Modern Orthodox Judaism. The principal readings will be Joseph B. Soloveitchik's The Emergence of Ethical Man and Aharon Lichtenstein's By His Light. The second part of the seminar will focus on the post World War II emergence of a new philosophy and theology of Judaism in France. Primary readings will come from Emmanuel Lévinas, Léon Askénazi, Alexandre Safran, and Henri Meschonnic. Special attention will be given to the relation between philosophical argument and analysis, and theological conception and method.

The British Utilitarians were social radicals who questioned conventional morality as a basis for both personal and public choice and proposed an alternative that they believed to be both more scientific and more morally adequate.  In part because of the widespread acceptance of pieces of their views in economics and political science, the original subtlety and radical force of the views is often neglected.  This seminar, focusing on John Stuart Mill and Henry Sidgwick, aims to examine sympathetically what classical Utilitarianism may still offer to philosophical ethics, and to see how the strongest criticisms of Utilitarianism measure up to the texts of its founders.  Although it is hardly possible to study Utilitarianism as an ethical theory without attending to its political role, we shall focus for the most part on ethics, and on two works above all: Mill’s Utilitarianism and Sidgwick’s The Methods of Ethics, combining these with Mill’s The Subjection of Women, his Autobiography, and several key essays.  Along the way we shall be investigating the views of Bentham, Mill, and Sidgwick about animal suffering, women’s equality, and sexual orientation.  Among the critics of Utilitarianism, we shall consider writings of Bernard Williams, John Rawls, Amartya Sen, Jon Elster, Elizabeth Anderson, and John Harsanyi. 

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.

This course meets in Autumn and Winter quarters.