2015-2016

In this course we address one of the central and most fascinating philosophical questions about linguistic meaning: what is the relationship between meaning and reference? We will study a range of classical and contemporary theories about the semantics of referring expressions such as proper names, definite descriptions, and indexicals. Readings will include Frege, Russell, Strawson, Kripke, Donnellan, and Kaplan, among others. Throughout, we will try to reach of a better understanding of how questions about meaning and reference connect with a range of topics that are central to philosophical theorizing, including the connection between propositional attitudes and the explanation of action, the role of the principle of compositionality in formal semantics, the question of whether there is a level of mental experience that is epistemically transparent, the relation between thought and language, the nature of fictional and non-existent objects, and the interaction between semantics and pragmatics. (B)

This course involves a study of the development of philosophy in the West in the first thirteen centuries of the common era with focus on Neoplatonism. Early Christian philosophical, Islamic Kalam, Jewish philosophy, and Christian philosophical theology. Readings include works of Plotinus, Augustine, Al-Farabi, Avicenna, Maimonides, Averroes, and Thomas Aquinas. (IV)

Is capitalism justified on the grounds of natural liberty? Is the legitimate exercise of political power limited by our pre-political rights, especially our property rights? Indeed, is the sole function of a just government to safeguard such rights? We will work towards answers to these questions by evaluating the tradition in political philosophy that has tended to answer them in the affirmative—Libertarianism. We will begin with John Locke, the father of this tradition, devoting several weeks to a close reading of his Second Treatise of Government. We will attend to both his method and his substantive political conclusions. We will consider his distinctive use of a social contract thought experiment involving a moralized conception of practical reason, as well as his defense of private property and limited government. We will then consider the works of contemporary Libertarians such as Robert Nozick and Michael Otsuka who take inspiration from Locke’s method but diverge sharply from one another in their political conclusions. Finally, we will consider contemporary critics of the entire tradition, such as G.A. Cohen, and consider the merits of alternative approaches within the social contract tradition. (A) (I)

What is action? What is it to act? In this introduction to the philosophy of action, we will read classic 20th Century treatments of the subject by Gilbert Ryle, Elizabeth Anscombe and Donald Davidson, as well as more recent work by Jennifer Hornsby, Michael Thompson and others. (I) (A)

This lecture-discussion course will trace different theories of explanation in history from the nineteenth century to the present.  We will examine the ideas of Humboldt, Ranke,Dilthey, Collingwood, Braudel, Hempel, Danto, and White.  The considerations will encompass such topics as the nature of the past such that one can explain its features, the role of laws in historical explanation, the use of Verstehen history as a science, the character of narrative explanation,the structure of historical versus other kinds of explanation, and the function of the footnote. (II) (V)

In this course we will read, write, and think about Kant's ethics. After giving careful attention to the arguments in the Second Critique, portions of the Third Critique, the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, the Metaphysics of Morals, and several other primary texts, we will conclude by working through some contemporary neo-Kantian moral philosophy, paying close attention to work by Christine Korsgaard, David Velleman, Stephen Engstrom, and others. (I) (A)

Students writing senior essays register once for PHIL 29901, in either the Autumn or Winter Quarter, and once for PHIL 29902, in either the Winter or Spring Quarter. (Students may not register for both PHIL 29901 and 29902 in the same quarter.) The senior seminar meets all three quarters, and students writing essays are required to attend throughout.

Students writing senior essays register once for PHIL 29901, in either the Autumn or Winter Quarter, and once for PHIL 29902, in either the Winter or Spring Quarter. (Students may not register for both PHIL 29901 and 29902 in the same quarter.) The senior seminar meets all three quarters, and students writing essays are required to attend throughout.

Topic: What is Moral Skepticism? (Instructor: C. Kirwin)

Philosophical investigations of morality and ethics are often haunted by the shadowy figure of the ‘moral skeptic’. Who is this person, and what does he want from us? In fact, there seem to be many different kinds of ‘moral skeptic’, and a clear and comprehensive account of the various different forms of skeptical challenge does not yet exist. In this course, we’ll investigate a number of different doubts about and challenges to morality and ethics. We shall read texts from Plato and Nietzsche, as well as more recent authors such as Susan Wolf and Bernard Williams, to helps us consider the classical skeptical question – why should I be moral? We shall then turn to a more recent incarnation of skepticism, in the form of meta-ethical debates concerning whether or not there are such things as moral facts or properties in the first place, and if so, whether they are independent of our minds. In analyzing all of these texts, we will have in mind three philosophical goals: 1. We shall be attempting to develop a sort of taxonomy of moral skepticisms: we shall try to determine how many different sorts of challenges are being raised, and whether some collapse into others (or perhaps into incoherence). 2. We shall be assessing the relative significance of the different sorts of skeptical challenge: which skeptics pose threats that a moral theory must be able to answer if it is to be successful? Are there any skeptics that we need not answer? Does the internal incoherence of a particular skeptical ‘position’ mean that we can ignore it, or do we still have philosophical work to do in responding to the challenge? 3. We shall try to develop a picture of what sort of answer might be appropriate for each of our various kinds of skeptic. Would it help, for example, to be able to show that morality is in my own interest? Or could we see off certain skeptics by showing morality to be grounded in my autonomy? Should we instead reject the underlying assumptions that lead skeptics to their doubts in the first place? Or is the skeptic really in need of a kind of therapy, rather than philosophical engagement? At the end of the course, we may not yet be able to answer the moral skeptics that trouble us most, but we should at least have a clearer idea of the nature of the challenge we face, and of where we might look to start constructing such an answer.

Topic: Self Knowledge and Knowledge of Others (instructor: R. O'Connell) Philosophers have long been concerned with understanding the nature of - and even expanding the reach of - self-knowledge. What is it to know oneself, or to be self-conscious? What is the value of self-knowledge? Equally important, though, is the nature of our knowledge of others. To what extent can I know another’s mind? What kind of impingements does another person’s thought make upon my own? In this course we shall investigate the relation between these two kinds of knowledge. We shall attempt to unfold of both (i) their inter-dependence, and (ii) their source in a common ‘principle’: rational self-consciousness. To this end we will be confronting such topics as first person authority, the problem of other minds, individual self-consciousness, second-person thought, the social nature of thought and language. We shall draw both on contemporary work as well as readings from the tradition.

Topic: Kant and Existentialism (Instructor: F. Russell) In this course we will first analyze Kant’s conception of autonomy and then will see how this concept was taken up and transformed by two key philosophers in the existentialist tradition (Nietzsche and de Beauvoir).  Kant thought that the only thing that is good without qualification is the good will, and that the good will is the free or autonomous will: the will that gives itself its own laws.  Though many existentialist philosophers claimed to reject Kant’s moral philosophy, in many ways they can be read as developing and radicalizing some version of his idea of autonomy.  In this course we will read Kant, Nietzsche, and de Beauvoir, in order to grapple with the following questions: how should we understand ‘autonomy’ and what is its value?  Just how free is the will, and how radical is this freedom?  What, if anything, should constrain my freedom and/or my conception of right and wrong?  What role do material conditions or relations with other people play in either constraining or conditioning this freedom?  The aim of the course is a) to foster an understanding of Kant’s practical philosophy, and in particular his concept of autonomy; b) to understand how the idea of autonomy is taken up and transformed in existentialist philosophy; and c) to examine what kind of ethics an “ethics of autonomy” can provide.