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1 - 10 of 292 results for: PHIL

PHIL 1: Introduction to Philosophy

Is there one truth or many? Does science tell us everything there is to know? Can our minds be purely physical? Do we have free will? Is faith rational? Should we always be rational? What is the meaning of life? Are there moral truths? What are truth, reality, rationality, and knowledge? How can such questions be answered? Intensive introduction to theories and techniques in philosophy from various contemporary traditions. Once a week discussions will occur during scheduled meeting time (~50 minutes)
Terms: Win | Units: 4 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II

PHIL 2: Introduction to Moral Philosophy (ETHICSOC 20)

What should I do with my life? What kind of person should I be? How should we treat others? What makes actions right or wrong? What is good and what is bad? What should we value? How should we organize society? Is there any reason to be moral? Is morality relative or subjective? How, if at all, can such questions be answered? Intensive introduction to theories and techniques in contemporary moral philosophy.
Terms: Aut | Units: 5 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER

PHIL 3: Democracy and Disagreement (POLISCI 31, PUBLPOL 3, RELIGST 23X)

Each class will be focused on a different topic and have guest speakers. This class will be open to students, faculty and staff to attend and also be recorded. Deep disagreement pervades our democracy, from arguments over immigration, gun control, abortion, and the Middle East crisis, to the function of elite higher education and the value of free speech itself. Loud voices drown out discussion. Open-mindedness and humility seem in short supply among politicians and citizens alike. Yet constructive disagreement is an essential feature of a democratic society. This class explores and models respectful, civil disagreement. Each week features scholars who disagree - sometimes quite strongly - about major policy issues. Students will have the opportunity to probe those disagreements, understand why they persist, and to improve their own understanding of the facts and values that underlie them.
Terms: Spr | Units: 1 | Repeatable 4 times (up to 4 units total)

PHIL 3N: Randomness: Computational and Philosophical Approaches (CS 57N)

Is it ever reasonable to make a decision randomly? For example, would you ever let an important choice depend on the flip of a coin? Can randomness help us answer difficult questions more accurately or more efficiently? What is randomness anyway? Can an object be random? Are there genuinely random processes in the world, and if so, how can we tell? In this seminar, we will explore these questions through the lenses of philosophy and computation. By the end of the quarter students should have an appreciation of the many roles that randomness plays in both humanities and sciences, as well as a grasp of some of the key analytical tools used to study the concept. The course will be self-contained, and no prior experience with randomness/probability is necessary.
Last offered: Winter 2022

PHIL 4N: Knowing Nothing

Our beliefs are subject to multiple sources of error: a traveler's perception of an oasis in the desert may turn out to be a mirage; the key witness in a trial criminal may turn out to be lying; or a fluke in the data may mislead a research team into believing a false hypothesis; or a miscalculating math student may end up with the wrong answer. Philosophers often characterize knowledge as belief that is safe from error--but is knowledge possible? This course uses the philosophical arguments and thought experiments to assess the question of how much we can hope to know.
Last offered: Winter 2020

PHIL 7N: Philosophy and Science Fiction

What if things had been otherwise? What if things are someday, somewhere, very different than they are here and now? Science fiction and other genre fiction gives us the opportunity to explore worlds that stretch our conceptions of reality, of what it is to have a mind, to be human, and to communicate with one another. This course examines central questions in philosophy through the lens of speculative fiction. Can there be freedom in a deterministic world? How could language and communication evolve? What is a mind, and what is the nature of experience? How can we know what the world is like? We¿ll read classical and contemporary papers in philosophy alongside short stories, novels, and movies that play the role of thought experiments in illuminating philosophical issues.
Terms: Win | Units: 3
Instructors: Cao, R. (PI)

PHIL 8N: Free Will and Responsibility

In what sense are we, or might we be free agents? Is our freedom compatible with our being fully a part of the same natural, causal order that includes other physical and biological systems? What assumptions about freedom do we make when we hold people accountable morally and/or legally? When we hold people accountable, and so responsible, can we also see them as part of the natural, causal order? Or is there a deep incompatibility between these two ways of understanding ourselves? What assumptions about our freedom do we make when we deliberate about what to do? Are these assumptions in conflict with seeing ourselves as part of the natural, causal order?We will explore these and related questions primarily by way of careful study of recent and contemporary philosophical research on these matters.
Last offered: Spring 2023 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER

PHIL 11N: Skepticism

Preference to freshmen. Historical and contemporary philosophical perspectives on the limits of human knowledge of a mind-independent world and causal laws of nature. The nature and possibility of a priori knowledge. Skepticism regarding religious beliefs..
Last offered: Spring 2023 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum

PHIL 13: Humanities Core: Great Books, Big Ideas -- Europe, Modern (FRENCH 13, HISTORY 239C, HUMCORE 13)

What is a good life? How should society be organized? Who belongs? How should honor, love, sin, and similar abstractions govern our actions? What duty do we owe to the past and future? This course examines tcourse examines these questions in the modern period, from the rise of revolutionary ideas to the experiences of totalitarianism and decolonization in the twentieth century. Authors include Locke, Mary Shelley, Marx, Nietzsche, Primo Levi, and Frantz Fanon. This course is part of the Humanities Core, a collaborative set of global humanities seminars that brings all of its students and faculty into conversation. On Mondays you meet in your own course, and on Wednesdays all the HumCore seminars (in session that quarter) meet together: https://humanitiescore.stanford.edu/.
Last offered: Spring 2022 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-ER

PHIL 13N: Justice across Borders

Most people are not your fellow citizens. (Over 95% of human beings, for example, are not Americans.) What do you owe to them as a matter of justice? What do they owe to you? Should you save a foreigner's life instead of buying luxuries for yourself? Should you boycott 'fast fashion' produced by exploited workers abroad? Should universities divest from fossil fuels? How can a country like the United States justify forcefully preventing anyone from crossing its borders? Is anything absolutely prohibited to win a war? When examining such issues, we need to start with facts¿facts about poverty, inequality, climate change, immigration, etc. After surveying the basic facts, we will use philosophical readings to focus and deepen our discussions of what justice requires across borders. Some of the topics we discuss will be chosen on the basis of students' interests.
Terms: Win | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-ER
Instructors: Wenar, L. (PI)
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