PHIL

PHIL 49702 Paper Revision and Publication Workshop

Preparing papers to submit to journals for review and revising papers in response to the feedback received from journal editors and referees is an essential part of professional academic life, and students applying for academic positions with no publications to their name are at a disadvantage in today’s highly competitive job market. The Department of Philosophy has therefore instituted the Paper Revision and Publication Workshop to provide our graduate students with support and assistance to prepare papers to submit for publication in academic philosophy journals. The workshop was designed with the following three aims in mind:

1. to provide students with a basic understanding of the various steps involved in publishing in academic journals and to create a forum in which students can solicit concrete advice from faculty members about the publishing process;

2. to direct and actively encourage students to submit at least one paper to a journal for review on a timeline that would allow accepted submissions to be listed as publications on a student’s CV by the time they go on the academic job market; and

3. to create and foster a departmental culture in which the continued revision of work with the ultimate aim of publication in academic journals is viewed as an essential aspect of the professional training of our graduate students and in which both faculty and students work together to establish more ambitious norms for publishing while in graduate school.

 

PhD students in Years 2-6, with approval by the DGS.

2023-2024 Spring

PHIL 20012/30012 Accelerated Introduction to Logic

This course provides an introduction to logic for students of philosophy. It is aimed at students who possess more mathematical training than can be expected of typical philosophy majors, but who wish to study logic not just as a branch of mathematics but as a method for philosophical analysis. (II)

While no specific mathematical knowledge will be presupposed, some familiarity with the methods of mathematical reasoning and some prior practice writing prose that is precise enough to support mathematical proof will be useful.

Students may count either PHIL 20012 or PHIL 20100, but not both, toward the credits required for graduation.

2023-2024 Autumn
Category
Logic

PHIL 23028 The Philosophy of Human-Animal Relationships

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)

2023-2024 Winter

PHIL 55301 Plato’s Parmenides

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)

Some familiarity with Plato’s dialogues is expected.

2023-2024 Spring

PHIL 29913/39913 Ancient Greek Philosophy of Race and Ethnicity

(CRES 22913, RDIN 29913, RDIN 39913)

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)

Some familiarity with ancient Greek philosophy is expected.

2023-2024 Winter
Category
Ancient Philosophy
Philosophy of Race

PHIL 25000 History of Philosophy I: Ancient Philosophy

(CLCV 22700)

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.

Completion of the general education requirement in humanities.

2023-2024 Autumn
Category
Ancient Philosophy

PHIL 21423 Introduction to Marx

(FNDL 21805)

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)

2023-2024 Autumn

PHIL 27523/37523 Reading Kierkegaard

(FNDL 27523, SCTH 27523, SCTH 37523)

This will be a discussion-centered seminar that facilitates close readings two texts: Philosophical Fragments and Concluding Unscientific Postscript.  Each of these texts is officially by the pseudonymous author Johannes Climacus.  But the author of that author is Soren Kierkegaard.  Topics to be considered will include: What is subjectivity?  What is objectivity?  What is irony?  What is humor?  What is the difference between the ethical and the religious?  What is it to become and be a human being?  We shall also consider Kierkegaard’s form of writing and manner of persuasion. In particular, why does he think he needs a pseudonymous author? (IV)                                 

 

 

 

This course is intended for undergraduate majors in Philosophy and Fundamentals and graduate students in Social Thought and Philosophy. Permission of instructor required.

2023-2024 Winter

PHIL 31414 MAPH Core Course: Contemporary Analytic Philosophy

(MAPH 31414)

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.

This course is open only to MAPH students. MAPH students who wish to apply to Ph.D. programs in Philosophy are strongly urged to take this course.

2023-2024 Autumn

PHIL 21000 Introduction to Ethics

(HIPS 21000, FNDL 23107)

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)

 

2023-2024 Spring
Category
Ethics
Ethics/Metaethics
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