Spring

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.

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.

Bresson’s films are known for their minimal and highly original style, the avoidance of any reliance on theatrical conventions, the use of nonprofessional actors (“models,” he called them), unusual and “unnatural” editing techniques, distinctive pacing, and for its themes of grace, redemption, fate, moral severity, and several other philosophical and religious issues in the lives of the characters. This course will explore Bresson’s innovations as aiming at a new form of contemplative cinema, one in which style is a matter of a kind of poetic thinking (as understood by Martin Heidegger), a reflective interrogation of philosophical issues that for which traditional philosophy is inadequate. We shall watch and discuss his films: Les dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945); The Diary of a Country Priest (1951); A Man Escaped (1956); Pickpocket (1959); Au hazard Balthasar (1966); Mouchette (1967); Four Nights of a Dreamer (1971) and L’argent (1983). Readings will include, among others, Bresson’s Notes on the Cinematograph and Bresson on Bresson; Paul Schrader, The Transcendental Style in Film, selected essays about particular films, and selections from Heidegger.

Topic: Self and Other

In this course we consider three questions about other minds in relation to the self. First, we will try to understand the threat of solipsism--what does entertaining the thought of being the only minded being in existence amount to? How must one think of oneself and the kind of mind one has if there are no other minds? Second, we consider the question of how it is possible to have thought about other minds; or, what the difference is between thought about, for instance, inanimate objects, and thought about other human beings. What explains that our ability to distinguish these doesn't seem to be something learned? What does that tell us about the kind of mind we have? Third, we examine the basis for saying that others have certain beliefs, desires, and emotions. How do we go about making these psychological ascriptions to others? Are these attributions limited by our own experiences? How might one's understanding of others' attitudes contribute to one's self-conception? Through these three topics we will investigate what reflection on our understanding of other minds means for our understanding of ourselves.

Topic: The Representation of Thought

This course will serve both as an introduction to some traditional logical questions presented by statements about what people think, believe, or judge to be true (e.g. “Tom thinks the weather is fine for walking”, “Frege believed that numbers are objects”), and as a venue for thinking through and trying to answer those questions on our own. To that end we will closely read a small number of mostly classic texts, in three units. In the first unit we will examine the notion of intensionality—of certain sentential contexts, for our purposes especially the content-clauses of statements about belief—within which familiar logical laws appear to fail to preserve truth. The second unit will connect these traditional logical problems of intensionality with traditional philosophical-psychological problems of intentionality, through attention to Elizabeth Anscombe and Anthony Kenny’s attempts to address the problems of the first unit by use of the concepts intentional subject, intentional act/state, and intentional object. The third unit will introduce the need to represent the self-consciousness of a thinking, believing subject, and the logical rigors of doing so adequately, focusing on Hector-Neri Castañeda’s often-cited but rarely read ‘He’.

Topic: Reality and Truth: Plato and the Problem of Being

We will confront foundational questions about the nature of truth and reality through an intensive study of Plato’s Sophist. Questions about what is real are familiar to us. We wonder whether people are being fake with us, or whether God exists, or whether there is really such a ‘thing’ as justice. But there is also a prior and more fundamental question: What does it mean for something to be real? This is known in philosophy as ‘The Problem of Being.’ Plato’s Sophist is one of the Western philosophical tradition’s most searching attempts to answer this question. We will try to follow in Plato’s footsteps. Major themes of the course will include: reality vs. mere appearance; authenticity vs. pretending; truth and falsehood; and the difference between beings (entities, things) and their being. Readings will include works by John McDowell, Lesley Brown, and Martin Heidegger.

Topic: Through Film

Film has been and is perhaps our central artistic medium, influencing and reflecting the values of our time, while also exploring perennial aspects of the human condition. Movies then present powerful avenues through which to engage with our deepest and most enduring philosophical questions. This course serves as a general introduction to philosophy, using films to explore the practice of thinking philosophically, as well as the broad range of questions and themes with which philosophers have concerned themselves for over 3,000 years, such as: How can we be free if we are subject to the laws of nature? How can we know or perceive anything with certainty? What is a just political community? Can we ever determine the right answer to ethical dilemmas? To explore these questions, we will discuss a wide selection of films, from The Third Man to Office Space to Blade Runner; we will examine how philosophers themselves have engaged directly with those films; and we will study philosophical texts, both historical and contemporary, that address questions raised by those films. (A)