PHIL

Intimate relationships – primarily relations of companionship – between humans and non-human animals are ubiquitous but not often the subject of philosophy. This is a shame, since such relationships are important and interesting, providing rich ground for philosophical reflection. In this course, we will philosophize about such relationships, drawing on memoir and film as well as academic philosophy. How, we will ask, are we to understand such relationships? What is their nature? How are they possible? And what do they demand of us? (A)

The Parmenides is an important contribution to Plato’s thought in the areas of metaphysics, epistemology, language, and logic. It asks: are there problems with the Platonic “theory of forms”, at least in some version of the view? And it answers: yes, devastating problems, which can be overcome only through an elaborate and highly abstract training exercise. This exercise, which the dialogue enacts, involves a series of “deductions” or inferential chains regarding certain hypotheses and their negations. Naturally, this makes the Parmenides a difficult dialogue, challenging its reader both to follow complex logic and to read “beyond” the page to the deeper meaning. In this course, we will read the text in full, week by week. Topics will include: the metaphysics of forms, Parmenides’ methodology, the epistemology of paradox and contradiction, and how the dialogue develops a logical language. (III)

This course will introduce students to race and ethnicity as topics of interest to ancient Greek philosophers, primarily Plato and Aristotle. We will look at the ways that Plato and Aristotle ask and address philosophical questions about human difference that approximate the modern concepts of race and ethnicity, such as the notion of a “barbarian”, mythologies of ancestry, the role of shared language, culture, and political forms versus genealogy, and the association of character traits and political capacities with groups of people. We will also consider relevant connections to other perceived forms of difference, such as gender, sexuality, and political status (e.g. slave, resident non-citizen). Since they are often relevant to how Plato and Aristotle address these issues, we will also consider relevant texts from the broader Greek intellectual world: medicine, drama, ethnography, and oratory. Finally, we will consider methodological issues, such as whether it is meaningful to talk about “race” in Greek antiquity, how it might differ from “ethnicity”, and how classicists, historians, and philosophers interested in this study can be misled by their own prejudices. (A) (III)

An examination of ancient Greek philosophical texts that are foundational for Western philosophy, especially the work of Plato and Aristotle. Topics will include: the nature and possibility of knowledge and its role in human life; the nature of the soul; virtue; happiness and the human good.

This introduction to Marx’s thought will divide into three parts: in the first, we will consider Marx‘s theory of history; in the second, his account of capitalism; and in third, his conception of the state. (A)

This will be a discussion-centered seminar that facilitates close readings some of Kierkegaard texts:

The Present Age, Fear and Trembling, Sickness Unto Death, and The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air. Topics to be considered will include: living in clichés and self-satisfaction, despair, absolute requirements, the demands of ethical life, and becoming a human being. We shall also consider Kierkegaard's forms of writing and manners of persuasion. Students will be expected to write comments each week and to read the comments of others. Our reading each week will be determined by the pace of the group. (IV)                                 

This course is designed to provide MAPH students – especially those interested in pursuing a Ph.D. in Philosophy – with an introduction to some recent debates between philosophers working in the analytic tradition. The course is, however, neither a history of analytic philosophy nor an overview of the discipline as it currently stands. The point of the course is primarily to introduce the distinctive style and method – or styles and methods – of philosophizing in the analytic tradition, through brief explorations of some currently hotly debated topics in the field.

In this course, we will read, write, think, and talk about moral philosophy, focusing on Immanuel Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and work by John Stuart Mill. We will work through our texts with care. Neo-Kantianism is a prominent contemporary form of moral theory. We will use Kant to develop a critique of neo-Kantianism as we go along. We will look at influential criticisms of utilitarianism in the concluding weeks of the term, and we will need to ask ourselves whether either of them applies to the version of utilitarianism developed by John Stuart Mill. (A)

Most of us seek to be reasonably good people leading what we take to be successful and satisfying lives. There is a mountain of evidence suggesting that most of us fail to live up to our own standards. Worse, we often fail to mark our own failures in ways that could help us improve ourselves. The context in which we try to live good lives is shaped by the vicissitudes of the global economy. The global economy is obviously of interest to those of us studying economics or planning on careers in business. Aspiring entrepreneurs or corporate leaders have clear stakes in understanding practical wisdom in the economic sphere. But anyone who relies upon her pay - or someone else's - to cover her living expenses has some interest in economic life.

In this course, we will bring work in neo-Aristotelian ethics and neo-classical economics into conversation with empirical work from behavioral economics and behavioral ethics, to read, write, talk, and think about cultivating wisdom in our economic dealings. While our focus will be on business, the kinds of problems we will consider, and the ways of addressing these, occur in ordinary life more generally - at home, in academic settings, and in our efforts to participate in the daily production and reproduction of sound modes of social interaction. (A)

Neo-Aristotelianism marks philosophical views indebted to Aristotle.  In practical philosophy—ethics, political philosophy, accounts of practical reason, and so on—these views are distantly indebted to Aristotle’s views in metaphysics.  The 4 crucial aspects of Aristotle’s metaphysics, for our purposes are: 

I. His understanding of substances 

II. His understanding of causality 

III. His understanding of form and matter, and, relatedly,  

IV. His understanding of powers/ potentialities, and actuality  

Substances are unified, individual objects of a specific kind that can have accidental features like color and location in addition to natures or essences.  The paradigmatic instances of substances for Aristotle are individual living things—plants, animals, and human beings being three examples.  These things—organisms—come in specific kinds—the geranium, for example, or the honey badger.  The kinds are the substantial forms of the living things that are instances of those kinds.  Organisms are composite things—their matter is informed.  And the matter in question only counts as matter relative to the form it can take.  Organisms have characteristic powers—sight, for instance, or nutrition, or discursive reason—and these powers are actualized when exercised.

Aristotle identifies the substantial forms of living things as different kinds of souls—living things are animate things.  The ‘anima’ in ‘animate’ holds the word for soul—or source of life—for Aristotle.  And Aristotle’s principal teaching on the substantial forms of living things is, accordingly, the book that goes by the title De Anima—of the soul.  We will begin by reading passages from this work alongside mainstream Anglophone practical philosophy.

We will focus on rational animals—human beings—in focusing our attention on what makes a human being an exemplary one of its kind—virtue—and what makes for a sound human community.  In this work, we will pay special attention to Aristotle’s writings on ethics and politics, again read alongside philosophical work that is openly indebted to Aristotle. (I)