Undergraduate

Global poverty is a human tragedy on a massive scale, and it poses one of the most daunting challenges to achieving a just global order. In recent decades, a significant number of philosophers have addressed this issue in new and profoundly important ways, overcoming the disciplinary limitations of narrowly economic or public policy oriented approaches. Recent theories of justice have provided both crucial conceptual clarifications of the very notion of ‘poverty’—including new measures that are more informed by the voices of the global poor and better able to cover the full impact of poverty on human capabilities and welfare—and vital new theoretical frameworks for considering freedom from poverty as a basic human right and/or a demand of justice, both nationally and internationally. Moreover, these philosophers have pointed to concrete, practical steps, at both the level of institutional design and the level of individual ethical/political action, for effectively combating poverty and moving the world closer to justice. The readings covered in this course, from such philosophers as Peter Singer, Thomas Pogge, David Graeber, and Martha Nussbaum, will reveal, not only the injustice of global poverty, but also what is to be done about it.

In this course, we will prove the soundness and completeness of standard deductive systems for both sentential and first-order logic. We will also establish related results in elementary model theory, such as the compactness theorem for first-order logic, the Lowenheim-Skolem theorem and Lindstrom’s theorem. (B) (II)

This course will attempt to give a general introduction to what is arguably Hegel's most exciting work. We will begin by spending some time discussing the overall project of the work, especially as articulated in the Preface and Introduction. After that, we will examine some of the most important sections of the work, such as "Sense-certainty" and "Lordship and Bondage" in more detail. (V)

An important genre of philosophical writing during the Middle Ages was the commentary, both commentaries on canonical philosophical works (e.g., Aristotle) and on Scripture. This course is an introduction to medieval philosophical exegesis of Scripture, concentrating on the Book of Job and the philosophical problems of evil and suffering. Authors will include Saadiah, Maimonides, and Aquinas, and readings will include both their commentaries on Job and their systematic philosophical discussions of the problems of evil. (IV)

How do distinctive elements in the Jewish tradition contribute to more general issues in the philosophy of religion?  We will approach this question through a study of three major twentieth-century Jewish thinkers:  Joseph Soloveitchik, Yeshayahu Leibowitz and Emmanuel Levinas.  Topics to be discussed include the role of practice in religion, the nature of faith, the relations between ethics and law and between religion and politics, prayer and divine service, the status of tradition and sacred texts.  Attention will be given both to debates within the Jewish tradition and to the framework of philosophical and theological issues that characterizes contemporary thought. The course will alternate between lectures and discussions. (I)

Our readings are in the works of J. L. Austin, mainly How to Do Things with Words, and essays related to those lectures. If time permits, we consider later developments in the works of Grice and Cavell, among others. (II) (B)

This course is a survey of recent theories of names, descriptions, and truth. We discuss the relation of reference to meaning, as well as the epistemological and metaphysical consequences drawn from theses about reference. After briefly reviewing classical sources (e.g., Frege, Russell, Tarski), we concentrate on current work by Searle, Kripke, Donnellan, Kaplan, Putnam, Evans, Davidson, and Burge. (II) (B)

Readings from Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Nietsche, and Collingwood among others. (A) (I)

This lecture-discussion course will trace the development of psychology from the early modern period through the establishment of behaviorism in the 20th century. In the early period, we will read Descartes and Berkeley, both of whom contributed to ideas about the psychology of perception. Then we will jump to the 19th century, especially examining the perceptual psychology in the laboratory of Wundt, and follow some threads of the development of cognitive psychology in the work of William James. The course will conclude with the behavioristic revolution inaugurated by Chicago's own John Watson and expanded by B. F. Skinner. (II)

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.