PHIL

In this course we will devote roughly equal time to these profoundly influential, appealing, and often dueling, philosophical schools.  Our focus will be on their theories of nature, and especially of human nature; their views of pleasure, fear, and their role in human life; their accounts of virtue and of friendship; and, above all, their arguments for their differing conceptions of the human good: pleasure (according to the Epicureans) or “living in agreement with nature” (according to the Stoics).  Readings will include selections from Epicurus, Lucretius, Cicero, and Epictetus. (A)

In this seminar we will examine the concept of mimesis as a way of thinking about poetry and the arts and also as a way of thinking about human life more generally.  Our focus will be Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Poetics, though we will consider relevant passages from other dialogues and treatises.  What should we make of the fact that Socrates figures both the unjust person and the philosopher-ruler as a mimetic artist? In what way is his critique of mimesis ontological, psychological, and political?  Are there differing explanations of the influence of mimetic speech, sound, and sights? Why do Plato and Aristotle believe that poetic mimesis is a necessary element of moral education?  How does Aristotle’s different, more dynamic account of poetic mimesis reflect a different understanding of the nature poetry and its place in human life?  If time permits, we will briefly consider Epictetus’s idea that we should think of ourselves as actors playing a role in the cosmic drama. (IV)

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 course investigates the philosophical views of one of the most prominent philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century, Donald Davidson.  We will focus on his later work, which is not so widely discussed as his earlier work, and which revolves around the articulation and defence of his triangulation argument, an argument that purports to shed light on the nature and possibility of language and thought.  We will discuss and assess the plausibility of various interpretations of the argument, exploring its implications for how we conceive of the relationship between mind and world.  Readings will include papers by Davidson and responses by his critics. (B) (III)

The philosophical ideas and methods of Immanuel Kant's “critical” philosophy set off a revolution that reverberated through 19th-century philosophy. We will trace its effects and the responses to it, focusing on the changing conception of philosophical ethics. Kant's famous Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals rejects any appeal to nature or religious authority grounding all ethical obligations in the very idea of freedom or autonomy conceived as something that is for everyone. At the same time, Kant’s own work and much of the tradition that follows seems deeply shaped by racism, sexism, and elitism. We will investigate this tension in the tradition that led inter alia to the modern university. We will discuss works by Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, Frederick Douglass, G.W.F. Hegel, Harriet Taylor Mill, Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, and W.E.B. Du Bois.

Our goal in this course will be to read through and understand the most important chapters of Hegel’s revolutionary book. Main topics will include Hegel’s new conception of philosophy and philosophical methodology, his agreements and disagreements with Kant, the nature of self-consciousness and human mindedness in general, individuality and sociality, and the relation between philosophy and history. (V)

The essence of freedom, Heidegger claims, is originally not connected with the will or even with the causality of human willing.  Human freedom, therefore, cannot be construed as autonomy. We shall read Heidegger’s seminar “The Essence of Human Freedom” and his essay “On the Essence of Ground” in which these ideas are developed.