PHIL 333: Philosophy, Literature, and the Arts Core Seminar (DLCL 333)
May be repeat for credit
Terms: Spr
| Units: 2-4
| Repeatable
5 times
(up to 20 units total)
Instructors:
Daub, A. (PI)
;
Hills, D. (PI)
PHIL 334: Habermas
Does Habermas have a distinctive account of normativity and normative judgements?
Last offered: Spring 2009
PHIL 335: Topics in Aesthetics
May be repeated for credit.
Last offered: Autumn 2005
| Repeatable
for credit
PHIL 339: Marx (POLISCI 333S)
This course examines the works of a thinker who radically transformed the ways that we think about modern society. Marx saw fundamental problems with capitalist societies, including: un-freedom, alienation, inequality, and bureaucratization. He developed a theory to account for these problems. Our task will be to read his works critically and to evaluate their contributions to our understanding the relationship between politics, social structure, knowledge and human agency. We will also be especially interested in comparing his view with alternative diagnoses of the problems of modern capitalist societies, especially those of Max Weber and John Rawls.
Last offered: Autumn 2013
PHIL 340: Time and Free Will
Free will and the consequence argument of Peter van Inwagen and others. Focus is on the principle that one cannot change the past and the problem of backtracking conditionals, and less on the problem raised by determinismon. Hypotheses less drastic than determinism support backtrackers; given the backtracker, would someone¿s not having done something require that he change the past? Issues related to time, change, the phenomenology of agency, and McTaggart's argument about the reality of time.
Last offered: Autumn 2008
PHIL 344: Narrative Knowing (HISTORY 344)
Philosophers and historians have been debating the status of narrative explanation for well over 50 years. Until quite recently, a supposed dichotomy between natural science and history has shaped the discussion. Beginning from the origins, history, and limitations of the dichotomy, this seminar will explore how claims for narrative understanding and explanation have come to occupy an increasingly important role in the natural sciences as well as the social sciences. Some classic contributors are Hempel, Danto, Mink, Kuhn, White, Ricouer, Geertz, and Ginzburg. Current authors include Roth, Rheinberger, Kitcher, Beatty, Morgan, and (yes) Wise.
Last offered: Autumn 2014
PHIL 348: Evolution of Signalling
Explores evolutionary (and learning) dynamics applied to nsimple models of signaling, emergence of information and inference. Classroom presentations and term papers.nText: Skyrms - SIGNALS: EVOLUTION,LEARNING and INFORMATIONnand selected articles.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 2-4
Instructors:
Skyrms, B. (PI)
PHIL 349: Evidence and Evolution (PHIL 249)
The logic behind the science. The concept of evidence and how it is used in science with regards to testing claims in evolutionary biology and using tools from probability theory, Bayesian, likelihoodist, and frequentist ideas. Questions about evidence that arise in connection with evolutionary theory. Creationism and intelligent design. Questions that arise in connection with testing hypotheses about adaptation and natural selection and hypotheses about phylogenetic relationships.
Last offered: Spring 2009
PHIL 350A: Model Theory
Back-and-forth arguments with applications to completeness, quantifier-elimination and omega-categoricity. Elementary extensions and the monster model. Preservation theorems. Interpolation and definability theorems. Imaginaries. Prerequisite: Phil151A or consent of the instructor.
Last offered: Autumn 2008
PHIL 351: Representation Theorems
Representation theorems show that beliefs which obey certain qualitative constraints have the structure of probabilities, while preferences which obey certain qualitative constraints have the structure of expected-utility maximization. In this course, we prove several representation theorems in detail, and discuss the philosophic controversies surrounding them: how to justify the qualitative constraints, the difference between normative and descriptive interpretations, and what the formal relation of representability amounts to in real terms.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
Instructors:
Briggs, R. (PI)
Filter Results: