71 - 80 of 317 results for: PHIL

(Graduate students enroll in 227.) A study of Kant's ethical thought, focusing on The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, The Critique of Practical Reason, and The Metaphysics of Morals. Prerequisite: having taken or taking during the same quarter Kant's First Critique ( Phil 125/225). Designed for undergraduate department majors and graduate students.

Kant sharply distinguishes between the philosophy of nature, in which the world is a mechanistic causal system, and the philosophy of freedom, in which the person is a rational and self-determined being. This course will study German Idealism, which consists of a series of attempts to reconcile nature and freedom, or to bring what Kant calls theoretical and practical philosophy into a single system. We begin with a three-week mini course focusing on more accessible readings from the period, covering the concepts of Nature, Freedom and History in successive weeks. In the remainder, we will read major works from Kant, Fichte, Schelling and conclude with Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit.

(Graduate students register for 231.) Phenomenology is one of the dominant philosophical traditions to arise in the 20th century. Its purpose is to investigate and describe the structures of consciousness, without theoretical or empirical bias. The study of phenomenology is both a precondition for understanding Continental philosophy and, more recently, a valuable interlocutor to philosophy of mind and cognitive science. In this class, we will learn the concepts and methods unique to phenomenology, and we will read the works of its major thinkers, including Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. PREREQS: 2 courses in philosophy prior to enrollment OR one of the following: PHI 132, PHI 134, PHI 134A, PHI 134B. This course is not repeatable.

(Graduate students register for 232.) French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty wrote that we are neither angels nor machines but living beings. In contrast to both a first-person introspective analysis and the third-person scientific approach, Merleau-Ponty aimed to describe the basic invariant structures of human life by using the phenomenological method. The result was a new concept of experience that is essentially embodied. In this class, you will learn about the phenomenological method and read Merleau-Ponty's now classic text Phenomenology of Perception. PREREQS: 2 courses in philosophy prior to enrollment (recommended PHIL 80) OR PHIL 131/231, my intro to phenomenology course. This course is not repeatable.

Philosophers have wondered what it is like to be an animal (the question of animal consciousness) and what we owe animals (animal ethics). But how do we understand these nonhuman animals in the first place? How do they act, and interact with one another? What are their lived environments? How does our concept of the animal shape our concept of the human being? In this course, we will try to answer these questions by exploring the work of thinkers who have made major contributions to how we understand nonhuman animals including Aristotle, Darwin, Heidegger, Uexküll, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, Deleuze and Guattari. This course is intended for students who have completed either 2 classes in philosophy or 1 class in philosophy at the 100+ level. Permission to enroll without meeting these requirements may be granted in certain circumstances.

In this class we consider at the recent history and contemporary constructions the normal and the pathological in the sciences of the mind. We will investigate current best practices in neuropsychology, analyzing well-known human lesion studies, while addressing the moral issues of harm and exploitation that haunt this field. Readings from Kurt Goldstein, Georg Canguilhem, Timothy Shallice, Oliver Sacks, Suzanne Corkin, Michael Gazzaniga, Elizabeth Schechter, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson and others.

This class begins from the core definition of citizenship as membership in a political community and explores the many debates about what that membership means. Who is (or ought to be) a citizen? Who gets to decide? What responsibilities come with citizenship? Is being a citizen analogous to being a friend, a family member, a business partner? How can citizenship be gained, and can it ever be lost? These debates figure in the earliest recorded political philosophy but also animate contemporary political debates. This class uses ancient, medieval, and modern texts to examine these questions and different answers given over time. We'll pay particular attention to understandings of democratic citizenship but look at non-democratic citizenship as well. Students will develop and defend their own views on these questions, using the class texts as foundations. No experience with political philosophy is required or expected, and students can expect to learn or hone the skills (writing / reading / analysis) of political philosophy.

Undergrads enroll in PHIL 136. The main - but not exclusive - focus of this course will be one book: Henry Sidgwick's The Methods of Ethics, first published in 1874. This is one of the most careful, systematic, and influential defences of utilitarianism - the view that an action is morally right if and only if, and because, it produces the best consequences for all those affected by it. (This is a rough statement of utilitarianism; we will see how and why it needs to be refined as we go along.) For further details see the Canvas page.

(Graduate students register for 237.) An exploration of Wittgenstein's changing views about meaning, mind, knowledge, and the nature of philosophical perplexity and philosophical insight, focusing on the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Philosophical Investigations.