Spring

The question what to do is commonly said to articulate the fundamental concern of the practical intellect. But when it comes time to explain what it means, philosophers often substitute, for the original question, various other questions. Substitutes include, “What should I (or one) do?,” “What would it be good (or right) to do?,” “What is there most (or sufficient) reason to do?,” and “What is the best (or an adequate) option?” In this advanced research seminar, we will approach a range of foundational topics in practical philosophy—e.g., intention, action, agency, practical reason and normativity—by considering the question what to do in its natural habitat, an arbitrary moment of an ordinary day. Readings will include contemporary literature and a manuscript by the instructor. (I)

In this course we will explore some of the central questions in epistemology and metaphysics. In epistemology, these questions will include: What is knowledge? What facts or states justify a belief? How can the threat of skepticism be adequately answered? How do we know what we (seem to) know about mathematics and morality? In metaphysics, these questions will include: What is time? What is the best account of personal identity across time? Do we have free will? We will also discuss how the construction of a theory of knowledge ought to relate to the construction of a metaphysical theory-roughly speaking, what comes first, epistemology or metaphysics? (B)

Epistemology is the study of belief, and addresses questions like “what are we justified in believing?” and “when does a belief count as knowledge?”  This course will provide an overview of Bayesian epistemology, which treats belief as coming in degrees, and addresses questions like “when does rationality require us to be more confident of one proposition than another?", “how should we measure the amount of confirmation that a piece of evidence provides for a theory?”, and “which actions should we choose, based on our judgments about how probable various consequences are?” (B) (II)

The concept of beauty (kallos) figures prominently in Ancient Greek philosophy, a place where metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and poetics come together and through which philosophers think about the possibility of harmoniousness in our being-in-relation to others. In this seminar we will begin by reading some important passages from Plato’s dialogues (e.g., from Republic, Phaedrus, Symposium) before turning to two subsequent philosophers who were influenced by him, Aristotle and Plotinus. We will consider ideas about the relation of beauty to goodness and order, to appearance and intelligibility, and to the spectator’s reactions of wonder, pleasure, admiration, and sense of kinship. Inevitably we will spend a fair amount of time discussing their theories of poetry, but will also talk about the role of beauty in ethics and natural philosophy. (I)

Is opera an archaic and exotic pageant for wealthy elites, 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, Former 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 Barber of Seville, Verdi's Don Carlos, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Wagner's Die Meistersinger, Britten's Billy Budd, and Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking. (A) (I)

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

The third course will cover Marx’s “Paris Manuscripts” (aka “The 1844 Manuscripts,” aka “The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts”) and Marx’s historical writings about France, especially The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte and his writings on the Paris Commune.

Do we have free will? What is free will anyway? Does it require an ability to do otherwise? Is free will compatible with a scientific conception of the world? Can people ever be justifiably blamed, praised, or punished for their actions, given all the ways we’re influenced by external forces? In this course on free will, we’ll look at some contemporary perspectives on these questions. The course will have three parts. First, we’ll look at reasons why we might not have free will. Next, we’ll consider how we could have free will. Finally, we’ll ask whether and for what it matters whether we have free will.   
Readings will come from Harry Frankfurt, Derk Pereboom, Kadri Vihvelin, P.F. and Galen Strawson, Susan Wolf, Rodrick Chisholm, Manuel Vargas, Thomas Nagel, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Simone de Beauvoir, among others.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s political philosophy is based on an account of moral psychology, an account that is highly critical of the present—critical of current institutions and of its product, namely, our present moral psychology—while also, at moments, hopeful for the future. The seminar begins by presenting Rousseau’s political philosophy as a development of and a contrast to earlier social contract theories, in particular, to Thomas Hobbes’s view. We then examine both Rousseau’s and a few contemporaries’ moral psychologies to determine whether the political philosophy that Rousseau favors is feasible and/or desirable.