2017-2018

Topic: The School of Suspicion (instructor: J. Edwards)

Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud have been called the masters of "the school of suspicion." Each of these thinkers sought, in their own way, to bring us see that our conscious understanding of ourselves and society often conceals the social, moral, and/or psychological functions that are the real explanations of why we hold the beliefs and values that we do. Their works, therefore, aim to critique our conscious conceptions and unmask the underlying causes, as well as to explain how these beliefs and values are sustained, and who benefits from their being held. In this course, we will critically examine the most important of these critiques, beginning with the school's "masters": Marx's claim that religion, ethics, and legal thought are "ideological humbug" that arise from and sustain exploitative economic relations; Nietzsche's claim that contemporary morality is life-denying, and that it originates in a trick played on the strong by the weak some 2000 years ago; and Freud's claim that beneath our conscious awareness are repressed ideas and drives that nevertheless reappear in our lives in sometimes creative, but often tragic ways. We will then turn to the most prominent critiques by the greatest "students" of the school: Adorno & Horkheimer's claim that fascism, state capitalism, and mass culture are all forms of social domination enabled by an instrumental rationality that emerged out of the Enlightenment; and Foucault's revisionary account of the workings of power, as articulated in his studies of both discipline and sexuality.

Topic: Equality and Its Value (instructor: N. Lipshitz) The wealthiest 85 people on the planet have more money than the poorest 3.5 billion people combined; four hundred Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined; the average white American's median wealth is 20 times higher than the average African American's. Assuming these assertions to be correct, should we be bothered by them? What, if anything, is wrong with inequality? In this seminar, we will explore these questions with the help of contemporary analytic philosophers (and one Aristotle). 

Topic: Causation and Rationality (instructor: R. O'Connell) What is it for something to be the cause or effect of something else? And in what sense are we causes? In this course we shall tackle these questions simultaneously, with the aim of understanding how our conceptions of ourselves as minded, rational beings, on the one hand, and of causation on the other, influence and illuminate one another. Some of the questions we shall ask along the way are: What are causes and effects? What kinds of explanation are causal explanations? What, if anything, is the causal connection between people's reasons and their behavior? Does the kind of causality that pertains to human action differ in any fundamental way from other kinds of causation? If so, then how?

Topic: The School of Suspicion (instructor: J. Edwards)

Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud have been called the masters of "the school of suspicion." Each of these thinkers sought, in their own way, to bring us see that our conscious understanding of ourselves and society often conceals the social, moral, and/or psychological functions that are the real explanations of why we hold the beliefs and values that we do. Their works, therefore, aim to critique our conscious conceptions and unmask the underlying causes, as well as to explain how these beliefs and values are sustained, and who benefits from their being held. In this course, we will critically examine the most important of these critiques, beginning with the school's "masters": Marx's claim that religion, ethics, and legal thought are "ideological humbug" that arise from and sustain exploitative economic relations; Nietzsche's claim that contemporary morality is life-denying, and that it originates in a trick played on the strong by the weak some 2000 years ago; and Freud's claim that beneath our conscious awareness are repressed ideas and drives that nevertheless reappear in our lives in sometimes creative, but often tragic ways. We will then turn to the most prominent critiques by the greatest "students" of the school: Adorno & Horkheimer's claim that fascism, state capitalism, and mass culture are all forms of social domination enabled by an instrumental rationality that emerged out of the Enlightenment; and Foucault's revisionary account of the workings of power, as articulated in his studies of both discipline and sexuality.

Topic: Equality and Its Value (instructor: N. Lipshitz) The wealthiest 85 people on the planet have more money than the poorest 3.5 billion people combined; four hundred Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined; the average white American's median wealth is 20 times higher than the average African American's. Assuming these assertions to be correct, should we be bothered by them? What, if anything, is wrong with inequality? In this seminar, we will explore these questions with the help of contemporary analytic philosophers (and one Aristotle). 

Topic: Causation and Rationality (instructor: R. O'Connell) What is it for something to be the cause or effect of something else? And in what sense are we causes? In this course we shall tackle these questions simultaneously, with the aim of understanding how our conceptions of ourselves as minded, rational beings, on the one hand, and of causation on the other, influence and illuminate one another. Some of the questions we shall ask along the way are: What are causes and effects? What kinds of explanation are causal explanations? What, if anything, is the causal connection between people's reasons and their behavior? Does the kind of causality that pertains to human action differ in any fundamental way from other kinds of causation? If so, then how?

A survey of the thought of some of the most important figures of this period, including Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume.

In this course, we will read, write, and think about philosophical work meant to provide a systematic and foundational account of ethics. We will focus on close reading of two books, Immanuel Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, along with a handful of more recent essays. Throughout, our aim will be to engage in serious thought about good and bad in our lives. (A)

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

Spinoza's philosophy is classical in conception, in that it aims to show us how to live wisely. But his ethical interpretation of wisdom is shaped by a psychological account of human affect and a firm sense of the empowering role of politics. To live wisely we have to understand our affects and use them to create co-operative ways of life. At the same time, we have to take account of the ways in which our affects are shaped by political circumstances and ideals. This seminar will examine Spinoza's account of the shifting relations between these variables. Drawing on several of his writings (Ethics, Theologico-Political Treatise, Political Treatise, Correspondence) we shall examine his central conceptions of affect, imagination, understanding, power and politics. Our discussions will also address a sequence of questions. What constructive and destructive roles does imagination play in political life? How is social co-operation related to understanding? How far can Spinoza's conception of imagination help us to develop a compelling theory of ideology? Is politics, as Spinoza conceives it, fundamentally agonistic? What part does politics play in the blessed life envisioned at the end of the Ethics? What makes this way of life more empowering than any other?

What is imagination, and what functions does our power of imagination have in our lives? The seminar will approach these general questions via more specific ones such as the following. What are the relations between imagining, perceiving, remembering, and dreaming? Does our capacity for imagination play a role in enabling us to perceive? Does imagining something involve forming a mental image or picture of that thing? If not, how should we conceive of the objects of imagination? What is the nature of our engagement with what we imagine, and how does this engagement explain our ability to feel emotions such as fear, pity, and sympathy for imaginary beings? What is the role of imagination or fantasy in structuring our understanding of ourselves and our relations to other persons? Is there such a thing as the virtuous state of the power of imagination? Readings will be drawn from various classic discussions of imagination - e.g., Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Freud, Wittgenstein, Sartre - and from some contemporary sources. (III)

Plato and Aristotle both made extensive appeal to craft knowledge as a model for theorizing practical and political wisdom. In this seminar we will examine their conceptions of craft and its relation to wisdom. Readings will likely come from Plato's Ion, Gorgias, Republic, and Statesman and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Metaphysics. (IV)

The most philosophically explicit and rigorous of the British Utilitarians, Henry Sidgwick made important contributions to normative ethics, political philosophy, and metaethics. His work also has important implication for law. His great work The Methods of Ethics, which will be the primary focus of this seminar, has been greatly admired even by those who deeply disagree with it - for example John Rawls, for whom Sidgwick was important both as a source and as a foil, and Bernard Williams, who wrote about him with particular hostility. Sidgwick provides the best defense of Utilitarianism we have, allowing us to see what it really looks like as a normative ethical and social theory. Sidgwick was also a practical philosopher and activist, writing on many topics, but especially on women's higher education, which he did much to pioneer at Cambridge University, founding Newnham College with his wife Eleanor. A rationalist who helped to found the Society for Psychical Research, an ardent feminist who defended the ostracism of the "fallen woman," a closeted gay man who attempted to justify the proscriptions of Victorian morality, Sidgwick is a philosopher full of deep tensions and fascinating contradictions, which work their way into his arguments. So we will also read the work in the context of Sidgwick's contorted relationship with his era. An undergraduate major in philosophy or some equivalent solid philosophy preparation. (I) (IV)