Spring

What is the object of mathematics? Where does mathematics derive its certainty from? Does it originate from the pure intellect or from empirical experience? Why is mathematics miraculously efficacious” in its application to nature? What is lost and gained in the development of mathematics and how does it shape our worldview? These have been central issues that philosophers since the Antiquity have occupied themselves with, and in many ways, they have shaped the trajectory of the history of philosophy. Philosophers’ answers to these questions have constantly evolved in light of the development of the mathematical sciences as well as the intellectual context of each generation. This course introduces classical texts and debates on the above-mentioned epistemological issues, including the writings of Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Helmholtz, Frege, Husserl, and beyond.

An examination of ancient Greek philosophical texts that are foundational for Western philosophy, especially the work of Plato and Aristotle. Topics will include: the nature and possibility of knowledge and its role in human life; the nature of the soul; virtue; happiness and the human good.

Topic: Autonomy and Liberation

This course explores and compares two determinations of the concept of freedom in the history of philosophy. In the first half of the course, we examine Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the German Idealists’ idea that to be free is to be autonomous, obeying only those laws that one has legislated for oneself. In the second half, we turn to the radical philosophies of anticapitalist Karl Marx and feminist Catharine MacKinnon. For Marx and MacKinnon, the central question of freedom is not autonomy but rather liberation: How can we transition from an unfree world to a free one? Philosophers from both halves of the course conceive of freedom as in some sense self-grounding. We will think deeply about what this means and thereby discover two potential challenges. (1) If all freedom and authority derives from autonomy, how can we make sense of autonomy itself? It seems it would need to create itself. (2) If liberation must come from ourselves, then it cannot depend on anything outside of the social world that already exists. But this means that the tools of liberation must come from the very systems that make us unfree. How is this possible? We will evaluate and compare these two challenges and see whether the philosophers can offer satisfying answers. 

Topic: A Life of One’s Own: Autonomy, Meaning and Selfhood

What does it mean to say that my life is my own, or that I am living my own life? The concept of autonomy bears directly on this issue: put very generally, if I am autonomous, I am the source of my reasons and actions. I am “my own person,” I live my life in a way that is up to me and is not distorted or manipulated by others. In this course, we will investigate what it means to be autonomous, as it bears on my ability to be “my own person” and to live “my own life.” Does the idea that my life, or my actions are my own, depend on my having a self? What does it mean for reasons and motives to be “my own”? How do I decide for myself how I should live? How should I understand the influence of others on who I am and what I decide to do? Do the demands of morality place inappropriate restrictions on my ability to decide how I should live? What, if anything, do I aim at in determining how I should live a life which is genuinely my own? We will begin by reading two accounts of agency and selfhood which explain human selves and human action interdependently, in terms of autonomy: a Humean account, by Harry Frankfurt, and a Kantian account, by Christine Korsgaard.  For both, the self is characterized structurally: what it is to be a self is for one’s beliefs, desires and intentions to be organized in a certain way. We will then explore issues that arise when we consider what it is to live one’s own life, including the nature and value of authenticity, the demandingness of morality, “selfishness” and self-effacement, and the pursuit of meaning in life. Finally, we will consider the psychoanalytic critique of morality, which will offer another perspective on these issues. Psychoanalysis emphasizes the ways in which who we are is not up to us, and that we must live with parts of ourselves we did not choose. What can psychoanalytic theory teach us about what it is to live one’s own life? Readings will be drawn from contemporary ethical theory, as well as psychoanalysis.

 
 

Is opera an archaic and exotic pageant for fanciers of overweight canaries, or a relevant art form of great subtlety and complexity that has the power to be revelatory? In this course of eight sessions, jointly taught by Professor Martha Nussbaum and Anthony Freud, General Director of Lyric Opera of Chicago, we explore the multi-disciplinary nature of this elusive and much-maligned art form, with its four hundred-year-old European roots, discussing both historic and philosophical contexts and the practicalities of interpretation and production in a very un-European, twenty-first century city.

Anchoring each session around a different opera, we will be joined by a variety of guest experts, one each week, including a director, a conductor, a designer and two singers, to enable us to explore different perspectives.

The list of operas to be discussed include Monteverdi's The Coronation of Poppaea, Mozart's Don Giovanni, Rossini’s La Cenerentola, Verdi's Don Carlos, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Wagner's Die Meistersinger, Strauss's Elektra, and Britten's Billy Budd. (A) (I)

This seminar will consist in a close reading of Aristotle’s great contribution to philosophical psychology, his De Anima, which we will read in conjunction with Sean Kelsey’s much-anticipated manuscript on the subject.  Themes will include the relation between mind and world, the natures of perception and thought, the distinctions between different kinds of minds, the definition of "life."  The seminar will take the form of a reading group, in which various graduate students and faculty members will participate.  Students taking the course for credit will be expected to submit a term paper.  Hours to be arranged. (IV)

 

Leo Strauss’s œuvre contains two discussions of the works of classical poets: An outstanding book on Aristophanes’ comedies (Socrates and Aristophanes, 1966), and a demanding essay on Lucretius’ poem (“Notes on Lucretius”, 1968). Socrates and Aristophanes I shall teach in the spring of 2022. In the spring of 2021, I shall present my interpretation of Strauss’s “Notes on Lucretius” and of Lucretius’ work itself − a most radical, non-teleological and non-anthropocentric view of nature. In a 1949 letter to E. Voegelin Strauss wrote about Lucretius: “His poem is the purest and most glorious expression of the attitude that elicits consolation from the absolutely hopeless truth for the only reason that it is the truth … The closest approximation in our world is the side of Nietzsche that is turned to science.” A special focus of the seminar will be on the poetic means Lucretius uses for teaching philosophy. Literature: Leo Strauss: “Notes on Lucretius,” in: Liberalism Ancient and Modern. New York 1968, pp. 76−139. Lucretius: De rerum natura / On the Nature of Things. Ed. Cyril Bailey, Oxford 1947. 

In this course, we will examine the psychological bases of knowledge and inquire into their wider epistemological significance. Our guiding aim is to understand
some of the ways in which our reliance on intuition, heuristics, and gut feelings shape our attitudes toward “fake news”—or deliberate misinformation and manipulation—in its many guises. Three questions will guide our investigation. First, how should insights about the rationality (or lack thereof) of gut feelings inform the way we think about fundamental issues in epistemology? We will consider, for example, justification, the nature of evidence, the reliability of testimony, and intellectual virtues and
vices. Second, might some of the reasoning biases that are typically deemed irrational be, at least in some contexts, rational? Third, insofar as our gut feelings do produce irrational behavior, what lessons should we draw about our own thinking and the ways in which we evaluate and engage in discourse? What normative principles might we adopt that both (a) give due place to our deep dependence upon gut feelings and (b) help mitigate their potentially pernicious effects? (B)