PHIL

This course will be an introduction to the history of analytic philosophy from its beginnings in the development of modern logic, and the realist reactions to British idealism, through philosophies of logical and metaphysical analysis, to logical positivism and ordinary language philosophy. We will read “canonical figures but also more neglected authors who helped to shape the tradition. Figures to be discussed will include Gottlob Frege, F H Bradley, G E Moore, Bertand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein (early and late), Susan Stebbing, Moritz Schlick, Rudolf Carnap, Margaret MacDonald, and Gilbert Ryle. Readings will be from primary sources. (B) (IV)

Traditionally, epistemologists have concerned themselves with the individual: What should I believe? What am I in a position to know? How should my beliefs guide my decision-making? But we can also ask each of these questions about groups. What should we -- the jury, the committee, the scientific community--believe? What can we know? How should our beliefs guide our decision-making? These are some of the questions of social epistemology Social epistemology also deals with the social dimensions of individual opinion:  How should I respond to disagreement with my peers? When should I defer to majority opinion? Are there distinctively epistemic forms of oppression and injustice?  If so, what are they like and how might we try to combat them? This class is a broad introduction to social epistemology. (B) (II) 

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.

Course begins in late Spring quarter and continues in the Autumn quarter.

Course begins in late Spring quarter and continues in the Autumn quarter.

This is a workshop for 3rd year philosophy graduate students, in which students prepare and workshop materials for their Topical Exam.

This is a workshop for 3rd year philosophy graduate students, in which students prepare and workshop materials for their Topical Exam.

This course provides a first introduction to formal logic. In this course, we will introduce proof systems for both propositional and first-order predicate logic and prove their soundness and completeness. (B) (II)

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.

This course will provide a rapid-fire survey of the philosophical sources of contemporary literary and critical theory.  We will begin with a brief discussion of the sort of humanism at issue in the critique—accounts of human life and thought that treat the individual human being as the primary unit for work in the humanities and the humanistic social sciences.  This kind of humanism is at the core of contemporary common sense.  It is, to that extent, indispensable in our understanding of how to move around in the world and get along with one another.  That is why we will conduct critique, rather than plain criticism, in this course: in critique, one remains indebted to the system under critical scrutiny, even while working to understand its failings and limitations.  Our tour of thought produced in the service of critique will involve work by Hegel, Marx, Gramsci, Freud, Fanon, Lacan, and Althusser. We will conclude with a couple of pieces of recent work that draws from these sources.  The aim of the course is to provide students with an opportunity to engage with some extraordinarily influential work that continues to inform humanistic inquiry. (A)