Spring

The topic of this course is Karl Marx's theory of socio-economic class. Its purpose is to gain insight into Marx's claim that understanding classes helps us understand politics. Though it is one of the topics for which his name is most remembered, his view of class is often misrepresented. For instance, it is often said that, for Marx, capitalist society consists of only two classes—the so-called proletariat (workers) and the bourgeoisie (capitalists). Like classical economists before him and heterodox economists after him, however, Marx believes that modern societies consist of at least three classes: workers, capitalists, and landlords or rentiers, as well as other marginalized groups. And he even disaggregates those classes into the smaller groups which constitute them (e.g., productive and unproductive labor; industrial, commercial, and financial capital, etc.). By examining selections from his mature political-economic writings, we will reconstruct Marx's theory of social classes and consider his application of that theory in some of his significant case studies, such as the American Civil War, as well as later developments of his theory by some influential successors. Themes which we will address include the relation between economy and politics, class, race, and gender, and agency and structure in historical development. We will also try to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of Marx's view with an eye to contemporary questions. (A)

Most of us, most of the time, must show up to work every day in order to get the money we need to survive. Although this fact seems commonplace, it raises important questions about human rights and human freedom. Are people under capitalism forced to labor? What about people who perform dangerous jobs out of economic desperation? And, if people are forced to work, is that in any sense a violation of their rights? On the one hand, some argue that egalitarian societies should recognize a right not to work. On the other, some argue that people should have a right to perform work, or at least work that is meaningful and freely chosen. In this class, we will read, write, and think about what contemporary philosophers have to say about each of these questions.

This course will be an introduction to Bayesian epistemology. (B) (II)

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)

Pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood have been relatively neglected as topics for philosophical exploration, and yet they are ripe for philosophical inquiry from multiple angles, including metaphysics, epistemology, normative ethics, medical ethics, and social and political philosophy. Throughout our inquiry we will pay particular attention to the first-hand, embodied experiences of women. For example: What is it like to be pregnant? How can we make metaphysical sense of this experience? And how is it informed by the socio-political landscape? Moreover, what is the moral significance of giving birth, and what are the ethical and political requirements for a good birth? And finally, what does it mean to be a good mother, and how might this conception of motherhood play into women’s oppression? These are just a few of the questions we will explore, placing philosophical texts alongside memoir and film.

Jonathan Lear writes, “Psychoanalysis…sets freedom rather than some specific image of human happiness as its goal.” This course, while not about psychoanalysis as such, is meant to be about a kind of freedom at which psychoanalysis aims—a freedom that is, one could say, internally related to (1) achieving a non-superficial, diachronic understanding of oneself and (2) learning to be true to oneself. What sort of understanding and what sort of truth are at issue here? I take the following to represent an obviously unsatisfactory approach toward answering this question: “What you must do in order to gain the relevant sort of freedom is, first, learn a lot of facts about the desires and values of an already fully realized self that is, at least partially, hidden from your inward gaze and, second, act in accordance with these desires and values.” But what might a satisfactory answer look like? In exploring this topic, we’ll read work by Jonathan Lear, Harry Frankfurt, Charles Taylor, Richard Moran, Sigmund Freud, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, among others. (A) (I)

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

We will begin by trying to explicate the manner in which science is a rational response to observational facts. This will involve a discussion of inductivism, Popper's deductivism, Lakatos and Kuhn. After this, we will briefly survey some other important topics in the philosophy of science, including underdetermination, theories of evidence, Bayesianism, the problem of induction, explanation, and laws of nature. (B) (II)