101 Introduction to Logic (3)
The study of arguments, including basic principles of traditional logic together with an introduction to modern sentential logic. Topics include recognizing arguments, premises, conclusions, induction and deduction, fallacies, categorical syllogisms, and sentential inference forms. (Every semester)
An in-depth study of Sentential Logic. Topics include symbolization, syntax, truth tables, truth trees and two systems of natural deduction.
A basic orientation course treating the principal problems of philosophy, such as knowledge, human nature, values, nature, God, etc. A historical approach may also be used as a means of further clarification of the topics being discussed. (Every semester)
This introductory course surveys various approaches to human nature. The course may include such topics as the relation of mind and body, the nature of consciousness, life after death and the existence of the soul, the possibility of artificial intelligence, the relation between the individual and society, nonwestern views of human nature, and relevant gender issues.
An examination of the philosophical implications and themes contained in various works and genres of fiction. Questions such as free-will/determinism, love, justice, death, and the meaning of life, the best (or worst) of all possible worlds, the religious dimension of life, and the role of the writer or intellectual in society will be discussed.
Technology is the art of rational problem-solving. Philosophy is the art of asking questions. The questions we shall raise include: What is science? When are scientific claims true? Is science relevant to art, religion, or everyday experience? Can we trust applied science (technology) to make life easier or less dangerous? In a nuclear era, is technology itself the problem? Is “alternative technology” an alternative? Does our survival depend on technology or its absence? Readings from classical and contemporary sources.
An examination of the major traditions, systems and schools in India , China , and Japan . Readings from classical and modern texts. Cultural sources of philosophic beliefs. Comparisons between Eastern and Western thought.
Greek philosophy from the pre-Socratics through Plato, Aristotle, and later Hellenistic thought culminating in Plotinus. Requires Philosophy major or minor, or Sophomore standing. (Offered Fall semesters)
Origins of the medieval period; St. Augustine, St. Anslem, Abelard, scholasticism in the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and the end of the medieval era as represented by Occam and the growth of nominalism. Requires Philosophy major or minor, or Sophomore standing. (Offered Spring semesters)
An introduction to the development of European philosophy from the 16th to the 19th century, with an emphasis on Continental Rationalism, British Empiricism, and German Idealism. Requires Philosophy major or minor, or Sophomore standing. (Offered Spring semesters)
An introduction to the main currents of late 19th and 20th century Anglo-American philosophy, including such movements as logical positivism and linguistic analysis and recent issues such as the analytic-synthetic distinction, ontological relativity, and theories of meaning. Requires Philosophy major or minor, or Sophomore standing.
An introduction to the main currents of late 19th and 20th century continental thought, including Marxism, phenomenology, existentialism, critical theory, structuralism, and recent developments such as poststructuralism, semiotics, and deconstructionism. Requires Philosophy major or minor, or Sophomore standing. (Offered Fall semesters)
A survey extending from the Colonial Period through the end of World War II. Emphasis on such topics as the Puritan controversy over predestination, the impact of Darwin , the advent of pragmatism, and the ending of the “GOLDEN Age.” Authors to be studied include Edwards, Emerson, Wright, Peirce, James, Royce, Dewey, and Santayana.
A study of the applications of ethical concepts and principles to different areas of human social conduct. Typical issues considered include abortion, euthanasia, the death penalty, assisted reproductive technologies, racism, sexism, poverty and welfare, animal rights, environmental ethics, and world hunger.
A general study of principles or standards for judging individual and social conduct, focusing on major thinkers and philosophical issues in normative ethics, and the application of moral judgment to social or problem areas in human conduct.
A systematic examination of ethical principles as they apply to issues in medicine and scientific research, that is: mercy killing, abortion; experimentation on human subjects; allocation of scarce medical resources; organ transplants; and behavior modification. Moral obligations connected with the roles of nurse, doctor, etc., will receive special attention.
A systematic application of various ethical theories to issues arising from the practice of modern business. Topics may include theories of economic justice, corporate social responsibility, employee rights, advertising and information disclosure, environmental responsibility, preferential hiring and reverse discrimination, self-regulation, and government regulation.
An examination in the light of traditional and recent moral theory of the ethical issues faced by the practicing lawyer: the values presupposed by the adversarial system; the moral responsibilities of lawyers within corporations and government; the conflict between personal ethics and obligations to clientele; and whether legal education involves a social conditioning process with its own implicit value system.
Exploration of selected issues in moral philosophy, often of an interdisciplinary nature, on such themes as: death and dying; environmental ethics; business ethics; morality and science fiction; morality and teaching; etc. Depending on the suffix, the course may be repeated for credit.
The analysis of various ethical, epistemological, and metaphysical problems relating to death and dying. Topics may include: near-death experiences; immortality and resurrection models of eschatology; the evil of death; and value issues raised by the definitions of death, suicide, euthanasia, infanticide, and the killing of non-human animals.
An investigation of the morality of character that considers the question, “What kind of person ought I to be?” This approach to morality is contrasted with standard Kantian and utilitarian positions. Specific virtues and vices typically considered include: love; friendship; hate; jealousy; compassion; deceit; self-deception; anger resentment; and forgiveness.
What is the responsibility of citizens, consumers, corporations, advertisers, artists and performers, and federal or local government toward mass media? Do mass media influence human contact for better or worse? Does regulation of, for example, pornography or propaganda conflict with First Amendment rights? Are news and commercial media politically biased? Do educational media enhance or undermine traditional teaching methods? Lecture, discussion, group activities, and analysis of media presentations.
An exploration of ethical issues pertinent to the environment, for example: obligations to future generations; the question of animal rights; endangered species; pesticides and pollution; energy technologies; depletion of resources; and global justice and ocean resources. Consideration of the pertinent obligations of individuals, businesses, and government.
An exploration of selected ethical issues in the field of governmental service, such as: campaign promises; welfare programs; taxation; overstepping the limits of the office; lying; whistle-blowing; and an examination of ethical issues in international politics, especially the morality of war, the promotion of human rights, and problems of international distributive justice.
Normative ethics applied to moral questions of war and peace, such as: Can war ever be justified? If so, what are the moral constraints upon the conduct of war? How can peace be attained? What do pacifists and others offer as non-violent alternatives to armed conflict? Other topics might include: terrorism, humanitarian interventions, nuclear warfare and deterrence, and war crimes.
This course provides an introduction to such topics in moral theory as: ethical relativism, deontological and consequentialist approaches to morality; and ethical egoism. Among the specific moral issues in education usually considered are preferential admissions policies, student-teacher confidentiality, the morality of grading, honesty and deception in educational contexts, and the allocation of scarce educational resources.
Examines the rights, responsibilities and social role of the professional engineer. Topics may include: conflicts of interest; the moral status of organizational loyalty; public safety and risk assessment; reproductive engineering and human dignity; preventing environmental destruction; “whistle-blowing”; defective product liability; engineers and corporate power; engineers and government; and codes of conduct and standards of professional competence. Case studies may include: military and commercial airplanes; automobiles; public buildings; nuclear plants; weapons research; computers and confidentiality; and the use and abuse of new technologies.
Discrimination in employment, the persistence of sex segregation in the labor force, the feminization of poverty, and the implementation of policies designed to minimize gender-based career and economic differences and to improve the economic status of women–such as affirmative action–raise a number of ethical as well as economic questions. This course surveys ethical theory and considers the application of ethical principles to issues concerning the economic status of women and related gender-based issues, including the position of women in business and the professions.
An exploration of social justice in an environmental context, including considerations of distributive, participatory, and procedural justice. Topics may include civil rights and the environmental justice movement, rights of indigenous peoples, environmentalism, economic and development conflicts between the global north and south, toxic and hazardous waste and pollution, worker safety, environmental racism, environmental classism, sustainability, and the protection of nature. Consideration of the pertinent obligations of individuals, social groups, businesses, and governments.
An exploration of ethical issues pertinent to computing and information technology, including: free speech and content control of the Web; intellectual property rights; privacy; accountability and responsibility; security and cyberspace; the impact of computing/IT on society.
A study of the major theories of ethics and selected moral concepts. Topics to be examined will include: the nature and grounds of morality; ethical relativism; egoism and altruism; utilitarianism; Kant's deontological ethics; Aristotle and virtue ethics, rights, and justice. In addition, we may consider issues of the role of gender and race in ethical theory. (Offered Fall semesters)
This course will focus on symbolization, syntax, semantics, and derivations for predicate logic. It will include some metatheory such as soundness and completeness proofs.
This course examines inferences and forms of reasoning whose conclusion is claimed to go beyond the information provided by the premises–for example, predictive inferences, analogical reasoning, statistical generalizations, causal inferences, scientific confirmation, probabilistic reasoning, and justifications of behavior as rational. Various conceptual puzzles concerning inductive inference and reasoning, and case studies of its empirical and moral applications may be considered.
This course covers first-order logic with special emphasis on meaning, truth, and proofs. The course utilizes a text and computer software developed at the Center for the Study of Logic and Information ( Stanford University ).
An investigation of the ultimate philosophical commitments about reality. Representative figures in the history of philosophy may be considered and analyzed. Topics selected may include the basic components of reality, their relation to space, time, matter, causality, freedom, determinism, the self, and God. (Offered Fall semesters)
An examination of the nature and scope of knowledge and justification, including consideration of such topics as skepticism, analyses of knowledge, foundationalism and coherentism, a priori knowledge, and others. Attention is also given to the nature of the epistemological enterprise, e.g., internalism and externalism, and naturalized epistemology. (Offered Spring semesters)
A study of the existence and nature of God. Discussion of the ontological, cosmological, and teleological arguments; topics may include atheistic challenges concerning divine benevolence, omnipotence, omniscience, and creation ex nihilo; logical positivism and religious meaning; miracles; the person and immortality; and religion and morality. (Offered Spring semesters)
The mind-body problem and the examination of mental state concepts. Topics may include: the nature of mind, including dualist and contemporary materialist theories, representation, mental causation, consciousness, psychological explanation, artificial intelligence; other topics such as personal identity or agency may be included. (Offered Fall semesters)
Language is a fundamental medium by which we interact with others and the world. How words come to have the meanings that they do, refer to objects, express truths, and affect the meanings of other words and truth values are perennial questions in philosophy. These issues have become even more pronounced in 20th century philosophy. Specific topics may include: language and reality; language and psychology; referential theories of meaning; ideal languages; meaning as use; private languages; truth-conditional theories of meaning; descriptive and causal theories of reference and of linguistic competence and performance; verificationism; and/or an introduction to modal semantics.
The study of the language and activity of the scientific community. Topics include: scientific explanation; prediction; laws; theories; models; paradigms; observations; experiment; scientific method; and the question of reductionism in science.
What is value? Is there a gap between values and facts? Can we ever rationally defend (or reject) value-claims in ethics, art, politics, religion? What is the relation between economics and value? How does history influence value and the study of value? Readings include G.E. Moore, John Dewey, Ralph Barton Perry, Max Scheler, and Robert S. Hartman.
This course introduces students to concepts and forms of argument they will encounter in the first year of law school. It will examine the reasoning involved in the concepts of legal precedent, proximate cause, and burden of proof, and it will also investigate the legal reasoning in certain landmark cases from torts, contracts, property, constitutional law, and criminal law. Prerequisite: Philosophy 1 or consent of instructor.
What is law? How is it different from morality? Do we have an obligation to obey the law, and if so, how strong is that obligation? This course is an exploration of philosophical issues arising from the interpretation and application of the law. The course examines classic answers to the above questions. The focus of the course may be either historical (e.g., Plato, Hobbes or Hegel) or more contemporary (e.g., H L. A. Hart and Ronald Dworkin), paying special attention to constitutional law.
The nature and end of the state; relation of the individual's rights and duties to those of the state and vice versa, and the relation between states; the kinds of states; their institution, preservation, and destruction.
This course studies main figures in Renaissance thought–Petrarch, Pico, Vives, Bacon, et al. It addresses such topics as: the revival of Greek and Roman culture; the Florentine academy; tensions between humanism and theology; the Copernican revolution in science; and the legacies of Bruno, Leonardo, More, Machiavelli, and Montaigne.
An in-depth study of selected ancient philosophers, that is, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, or topics such as the nature of good, knowledge and skepticism, the problem of Being and change.
An in-depth study of selected medieval philosophers, that is, St. Augustine, St. Anselm, Abelard, St. Thomas, Duns Scotus, William of Occam, or topics such as the problem of universals, the existence of God, the soul and immortality, and the problem of evil.
An intensive examination of one or more major figures in 17th-19th century European thought, for example, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Rousseau, and Marx; or, alternately, a discussion of one or more central problems in this era, such as the relation between science and religion, the justification of causal inference, the respective roles of reason and experience in obtaining reliable knowledge of the world, the concept of selfhood, etc.
An intensive examination of either major figures (such as Chisholm, Kripke, Quine), movements (logical positivism, ordinary language analysis, logical analysis) or selected problems (epistemic foundationalism, modality and essentialism, identity and individuation) in contemporary analytic philosophy.
An intensive examination of major formative or current figures (such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Habermas, Foucault, Derrida), movements (phenomenology, existentialism, critical theory, deconstructionism) or problems (the nature of representation, the relation of emotion and thought, the problem of technology) in contemporary continental philosophy.
Process Philosophy is a generic term designating the group of philosophers who view reality as a changing and developing process. Included in this group are Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, Henri Bergson, and Alfred North Whitehead. The course will focus, in successive years, on one of these thinkers.
A detailed examination of one or more classic works from the Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian and Taoist traditions, such as the Bhagavad-Gita or the Analects; pitfalls of interpretation; relations between text and ure. Parallels and contrasts with Western thought and institutions. May be repeated for credit with different course content.
An examination of some major theories of art and beauty, with special attention to such issues as: the definition of beauty; the criteria for excellence in artistic productions; the differences between art and science; and the relation between art and culture. Readings may include Artistotle's Poetics, Kant's Critique of Judgement, Dewey's Art as Experience, or more recent philosophers, that is, Beardsley, Dickie, Goodman, Weitz, etc.
An examination of some major theories of the meaning and function of education and of its role in reshaping society. Readings may include Plato's Meno and Republic, Aristotle's Politics, Rousseau's Emile, Dewey's The School and Society and The Child and the Curriculum, and various works by Piaget.
A study of the fundamental concepts, methods, and goals of the social sciences, including a consideration of such topics as: the nature of the human action; the possibility of a science of human nature; the relationship between the natural and social sciences; explanation and understanding; laws and theories; objectivity and value judgments; and freedom and determinism.
What is history? Why do human beings record their history? Is history moving toward a goal? Is history a science or an art? Are historical events objective occurrences? Can we verify casual claims about unrepeatable episodes? Is the historian entitled (or obliged) to make value-judgments? How should we rank the contributions of individual historians? Readings include philosophers and historians, classical and contemporary sources.
What is love? Does it even exist; or is it a myth? Is it attainable; or an impossible ideal? Is it rooted in the divine; in the human; or even in the biologic or animal? Is it an emotion; a form of relationship; or even a cosmic principle? Can it be equal and shared; or must it be hierarchic and coercive? This course considers a variety of philosophical perspectives on questions such as these. Readings typically include such classic and contemporary thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Kierkegaard, Freud, Sartre, DeBeauvoir, and Tillich.
An intensive examination of one or more contemporary philosophical problems such as: the is-ought debate; the mind-body problems; relativism and the possibility of objective knowledge; etc. Topic may vary. The course may be repeated for credit, provided the content of the course has changed.
*Courses marked with an asterisk fulfill the Core upper-division Ethics Requirement