211 - 220 of 317 results for: PHIL

This course will explore important topics in Darwin's theory of evolution and in the twentieth- and twenty-first-century theories that grew out of it. These topics include fitness, adaptation, altruism, intragenomic conflict, units of selection, genetic drift, the randomness of mutation, gradualism, common ancestry, taxonomy, race, phylogenetic inference, and optimality models. The course will bring these and other biological topics into contact with numerous philosophical ideas - operationalism, reductionism, conventionalism, null hypotheses and default reasoning, instrumentalism versus realism, likelihoods versus probabilities, model selection, essentialism, falsifiability, parsimony, the principle of the common cause, comparisons of causal power, indeterminism, sensitivity to initial conditions, and the knowability of the past. The course will be built around my 2024 book, The Philosophy of Evolutionary Theory, published by Cambridge University Press; there will also be other readings. PREREQUISITES:  A course in philosophy of science, epistemology, or evolutionary biology. Grads enroll in 267E. Undergrads enroll in 167E.

Ethical theories are in the business of telling us which actions are right and which are wrong. This course surveys important questions raised by the project of ethical theorizing, such as what counts as an objection to a moral theory, which moral theory is best, and whether we should expect to successfully theorize morality in the first place. Some background in moral philosophy will be assumed. Undergraduates who have not taken PHIL 2 should get permission from the instructor to enroll. Graduate students should enroll in PHIL 270.

In metaphor we think and talk about two things at once: two different subject matters are mingled to rich and unpredictable effect. A close critical study of the main modern accounts of metaphor's nature and interest, drawing on the work of writers, linguists, philosophers, and literary critics. Attention to how understanding, appreciation, and pleasure connect with one another in the experience of metaphor. Consideration of the possibility that metaphor or something very like it occurs in nonverbal media: gesture, dance, painting, music.

A critical exploration of some main forms of systematic moral theorizing in Western philosophy from Hobbes onward and their roots in ancient, medieval, and earlier modern ethical thought. Prerequistes are some prior familiarity with utilitarianism and Kantian ethics and a demonstrated interest in philosophy. Grads enroll in 272.

Graduates enroll in 272B.

Grads enroll in 273. In this course, we shall see the birth of modern moral philosophy and its break with medieval and early modern Aristotelian natural law theory. We shall go on to examine some of the most important movements and figures of modern moral philosophy from the 16th to the 18th centuries. We shall read Francisco Suarez (1548-1617), Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), Samuel Pufendorf (1632-94), Samuel Clarke (1675-1729), Joseph Butler (1692-1752), Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746), Thomas Reid (1710-1796), and Richard Price (1723-1791).

Grads enroll in 273A. The broad field of moral psychology involves the philosophical and empirical study of morally significant mental states and processes (such as moral reasoning, judgment, motivation, and sentiment). This course focuses on philosophical questions - primarily, conceptual and normative ones. We'll look at how best to understand concepts such as love, respect, and autonomy. And we'll consider the tools we have for the normative appraisal of morally significant attitudes such as anger, gratitude, and envy. This class is pitched at advanced undergraduates and graduate students. It's strongly recommended that you enroll only if you've taken some philosophy before - especially ethics (such as 2 or 170).

This is a graduate student only introduction to contemporary metaethics. Can moral and ethical values be justified or is it just a matter of opinion? Is there a difference between facts and values? Are there any moral truths? Does it matter if there are not? Focus is not on which things or actions are valuable or morally right, but what is value or rightness itself. Prerequisites: graduate standing and PHIL 281, and an ethics course. Please contact instructor for permission number.

Graduates enroll in 274.