Graduate

In this course, we will examine the various ways in which the concepts and techniques of modern mathematical logic can be utilized to investigate the structure of knowledge. Many of the most well-known results of mathematical logic, such as the incompleteness theorems of Gödel and the Löwenheim-Skolem theorem, illustrate the fundamental limitations of formal systems of logic to fully capture the structure of the semantic models in which truth and validity are assessed. Some philosophers have argued that these results have profound epistemological implications, for instance, that they can be used to ground skeptical claims to the effect that there must be truths that logic and mathematics are powerless to prove. One of the aims of this course is to assess the legitimacy of these epistemological claims. In addition, we will explore the extent to which the central results of mathematical logic can be extended so as to apply to systems of inductive logic, and examine what forms of inductive skepticism may emerge as a result. We will, for example, discuss the epistemological implications of Putnam's diagonalization argument, which shows that, for any Bayesian theory of confirmation based on a definable prior, there must exist hypotheses which, if true, can never be confirmed. (B) (II)

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

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

It is often said in contemporary literature that the difference between different types of democracies, like democratic Republic and Constitutional Monarchy, is a superficial one compared to the true relevant divide of modernity between democratic societies and non-democratic societies. The problem with such a divide is that it entails the reduction of Modern Constitutional Monarchies to decorative regimes - in other words to a variety of Republic. 

The goal of our seminar is to go back to the French post-revolutionary period in order to examine what has been called the « British moment » of the French Intellectual History because of its quest for the foundation of a Liberal and Constitutional Monarchy in France. 

That period deals with the difficult intellectual challenge for French thinkers to overcome Absolutism in favor of Democracy without rejecting Monarchy as such. 

The « British moment » of the French Intellectual History represents then a transitional - and mostly forgotten -moment between the old regime and the contemporary French Republic. Such a particular moment of French History can be decomposed into three main sub-moments and opens three main intellectual, historical and philosophical sequences: 1789 and the debates about the role of the Monarch in the context of « Popular Sovereignty ». The important thinkers of that period we are going to read are J. Necker and Madame de Staël (and some of Rousseau). 

Then 1814, when after Napoleon’s fall France restored the Monarchy through the form of a Constitutional Monarchy. France’s intellectual life will be divided between Conservative Monarchists like Bonald and Chateaubriand and Liberal Monarchists like Benjamin Constant and Alexis de Tocqueville whose thoughts are going to prepare the advent of the Liberal period of French Monarchy after 1830’s Revolution. The goal of our careful readings of Rousseau, Necker, Staël, Bonald Chateaubriand, Constant, Tocqueville and others will be to make sense of what became in current debates about democracy mostly incomprehensible: in which way the nature of the democratic regime makes a difference to the concept of democracy one speaks about.

In the preface to the first edition of Capital, Marx describes his theoretical standpoint as one from which “the development of the economic formation of society is viewed as a process of natural history.” With a view to understanding Marx’s theoretical standpoint we will “go back,” in Marx’s words, “to the great investigator who was the first to analyze the value-form, like so many other forms of thought, society and nature. I mean Aristotle.” Aristotle’s influence on Marx is well-known and frequently attested by Marx himself. We will explore that influence as it manifests itself in Marx’s views on a variety of topics—e.g. on human nature and history; on labor, leisure and the good life; on slavery and freedom; on value and exchange; on property and wealth; on justice; and on alienation.

This course is an introduction to the philosophy of aesthetics, with a focus on art and art objects. With respect to art, our questions will include: What is art? What is the point of making art? What is it to appreciate art? (Does discursive knowledge (of the technique, the history of the painting or its subjects, the artist’s life, etc.) help or hinder this appreciation?) What is the metaphysical character of art objects (symphonies, paintings, novels, etc.)? What is the ethical status of art? (Were Plato’s ethical suspicions about art warranted?) With respect to aesthetics more generally, our questions will include: is beauty in the eye of the beholder? (What is it for something to be in the eye of the beholder?) Does beauty track (or even constitute) scientific truth? If so: why? If not, why have so many mathematicians, physicists, and biologists been preoccupied with the beauty of their theories?

A close reading of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. Topics include: meaning, explanation, understanding, inference, sensation, imagination, intentionality, and the nature of philosophy. Supplementary readings will be drawn from other later writings. (III)