Course List
An advanced course focusing on particular topics in the history of philosophy. Special emphasis will be placed on ideas and disputes which were historically influential and continue to be philosophically significant. Consent required.
Current issues in the philosophy of mind, such as relation of mind and body, status of the mental, knowledge of own's own and other minds, personal identity, consciousness, mentality of animals and machines, topics in the philosophy of psychology. Graduate standing required.
Examination of central problems of metaphysics. Topics may include: existence, necessary truth, the problem of universals, causation, the identity of the self through time, free will. Attention will be given both to the historical development of these problems and to contemporary philosophical responses to them. Graduate standing required.
Theory of knowledge. Exploration of topics including the foundations (or lack of foundations) of knowledge, the role of experience in knowledge, whether knowledge of the present and the nearby gives us reasons for beliefs about the future, the past, or about events far away, and related issues. Graduate standing required.
Problems, literature, and schools in the philosophy of science and technology. 5305: explanation and confirmation; 5306: theory change. I
Problems, literature, and schools in the philosophy of science and technology. 5305: explanation and confirmation; 5306: theory change. II
A systematic examination of metaethics, the branch of philosophical ethics that addresses questions about the nature of ethical discourse and its objects. Investigation of such issues as the meaning of ethical terms and judgments, the nature and grounds of ethical truth, the possibility of ethical knowledge, the rationality of ethical behavior, and the relations between ethical and scientific inquiry. Graduate standing required.
Examination of the work of selected figures representative of important positions in the history of ethical theory from the Classical Age to the modern period. II
Modern deductive symbolic logic and its metatheory. 5505: Development of a system of first order logic. Truth functional sentential logic, monadic predicate calculus with identity. Proof techniques and translation between natural and artificial languages. 5506: Logical metatheory: consistency, completeness, and decidability of logical systems. I,II
Modern deductive symbolic logic and its metatheory. 5505: Development of a system of first order logic. Truth functional sentential logic, monadic predicate calculus with identity. Proof techniques and translation between natural and artificial languages. 5506: Logical metatheory: consistency, completeness, and decidability of logical systems. I,II
This course is designed primarily for philosophy students with a strong interest in biology or biology students with philosophical interests. Topics vary from year to year, but include the changing character of biology as a science, the special character of biological explanations and methods, and the place and value of reduction (e.g., of Mendelian to molecular genetics) in biology. Graduate standing required.
An examination of the structure and methodology of science as well as key concepts such as explanation, confirmation, realism, and instrumentalism. Graduate standing required.
Only for students pursuing a Master of Arts degree with a non-thesis option. Variable credit course.
Close examination of a discipline, topic, or group of questions from a major philosophical tradition. Such areas as philosophy of language, philosophy of logic, and philosophy of mathematics, and such issues as causation, the nature of space and time, mental representation, logical positivism, and the linguistic turn will be examined. May be repeated for credit, with permission and different content, for a maximum of 12 hours. Completion of at least one of the philosophy M.A. core courses required.
Intensive study of a particular figure, school, or group in the history of philosophy, in cultural and theoretical context, such as Socrates in the Athenian "polis," Stoicism in the Hellenistic age, or Hume and the Scottish Enlightenment. May be repeated for credit, with permission and different content, for a maximum of 12 hours. Completion of at least one of the philosoophy M.A. core courses required. I
Influential contemporary theories of distributive justice. Social, political, ethical, and cultural dimensions of distributive questions. Utlitarianism, liberalism, libertarianism, pluralism, multiculturalism, autonomy, rights, needs, (global) egalitarianism, and (global) poverty. Pre: Graduate standing.
Philosophers of science from 1650 to 1900 with particular attention to the historical development of views about the methods of induction and hypothesis and accounts of theory testing.
A seminar closely examining a topic or group of topics in moral, social, or political theory. Such issues as the foundations of ethics, practical reason, the concept of 'virtue', political obligation, the bounds of moral and political community, paternalism, liberty, and privacy will be explored. Views considered may include moral realism and antirealism, contractarianism, egalitarianism, libertarianism, and communitarianism. May be repeated for credit, with permission and different content, for a maximum of 12 hours.
Variable topics in advanced philosophy of science, including major theories of scientific explanation and their criticisms; philosophical foundations of statistics; naturalized philosophy of science. May be repeated for credit, with permission and different content, for a maximum of 12 hours.