2025-2026

A study of conceptions of the relation of the human intellect to reality in medieval and early modern Europe. Figures studied include Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Descartes, Elisabeth of the Palatinate, Conway, Locke, Leibniz, Hume, and Kant.

The notion of Human Rights has become one of the most prominent conceptions in modern political language – both as a widely popular normative standard and as the object of much criticism. In this course, we will explore some fundamental issues in the philosophical foundations of human rights alongside their implementation in international human rights law and their historical development, as well as some popular criticisms. This course will be of interest to interested in social, legal and political philosophy, international relations, as well as to students considering law school. (A)

Humanity faces a climate crisis. Its effects are already tangible, including a loss of biodiversity and wildlife, rising sea levels and the disappearance of traditional living space, the accumulation of extreme weather events, and increased migration due to growing hostility of previously agreeable and fertile natural environments. And this is nothing to speak of the potentially catastrophic effects of global heating yet to come. In this course, we will discuss both historically influential and recent works that can help us get a better understanding of the ethical challenges of our current situation. Our discussions will center around three thematic questions: What is our relation to nature? In what sense, if any, is climate change a matter of justice? And what are the right ethical ways of addressing our current environmental predicament? (A)

The philosophical ideas and methods of Immanuel Kant's “critical” philosophy set off a revolution that reverberated through 19th-century philosophy.  We will trace the effects of this revolution and the responses to it, focusing specifically on the influence of Kant’s contribution to moral philosophy and its lasting influence on discussions of ethics and political philosophy.  We will begin with a consideration of Kant's famous Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, in which he announces his project of grounding all ethical obligation in the very idea of a free will.  We will then consider Hegel's radicalization of this project in his Philosophy of Right, which seeks to derive from the idea of freedom, not just formal constraints on right action, but a determinate, positive conception of what Hegel calls "ethical life".  We will conclude with an examination of some important challenges to the Kantian/Hegelian project in ethical and political theory: Karl Marx’s re-interpretation of the idea of freedom in the economic sphere; Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill’s radicalizations of the ideas of political liberty and equality; and the appropriation and critique of the Enlightenment rhetoric of freedom by writers on racial oppression including Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. DuBois, and Angela Davis.

A study of the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant as presented in his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Critique of Practical Reason, Metaphysics of Morals, and Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. (A) (IV)

Epistemology is the study of belief, and addresses questions like “what are we justified in believing?” and “when does a belief count as knowledge?”  This course will provide an overview of Bayesian epistemology, which treats belief as coming in degrees, and addresses questions like “when does rationality require us to be more confident of one proposition than another?", “how should we measure the amount of confirmation that a piece of evidence provides for a theory?”, and “which actions should we choose, based on our judgments about how probable various consequences are?” (B) (II)

This course explores the Western philosophical tradition of reasoned reflection on religious belief. Our questions will include: what are the most important arguments for, and against, belief in God? How does religious belief relate to the deliverances of the sciences, in particular to evolutionary theory? How can we reconcile religious belief with the existence of evil? What is the relationship between religion and morality? In attempting to answer these questions we will read work by Plato, Augustine, Anselm, Nietszche, and Freud, as well as some recent texts. (B)

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.

The concept of beauty (kallos) figures prominently in Ancient Greek philosophy, a place where metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and poetics come together and through which philosophers think about the possibility of harmoniousness in our being-in-relation to others. In this seminar we will begin by reading some important passages from Plato’s dialogues (e.g., from Republic, Phaedrus, Symposium) before turning to two subsequent philosophers who were influenced by him, Aristotle and Plotinus. We will consider ideas about the relation of beauty to goodness and order, to appearance and intelligibility, and to the spectator’s reactions of wonder, pleasure, admiration, and sense of kinship. Inevitably we will spend a fair amount of time discussing their theories of poetry, but will also talk about the role of beauty in ethics and natural philosophy. (I)