PHIL

In the Physics, Aristotle lays out the basic concepts and principles governing his thought about physical reality.  His approach is both philosophically sophisticated and quite different from that of modern science.  We will work through substantial selections, especially from Books I-IV and Book VIII, with the help of Aquinas’s expositions, which make them more digestible without diluting them.  Topics to be treated include the principles of change, matter and form, the concept of nature, causality, teleology, motion, the infinite, place, time, the duration of the physical world, and the primary mover. (B)

We will study this work in its entirety, chiefly from a philosophical point of view.  The more popular, more autobiographical Books (I-IX) already offer a good deal of philosophical material; themes treated include the will, friendship, good and evil, knowledge, truth, incorporeal reality, and divine providence.  Then come the more impersonal Books (X-XIII), which present extended and sometimes impassioned inquiries into the natures of memory, time, eternity, and creation.  Latin would be helpful, but it is not required. (A)

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

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

Students writing senior essays register once for PHIL 29901, in the Autumn Quarter, and once for PHIL 29902, in the Winter Quarter. The Senior Seminar meets for two quarters, and students writing essays are required to attend throughout.

Students writing senior essays register once for PHIL 29901, in the Autumn Quarter, and once for PHIL 29902, in the Winter Quarter. The Senior Seminar meets for two quarters, and students writing essays are required to attend throughout.

This will be a course on Plato's Gorgias. (IV)

The course will have three foci in Wittgenstein’s later writings: (1) Philosophical Investigations’ famous remarks on rule-following—at least insofar as they bear upon a kind (or kinds) of skepticism concerning semantically contentful language; (2) discussions that bear upon a related kind (or kinds) of skepticism concerning psychologically contentful expression that appear shortly thereafter in Philosophical Investigations; and (3) remarks about belief, doubt, and (what might be called) quasi-logical propositions that run through On Certainty. A thought that we’ll have to grapple with, and keep returning to, is nicely articulated in this sentence from On Certainty: “The difficulty is to realize the groundlessness of our believing” (§166). (II)

In one of his most widely read pieces of writing—the chapter of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding called “Of Identity and Diversity”—John Locke writes: “[S]ince consciousness always accompanies thinking, and ‘tis that, that makes every one to be, what he calls self; and thereby distinguishes himself from all other thinking things, in this alone consists personal Identity, i.e. the sameness of rational Being: And as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past Action or Thought, so far reaches the Identity of that Person…”  Locke’s theory of personal identity has puzzled, annoyed, and inspired readers since it was published in the second edition of his Essay, in 1694. The main aim of this course will be to arrive at a reading of it that (1) situates it in the context of earlier philosophers’ writings about selves and souls, (2) is informed by an understanding of Locke’s own views concerning consciousness and memory, among other things, and (3) carefully considers objections that later writers—most famously Butler and Reid—made to Locke’s theory. In this endeavor, we’ll be aided by two excellent recent books: Udo Theil’s The Early Modern Subject (2011) and Galen Strawson’s Locke on Personal Identity (2011). Along the way, we’ll devote some time to considering one or two recent neo-Lockean accounts of personal identity. (B)

This course meets in Autumn and Winter quarters.