PHIL

In this course we will prove the Undecidability of Predicate Logic, and both Gödel’s First and Second Incompleteness Theorems. We will also examine the concept of interpretability, and will make some connections with broader issues in mathematics. Finally, we will discuss some uses and abuses of Gödel’s Theorems that can be found outside logic and mathematics. For instance, do Gödel’s Theorems entail that the mind is not a machine? (II) (B)

Core background in evolution and genetics strongly recommended. This course draws on readings and examples form linguistics, evolutionary genetics, and the history and philosophy of science. We elaborate theory to understand and model cultural evolution, as well as explore analogies, differences, and relations to biological evolution. We also consider basic biological, cultural, and linguistic topics and case studies from an evolutionary perspective. Time is spent both on what we do know, and on determining what we don't. (B)

Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary field in which theories and methods from psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, artificial intelligence, and philosophy are used to study cognition. Computational models play an increasingly significant role in the understanding of cognitive phenomena such as perception, categorization, concept formation, and problem solving. In this course, students will become familiar with some of the methods and models used in cognitive science, and discuss philosophical issues pertaining to the methodology and basic premises of cognitive science. (B)

Examination of Aristotle’s theory of moral virtue as it is developed in the Nicomachean Ethics, Eudemian Ethics, and Politics. How does virtue differ from self-control? In what way is virtue a perfection of both our capacity for non-rational desire and our reason? What does Aristotle mean by saying that virtuous people act for the sake of the beautiful? How is virtue promoted and sustained by political community? What is the relation between virtue and natural flourishing? (A) (IV)

This is an advanced survey course on the Presocratics. The figures covered will include but will not be limited to Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and the Atomists. The focus will be primarily on issues of metaphysics, epistemology, and natural philosophy, though other topics will be discussed as they arise. (B) (IV)

We'll read and discuss Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. Our central concerns will include: (1) Wittgenstein's metaphilosophy, (2) meaning and rule-following, (3) privacy and expression. (B) (III)

This course will examine historical and contemporary approaches to the relation of ontological dependence, focusing on Aristotle, Descartes, and among more recent authors, Kit Fine. Questions to be discussed will include: What is ontological dependence and how does it differ from other dependence relations, e.g., causation or priority in definition? How does this relation bear on notions such as substance and essence, and vice versa? What is the historical trajectory from Aristotle onwards concerning these questions? (B) (III) (IV) (V)

Students writing senior essays register once for PHIL 29901, in either the Autumn or Winter Quarter, and once for PHIL 29902, in either the Winter or Spring Quarter. (Students may not register for both PHIL 29901 and 29902 in the same quarter.) The senior seminar meets all three quarters, and students writing essays are required to attend throughout.

Students are required to submit the college reading & research course form.

Topic: Rules, Autonomy, and Metaphysics of Normativity (instructor: T. Tiisala)
It is a philosophical commonplace to use the expression ‘space of reasons’ to highlight the normative character of rationality in contrast to a notion of nature as a system of causal (or probabilistic) laws. Yet one may wonder whether this distinction entails a dualistic metaphysics, where two spheres of reality are so separated that a connection between them becomes unintelligible. In this course, we will examine a strategy to avoid such a dualism by explaining the normative standards of reasoning in terms of what is sometimes called ‘attitude-dependence’. In other words, we will focus on the idea that subjects who reason also constitute the norms of reasoning by holding each other responsible to some standards of correctness in thought and action. In particular, we will examine and elaborate the explanatory resources of this strategy, whose emergence we will trace to Kant’s notion of autonomy, in connection with the following three challenges. (1) The normativity of reasoning cannot be generally understood in terms of a self-conscious activity of rule-following, because in that case any rule for the application of a rule would require another rule for its own application, and infinitely so. (2) It cannot be completely up to one to decide which normative standards one is bound to, because that would preclude the possibility of error and thus also obliterate normativity. (3) Proposals that seek to overcome these two challenges by modeling reasoning as a discursive practice, accounting for its normative structure on the basis of social statuses of commitment and entitlement, are incompatible with the traditional way of understanding freedom as rational constraint and power as constraint due to an external force. Finally, we will investigate the limits of the explanatory strategy that relies on attitude-dependence by asking to what extent the attitudes on which it makes norms depend can be plausibly understood as elements in the natural history of the human species. We will read texts by Rousseau, Kant, Sellars, Ryle, Brandom, McDowell, Foucault, Canguilhem, Dennett, and others.

Topic: Reasons, Motivation, and Morality (instructor: N. Ben Moshe)

We often say things like “he ought to do so-and-so” or “she has a reason to do such-and-such”. But what do we mean when we talk about what people ought to do or about their reasons for action? What is the relation between people’s reasons and their motivations? Are there reasons which exist independently of our motivations? Or are all reasons somehow dependent on the motivations which we happen to have or which we would have if we were fully rational? Related questions extend into the realm of morality: Are there reasons which are specifically moral in nature? If so, how are they related to our motivations? Finally, is one irrational or in error if one does not act on moral reasons, or can there be a perfectly coherent, non-mistaken villain? In this course we will discuss some of the central meta-normative and meta-ethical positions regarding the nature of normative and moral reasons: Thomas Nagel’s realism, Christine Korsgaard’s Kantian anti-realism, Sharon Street’s Humean anti-realism, and Michael Smith’s hybrid of Humean-Kantian realism. We will introduce these positions by discussing Hume’s and Kant’s views on motivation and moral motivation, as well as the distinction between internal and external reasons and between motivating and normative reasons. We will also consider the nature of specifically moral reasons - in particular, reasons stemming from the motive of duty - and their alleged categorical force. Additional authors include Donald Davidson, Philippa Foot, Barbara Herman, John McDowell, Derek Parfit and Bernard Williams.