PHIL

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Topic: Ideological Critique: Marx, Nietzsche, and the Frankfurt School (instructor: J. Edwards)
The term ideology is often used synonymously with ‘ethos’ or ‘world view.’ However, in philosophy it is generally used more narrowly as a pejorative term that identifies false or unwarranted beliefs, which serve the interests of some dominant group, and which are generally contrary to the interests of those who hold them. An ideological critique typically attempts to expose ideological beliefs and to explain how they can exist at all—why anybody would ever come to hold such beliefs and what could sustain their being held.In this course, we will examine several of the most important ideological critiques: Marx's claim that religion, ethics, and legal systems are “ideological humbug” that arise from and sustain relations of production; Nietzsche's claim that contemporary morality is life-denying and that it originates in a trick played on the strong by the weak some 2000 years ago; and the Frankfurt School's claim that fascism, state capitalism, and mass culture are all forms of social domination enabled by a means-ends rationality that emerged out of the Enlightenment.While each of these accounts is of independent interest, in this course they will also serve as case studies of the method of ideological critique more generally. In each instance we will be concerned with the following questions: What exactly is an ideological belief? Is there ever anything besides deliberate deception that could explain someone holding such a belief? Are there actually such things as real interests such that we could hold beliefs that are contrary to them? Can someone hold a single ideological belief, or are these beliefs the sort of things that only come in large packages? If we suspect that vast constellations of our beliefs might be ideological, is there any sure method of sorting out which ones are and which ones are not, or might our whole way of approaching these issues itself be hopelessly tangled in ideological thinking?

Topic: Reason, Desire, and the Good (instructor: M. Hopwood)

If I show no regard for the feelings of others, you might describe me as callous or cruel, but would it also make sense to describe me as irrational? Some philosophers have denied this, claiming that I only have reason to do whatever serves my existing motivations. If I have no desire to act morally, then I have no reason to do so either. Other philosophers have argued that a person who ignores moral considerations is guilty of a kind of rational defect; such a person is failing to see the importance of something that any fully rational agent would recognize. In this class, we will use this debate as an entry point into some of the most important and influential work in contemporary moral philosophy. We will look at Bernard Williams's attempt to pull morality and rationality apart, and the attempts of Aristotelians (Philippa Foot, John McDowell, Warren Quinn) and Kantians (Christine Korsgaard) to put them back together again. In the final section of the class, we will consider a very different perspective on the debate by taking up Iris Murdoch's claim that the failure to show due regard for others is not so much a failure of reason as a failure of love.

Topic: Ideological Critique: Marx, Nietzsche, and the Frankfurt School (instructor: J. Edwards)
The term ideology is often used synonymously with ‘ethos’ or ‘world view.’ However, in philosophy it is generally used more narrowly as a pejorative term that identifies false or unwarranted beliefs, which serve the interests of some dominant group, and which are generally contrary to the interests of those who hold them. An ideological critique typically attempts to expose ideological beliefs and to explain how they can exist at all—why anybody would ever come to hold such beliefs and what could sustain their being held.In this course, we will examine several of the most important ideological critiques: Marx's claim that religion, ethics, and legal systems are “ideological humbug” that arise from and sustain relations of production; Nietzsche's claim that contemporary morality is life-denying and that it originates in a trick played on the strong by the weak some 2000 years ago; and the Frankfurt School's claim that fascism, state capitalism, and mass culture are all forms of social domination enabled by a means-ends rationality that emerged out of the Enlightenment.While each of these accounts is of independent interest, in this course they will also serve as case studies of the method of ideological critique more generally. In each instance we will be concerned with the following questions: What exactly is an ideological belief? Is there ever anything besides deliberate deception that could explain someone holding such a belief? Are there actually such things as real interests such that we could hold beliefs that are contrary to them? Can someone hold a single ideological belief, or are these beliefs the sort of things that only come in large packages? If we suspect that vast constellations of our beliefs might be ideological, is there any sure method of sorting out which ones are and which ones are not, or might our whole way of approaching these issues itself be hopelessly tangled in ideological thinking?

Topic: Reason, Desire, and the Good (instructor: M. Hopwood)

If I show no regard for the feelings of others, you might describe me as callous or cruel, but would it also make sense to describe me as irrational? Some philosophers have denied this, claiming that I only have reason to do whatever serves my existing motivations. If I have no desire to act morally, then I have no reason to do so either. Other philosophers have argued that a person who ignores moral considerations is guilty of a kind of rational defect; such a person is failing to see the importance of something that any fully rational agent would recognize. In this class, we will use this debate as an entry point into some of the most important and influential work in contemporary moral philosophy. We will look at Bernard Williams's attempt to pull morality and rationality apart, and the attempts of Aristotelians (Philippa Foot, John McDowell, Warren Quinn) and Kantians (Christine Korsgaard) to put them back together again. In the final section of the class, we will consider a very different perspective on the debate by taking up Iris Murdoch's claim that the failure to show due regard for others is not so much a failure of reason as a failure of love.

This course is an introduction to German Idealism, through readings of Kant’s first and second Critiques, Fichte’s Vocation of the Scholar and Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. We will . We will focus especially on the concept of “recognition” and examine why for Kant and Fichte the social recognition - the recognition of the Other as a free agent - becomes intelligible thanks to practical reason. Once this background clarified, we will then discuss Hegel’s famous “Master-Slave Dialectic” and try to explain the meaning of the so-called “struggle for recognition” in the economy of the Phenomenology of Spirit.

In this class, we will read selections from Aristotle's major works in metaphysics, logic, psychology and ethics. We will attempt to understand the import of his distinct contributions in all of these central areas of philosophy, and we will also work towards a synoptic view of his system as a whole. There are three questions we will keep in mind and seek to answer as readers of his treatises: (1) What questions is this passage/chapter trying to answer? (2) What is Aristotle's answer? (3) What is his argument that his answer is the correct one? Note: This course, together with introduction to Plato (25200) in the Autumn quarter, substitutes for and fulfills the Ancient Philosophy History requirement for the fall quarter: students can take these courses instead of taking PHIL 25000. Students must take them as a 2 quarter sequence in order to fulfill the requirement, but students who already have fulfilled or do not need to fulfill the Ancient Philosophy History requirement may take the one quarter of the course without the other.

A survey of the thought of some of the most important figures of this period, including Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume.

The aim of this course is to introduce students to one of the most important and influential traditions in the European Philosophy of the 20th Century: Phenomenology. The main task of this course will be to present Phenomenology’s main concepts and the meaning of Phenomenology’s transformations from Husserl to Heidegger, Sartre, Levinas and Henry.The fundamental credo of Phenomenology consists in the emphasis laid upon phenomena given to consciousness. This emphasis coincides with the “return to things in themselves” as formulated by Husserl. What can this kind of return actually mean? And what does this claim suggest about philosophical practices prior to phenomenology, idealism or empiricism? In what way, for Husserl, was classical philosophy not able to give access to things such as they are truly given ? And what is the meaning of such idea of « givenness » ? Does Phenomenology fall into the so-called « myth of the Given » ?No future phenomenologists after Husserl will question the fundamental idea of returning to things in themselves thanks to the phenomenological importance given to phenomena, but they will question the privilege of intentional consciousness postulated by Husserl - Heidegger will expand phenomenology to the ancient question of “Being” (thanks to the existential clarification of the Husserlian concept of Intentionality) and Levinas will question Husserl’s and Heidegger’s approaches of phenomenology - intentional and existential - as falling into the Western problem of Ontology and Totality against Otherness and Ethics. As we will see, even if Phenomenology coincides with the philosophical description of our "Openness to Exteriority", this openness - Intentional, Existential or Ethical - entails necessarily not the abandonment, but a radical redefinition of the concept of Subjective Immanence."

Why be moral? Is there any principled distinction between matters of fact and matters of value?  What is the character of obligation?  What is a virtue?  In this course we will read, think, and write about twentieth century Anglo-North American philosophical attempts to give a systematic account of morality. (A)

Constant changes in healthcare settings, coupled with rapid advancements in technology, lead to increasingly complicated ethical dilemmas: Who decides what - patients, doctors or family members - and on what basis? What is the telos of the medical profession and how does it bear on what doctors can and cannot provide their patients? Can doctors refuse to provide treatment for conscientious reasons? Are abortions, assisted suicides, organ sales and surrogacy morally permissible? In this course, we attempt to answer these (and other) pressing questions. We will commence the course by analyzing two key concepts which are utilized in medical ethics debates: autonomy and paternalism. We will examine the value of autonomy and its relation to the question of competence, the difference between autonomy and authenticity, and the vexed question of when and how paternalism is justified. We will then discuss questions surrounding the telos of the medical profession, the physician’s duties as derived from this telos, and the circumstances, if any, in which the physician can deviate from this telos. We will also examine circumstances in which physicians can refuse to provide treatment on conscientious grounds. We will then proceed to examine specific medical ethical dilemmas surrounding the beginning and end of life. We will discuss ethical questions pertaining to abortion and parents’ right to refuse medical care for their newborn children, while examining the moral standing of fetuses and newborns. We will also examine ethical questions surrounding the autonomy, wellbeing and interests of demented patients, while raising broader philosophical questions pertaining to the nature of personal identity. Finally, we will discuss the moral permissibility of euthanasia and the right to assisted suicide. We will conclude the course by analyzing some of the key characteristics of markets, as well as their moral limits, and utilize our analysis in order to understand the moral status of organ sales and surrogacy.

An introductory exploration of some of the central questions in the philosophy of science. These will include: what is (the definition of) a science--such that the natural, formal, and social sciences all count as sciences, but (for example) philosophy and literary criticism do not? How, in the natural sciences, do theory-building and observation relate to each other? Can some of the sciences be reduced to other sciences? (What is reduction of this kind supposed to involve?) What is evidence? What are the old and new problems of induction? What is a scientific (or indeed any other form of) explanation? What is a law of nature? Do the sciences make real progress? (B)