Stanford University Explore Courses

PHIL 363W: Get Real! Debating Scientific Realism in Contemporary Philosophy, History, and STS

This course is a discussion seminar for graduate students, focusing on work published since 2000. It hypothesizes that recent work on scientific realism does not respect the boundaries that were established by twentieth-century "science wars." We will read philosophers of science who embrace metaphysics and some historicism; and we will read historians of science who condemn Lysenkoism and are realists about climate change. We will debate whether postmodern anthropological critique has been adopted by neoconservatives and "run out of steam." And we will engage with ambitious projects to build a feminist realism that embraces modern physics. Students from all departments are welcome. Undergraduates admitted by instructor's permission.

Terms: Win | Units: 4

Instructors: Wright, A. (PI)

PHIL 365: Seminar in Philosophy of Physics

2 unit option for PhD students only.

Terms: Win | Units: 2-4

Instructors: Ryckman, T. (PI)

PHIL 366: Evolution and Communication

Topics include information bottlenecks, signaling networks, information processing, invention of new signals, teamwork, evolution of complex signals, teamwork. Sources include signaling games invented by David Lewis and generalizations thereof, using evolutionary and learning dynamics.

Last offered: Spring 2009

PHIL 369: Philosophy of Linguistics (LINGUIST 204, SYMSYS 204)

Philosophical issues raised by contemporary work in linguistics. Topics include: the subject matter of linguistics (especially internalism vs. externalism), methodology and data (especially the role of quantitative methods and the reliance on intuitions), the relationship between language and thought (varieties of Whorfianism and anti-Whorfianism), nativist arguments about language acquisition, and language evolution.

Last offered: Spring 2014

PHIL 370: Core Seminar in Ethics

Limited to first- and second-year students in the Philosophy Ph.D. program.

Last offered: Autumn 2009

PHIL 370A: Grad Seminar in Ethics

Conceptions of the self in practical philosophy. Graduate seminar exploring topics at the intersection of personal identity, agency, and morality. Specific topics and authors to be determined.

Last offered: Autumn 2013

PHIL 371D: INEQUALITY: Economic and Philosophical Perspectives (ECON 380, ETHICSOC 371R, POLISCI 431L)

The nature of and problem of inequality is central to both economics and philosophy. Economists study the causes of inequality, design tools to measure it and track it over time, and examine its consequences. Philosophers are centrally concerned with the justification of inequality and the reasons why various types of inequality are or are not objectionable.nIn this class we bring both of these approaches together. Our class explores the different meanings of and measurements for understanding inequality, our best understandings of how much inequality there is, its causes, its consequences, and whether we ought to reduce it, and if so, how. nThis is an interdisciplinary graduate seminar. We propose some familiarity with basic ideas in economics and basic ideas in contemporary political philosophy; we will explain and learn about more complex ideas as we proceed. The class will be capped at 20 students.

Last offered: Winter 2016

PHIL 372: Topics in Kantian Ethics

Selected topics in ethics, considering both Kant's texts and recent writings by Kant interpreters and moral philosophers in the Kantian tradition. Among the topics covered will be: Practical reason, personal relationships, duties to oneself, evil, right and politics, lying, constructivism in ethics.

PHIL 372D: Topics in Political Philosophy (POLISCI 332)

Leading ideas in A Theory of Justice, Political Liberalism, and The Law of Peoples.