41 - 50 of 499 results for: PHIL

What do we as individuals owe to other people? Should we be spending our free time toiling in local politics and volunteering in soup kitchens? Should we be sending every extra penny (goodbye new shoes) to people who barely eek out a living on less than a dollar a day? Maybe we ought to spend tons of our time fighting to protect future generations from the predicted devastating effects of climate change. In this course we will explore how local, distant, and future circumstances affect our responsibilities as individuals. We'll discuss questions about what and how much we owe to others, and whether our responsibilities are part and parcel of being a morally good person, or whether they are things we owe others as good citizens of the community (and for that matter, which community do we owe them to--local, national, or global?).

The course focuses on the nature of the self. Is the self an object among other objects in the world, or something real but not spatial or temporal -- an extensionless point? Themes from literature on personal identity, self-consciousness, self-reference, and self-knowledge. Readings may include selections from Kant, Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein, Strawson, Williams, Evans, Nagel, Perry, McDowell.

This course is about two questions:The first question: what is an essay? In other words, what is it that we mean when we talk about an essay instead of a précis, a paper, a report, a chronicle, a scientific paper, an opinion piece, fiction or simply other kinds of academic writing. Call this first question, the demarcation question about the essay. Essays are particularly hard to pin down, to demarcate its boundaries is almost impossible. The essay represents a distinct challenge for both theory and criticism. Unlike other literary and academic genres, at least since their modern inception in Montaigne¿s hands, essays challenge notions and assumptions that in other genres are transparent or can be more easily set aside. n The second question is: what does essaying "the embarking upon the kind of things essayists claim to be doing" have to do with the cultivation of one's self, the examination of one's actions and deeds in ordinary contexts and the project of shaping it in self-reflective ways. Call this second question, the Socratic aspiration of the essay. To answer this question, we won¿t start from any pre-establish theory or framework, but rather work our way out directly from the readings of a sample of essays drawn from various sources. nBy the end of the course, the student will be in a better position to confront questions such as: why are the humanities part and parcel of our educational efforts, more generally, and how could they become part of my education, more particularly? What are the difficulties and advantages, the very point of, writing one's opinions in an attempt to address others? How is self-understanding connected to philosophical endeavors? What role, if any, could finding one's voice have for the purposes of reflective and critical thinking about one's self in relation to others?

Most people have many false beliefs. Yet, one routinely relies on one's own beliefs and on the views of others. Does that mean that one takes oneself to be exceptionally good at forming true beliefs, and exceptionally good at detecting false beliefs in others? When is it justified to place intellectual trust in oneself and in others?

Is it irrational to fear death? Is death bad for you? Does it make sense to want to be immortal? How does what happens after our deaths matter to us?nAncient and contemporary philosophers give surprising answers to these questions about death, answers that shed light on basic questions about what matters in life. Among those we'll read are Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Bernard Williams, Thomas Nagel and Samuel Scheffler.

Who should rule? What is the best regime? What is the role of law? What makes a regime just? What is the relation between theory and practice in politics?n nThis course will focus on the political philosophy of the Republic, Plato's most well known dialogue and a foundational text in the history of political thought. We will also consider how Plato's psychology underlies his political philosophy and how the political philosophy of the Republic is related to political thinking in Plato's later works. Emphasis will be on primary texts, although the instructor will recommend relevant secondary sources as needed. Students will work closely with the instructor to tailor a final assignment that engages with the text and furthers the student's educational goals and interests.

In this tutorial, we will examine a cluster of questions concerning the relationship between cognitive states, such as beliefs and desires, and perception. We will examine the question of whether, and to what extent, concepts, beliefs, and desires can influence the content of perception. If these cognitive states can influence the content of perceptual states, how worried should we be about the ability of perception to justify belief, both in everyday life and in scientific inquiry?

Anscombe's Intention is one of the foundational texts of 20th century analytic philosophy. It brings together central issues from the philosophy of mind, epistemology, philosophy of language -- and lays the ground for contemporary philosophy of action. Anscombe raises (and answers) questions regarding the nature of intentional action, intention, reasons for action, agential self-knowledge, and practical reasoning, connecting them all in one unified account. nIn the tutorial we will discuss these issues through a close reading of Intention. A short, terse, and marvelously rich self-contained piece of philosophical investigation, it is particularly well-suited for this purpose. Our work with the text should yield a solid basis notably in the philosophy of action, which will be useful for various other courses and areas (in philosophy of action, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language, and ethics). Methodologically the tutorial will foster philosophical skills regarding the analysis, interpretation, and criticism of a dense and rich philosophical text such as Anscombe's.

This tutorial will explore the relationship between one's desires, one's reasons for action, and one's self. Readings to include selections from Bernard Williams, Harry Frankfurt, Christine Korsgaard, and Julia Markovits.