2021-2022

This course will be an introduction to the philosophical movement known as “existentialism” as it developed in France in the mid-twentieth century. We will approach this movement by reading two of its greatest works, Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness (1943) and Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949). In the first part of the course, we will examine Sartre’s account of consciousness, freedom, anguish, and bad faith, as well as his conception of basic relations to other persons such as desire, shame, and love. We will then turn to the development and critique of existentialist ideas in Simone de Beauvoir’s classic work of philosophical feminism, focusing on her critical reflections on love, independence, and the conception of woman as Other.

Moral philosophers have approached their subject, the virtuous life, from different perspectives. More specifically, the ancients ask: What constitutes, and what kind of conduct advances, our happiness? while the moderns tend to ask: How is it right, or our duty, to act? The two perspectives may lead to very similar conceptions of what to do and what not to do. Nevertheless, not only as philosophers, but as agents, too, we seem to approach the project of living well quite differently, depending on whether we prefix it by should or would. – This course is to examine what is involved in the basically Aristotelian view that happiness is the central idea that ought to guide both ethical enquiry and moral orientation. What, then, do we mean by the word? What might happiness consist in – and how can we know this? Can it be attained in this life? Is good conduct conducive to it, or could it even consist in good conduct? Can the “quest for happiness” be a source of moral obligation? Does it not rather, at least occasionally, mean egoism and compete with the dictates of conscience? What do you ultimately mean to live for? – These and related questions will be discussed against the background of (chiefly contemporary) readings. (A) (I) (IV)

Emotions figure in many areas of the law, and many legal doctrines (from reasonable provocation in homicide to mercy in criminal sentencing) invite us to think about emotions and their relationship to reason.   In addition, some prominent theories of the limits of law make reference to emotions. (Thus Lord Devlin and, more recently, Leon Kass have argued that the disgust of the average member of society is a sufficient reason for rendering a practice illegal, even though it does no harm to others.  J. S. Mill and Herbert Hart argue against this view, but preserve a role for some emotions in the law.) Emotions, however, are all too rarely studied closely, with the result that both theory and doctrine are often confused.  

The first part of this course will study major theories of emotion, asking about the relationship between emotion and cognition, focusing on philosophical accounts, but also learning from anthropology, psychology, and psychoanalytic thought.  We will ask how far emotions embody cognitions, and of what type, and then we will ask whether there is reason to consider some or all emotions “irrational” in a normative sense. 

We then turn to the criminal law and select areas of constitutional law, asking how specific emotions figure in doctrine and theory: anger, fear, compassion, disgust, guilt, and shame. Legal areas considered will include self-defense, reasonable provocation, mercy, victim impact statements, sodomy laws, sexual harassment, shame-based punishments, equal protection, the role of constitutions in warding off fear, shame, and stigma.

Other topics will be included as time permits. (A) (I)

This seminar will introduce some of the central concepts of psychoanalysis: Mourning and Melancholia, Repetition and Remembering, Transference, Neurosis, the Unconscious, Identification, Psychodynamic, Eros, Envy, Gratitude, Splitting, Death. The central theme will be how these concepts shed light on human flourishing and the characteristic ways we fail to flourish. Readings from Plato, Aristotle, Freud, Loewald, Lacan, Melanie Klein, Betty Joseph, Hanna Segal and others.

Topic: The Nature of Law

Why should we think legal rules have any authority in the first place? And if so, what kind of practical authority do they have? In this course, we will cover the key debates in philosophy of law that have shaped the discipline since the second half of the 20th century. These debates center around the relation between positive law and morality and the authority of legal rules. We will read some of the most influential works contemporary legal theory, including work by H.L.A. Hart, Ronald Dworkin, Joseph Raz, Julie Dickson, John Finnis, Lon Fuller, Gustav Radbruch and Mark Murphy, as well as recent responses to their arguments. In considering the relation between law and morality, we will also consider such questions as: what is necessary for a social rule to be action-guiding? is it sensible to speak of several types of normativity? what is the nature of legal ‘validity’? and does the rule of law (or ‘legality’) have any intrinsic value? This course would be of interest to students who want a grasp of contemporary issues in philosophy of law as a background to advanced work in moral, social and political philosophy, as well as to students interested in graduate work in legal philosophy. The course will also provide helpful background knowledge to students considering law school.

The concept of a force is fundamental to post-Newtonian physics. But what is a force, and how did we come to think of natural phenomena in terms of forces? This course will investigate the philosophical development of the concept of force from its origins in early modern philosophy (Suarez, Leibniz) to its maturity in the philosophy and science of the 18th and 19th centuries (Kant, Newton, Hegel). In particular we will investigate Leibniz’s suggestion that “physical forces are nothing but the entelechies of the ancients,”—the idea that forces play the conceptual role of Aristotelian forms, in ancient and medieval physics. Central to our project will be the question of how the qualitative features of reality can be quantified.

Aristotle’s Metaphysics is one of the most difficult and rewarding texts in the philosophical tradition. It attempts to lay out the goals, methods, and primary results of a science Aristotle calls “first philosophy.” First philosophy is the study of beings just insofar as they are beings (as opposed to physics, which studies beings insofar as they come to be, pass away, or change), and if completed it would stand as the most fundamental and general science. Our aim will be to understand: if and how such a science is possible, what the principles of such a science are, what being is, which beings are primary, and what are the causes of being qua being. We will discuss the Metaphysics as a whole, but focus on A, Γ, Η, Ζ, Θ, and Λ. Our approach will be “forest,” rather than “tree” oriented, preferring in most cases a coherent overview to close reading.

 

G. E. M. Anscombe’s 1957 monograph, Intention, inaugurated the discipline known as the philosophy of action. We will study that work with occasional reference to the secondary literature. (A)

What is it to know how to do something? And how, if at all, is it different from knowing that something is the case? The now-familiar distinction between "knowing-how" and "knowing-that" was first discussed by Gilbert Ryle in his 1949 book, The Concept of Mind. Though it soon became a standard piece of philosophical equipment, the Rylean distinction has recently come under vigorous attack. As time permits the course will examine (i) Ryle's original treatment of the topic and its development by Kenny and others; (ii) the recent critical discussion of this; and (iii) some ancient and modern sources of the idea that there is a kind of productive power—exemplified by, say, the "art" of medicine, or the "craft" of carpentry—that is not, or not simply, a knowledge of facts, but that nevertheless deserves to be called knowledge. (A)

To what extent does “what we know” have to do with who we are? This advanced undergraduate seminar explores the field of “social epistemology” with a special emphasis on gender and race. We will examine classical models of knowledge in contrast to contemporary models of epistemic interdependence, focusing on how the production of knowledge is impacted by group social structures and what social practices must be in place to ensure that voices of the marginalized are heard and believed. Looking at examples from literature and our ordinary lives, we will investigate how race and gender intersect with these issues, especially on the topics of testimony, White ignorance, and epistemic injustice. Finally we will explore the possibility of an ethical epistemic future, asking how we can redress wrongdoing and construct communities of epistemic resistance and epistemic justice.