PHIL

Is the world really as it appears to be in everyday experience, or is the world of everyday experience really a world of mere appearances, radically unlike the reality that lies behind it?  This is arguably the most fundamental philosophical question that one can ask, and it has occupied a central place in perhaps every philosophical tradition that has arisen across the globe.  In this class, we will consider how this question arises across two distinct philosophical traditions—Classical and Modern European Philosophy, on the one hand, and Classical Indian philosophy, on the other—seeking to compare and contrast the different philosophical impulses, approaches, and answers to this question across these traditions.  Historical readings will be from key figures in the different philosophical cannons, such Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, and Kant in Europe, and Vasubandu, Dharmakīrti, Nāgārjuna, Candrakīrti, and Śaṅkara in India.  Historical readings will be supplemented by works by contemporary philosophers. (B)

An introduction to the concepts and principles of symbolic logic. We learn the syntax and semantics of truth-functional and first-order quantificational logic, and apply the resultant conceptual framework to the analysis of valid and invalid arguments, the structure of formal languages, and logical relations among sentences of ordinary discourse. Occasionally we will venture into topics in philosophy of language and philosophical logic, but our primary focus is on acquiring a facility with symbolic logic as such.

An introduction to the concepts and principles of symbolic logic. We learn the syntax and semantics of truth-functional and first-order quantificational logic, and apply the resultant conceptual framework to the analysis of valid and invalid arguments, the structure of formal languages, and logical relations among sentences of ordinary discourse. Occasionally we will venture into topics in philosophy of language and philosophical logic, but our primary focus is on acquiring a facility with symbolic logic as such.

Aristotle’s Politics argues for and then elaborates the claim that human beings are by nature political animals.  This claim, if it is true, has profound implications not only for our understanding of politics (e.g., of political authority), but also for our self-understanding as the individual human beings we are.  We will read the text closely, giving particular attention to Aristotle’s views about what a specifically political community is, how it relates to other kinds of community, and how the political nature of human beings inflects the virtues and happiness of individuals and societies.  We will try to decide whether and to what extent the Politics is illuminating, including whether it can be disentangled from his commitment to natural slavery and the subordination of women. (III)

This course is a survey of recent work in feminist political philosophy. We’ll focus on three interrelated themes: objectification; the relation of gender oppression to the economic structure of society; and the problem of “intersectionality,” that is, the problem of how to construct adequate theories of gender injustice given that gender “intersects” with other axes of oppression, e.g. race and class. Authors we’ll read include: Martha Nussbaum, Sandra Bartky, Angela Davis, Iris Marion Young, Nancy Fraser, Patricia Hill Collins, bell hooks, and Serene Khader. (A)

This course focuses on reparations for racialized slavery in the United States. As we’ll see, the debate over reparations raises a number of complex philosophical questions: what does it mean today to atone for hundreds of years of slavery, given that those who were enslaved, and those who enslaved other human beings, are now dead? Who today has an obligation to atone for it? What are they obligated to do? And, perhaps most importantly, who should have the authority to decide what successful atonement or reparation would look like? These questions arguably cannot be answered decisively without a precise accounting for the wrongs intrinsic to the institution of slavery, on the one hand, and an analysis of post-slavery racial oppression, on the other. Some of the authors we’ll read include: Bernard Boxill, Angela Davis, Fredrick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, C.L.R. James, Charles Mills, Robert Nozick and Jeremy Waldron. (A)

This course will be an introductory survey of the philosophical and mathematical foundations of intuitionistic logic, perhaps the most serious rival to classical logic. We will pay attention to its philosophical motivations, especially by examining some of the more philosophical works of Brouwer. The course will also involve a mathematically rigorous presentation of the metatheory of intuitionistic logic, using forcing and Kripke frames. (B) (II)

This course is an introduction to some traditional philosophical problems about space and time. The course will begin with a discussion of Zeno’s paradoxes. We will then look at the debate between Newton and Leibniz concerning the ontological status of space and time, and will examine reactions to this debate by physicists such as Mach. We will then go on to discuss the question of what sense is to be made of the claim that space is curved, looking at the work of Einstein. Students will be introduced to the basics of the special and general theories of relativity at a qualitative level. If time permits, we will also look at questions about the multiverse, and/or Boltzmann’s conception of the arrow of time. (B) (II)

Cognitive science, and much allied work in metaphysics and epistemology, adopts a ‘naturalistic’ orientation to the mind: they treat thought, perception, reasoning, intentional agency, and so on as phenomena tractable to natural-scientific explanation. On the other hand, some of the deepest ideas that emerged from 20th century philosophy stand in apparent opposition to this orientation. In various way, they suggest that a ‘naturalism’ of the mind does not make sense. In this seminar we will do our best to understand and adjudicate this dispute. (II)
 

What is the relationship between physical processes in the brain and body and the processes of thought and consciousness that constitute our mental life? Philosophers and others have puzzled over this question for millennia. Many have concluded it to be intractable. In recent decades, the field of cognitive science--encompassing philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, computer science, linguistics, and other disciplines--has proposed a new form of answer. The driving idea is that the interaction of the mental and the physical may be understood via a third level of analysis: that of the computational. This course offers a critical introduction to the elements of this approach, and surveys some of the alternative models and theories that fall within it. Readings are drawn from a range of historical and contemporary sources in philosophy, psychology, linguistics, and computer science. (B) (II)