62 courses with the subject PHIL UN, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
Survey of some of the central problems, key figures, and great works in both traditional and contemporary philosophy. Topics and texts will vary with instructor and semester
Critical introduction to philosophical problems, ideas and methods
Explicit criteria for recognizing valid and fallacious arguments, together with various methods for schematizing discourse for the purpose of logical analysis. Illustrative material taken from science and everyday life
Drawing on classical and contemporary sources, this course will introduce students to a variety of texts that address the philosophical consideration of education, including its role in the development of the individual and the development of a democratic society. Readings from Plato, Rousseau, Dewey, and others.
Corequisites: PHIL V2111 Required Discussion Section (0 points). Exposition and analysis of the positions of the major philosophers from the pre-Socratics through Augustine. This course has unrestricted enrollment
An introduction to historical (from 1800) and contemporary themes in the philosophy of history. Themes include Historicism, Historicity, Universality and Particularity; the debate over Positivism; the historical nature of concepts and meaning; time and tense: Past, Present Future; the Temporality of experience; the nature of Tradition and Practice; Epistemic, Revolutionary, and Paradigmatic change; Memory and the writing of one’s history (Autobiography).
Is there an essential difference between women and men? How do questions about race conflict or overlap with those about gender? Is there a normal way of being queer? Introduction to philosophy and feminism through a critical discussion of these and other questions using historical and contemporary texts, art, and public lectures. Focus includes essentialism, difference, identity, knowledge, objectivity, and queerness
Fall 2026: PHIL UN2111 Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment PHIL 2111 001/19757 T 10:10am - 11:00am 716 Philosophy Hall Jack Romp 0.00 7/30 PHIL 2111 002/19753 W 11:10am - 12:00pm 716 Philosophy Hall Han Wei Luo 0.00 6/30
Spring 2026: PHIL UN2211 Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment PHIL 2211 001/00367 F 11:10am - 12:00pm 409 Barnard Hall Jiwoo Han 0.00 20/30 PHIL 2211 002/00368 M 3:10pm - 4:00pm 716 Philosophy Hall Sebastiano Belleggia 0.00 30/30 PHIL 2211 003/00369 F 12:10pm - 1:00pm 716 Philosophy Hall Andrew Lin 0.00 27/30
Prerequisites: None. Prerequisites: None. Exposition and analysis of major texts and figures in European philosophy since Kant. Authors include Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. Required discussion section (PHIL UN2311). Attendance in the first week of classes is mandatory
Spring 2026: PHIL UN2311 Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment PHIL 2311 001/00371 T 9:10am - 10:00am 716 Philosophy Hall Taylor Carman 0.00 12/30 PHIL 2311 002/00372 T 11:10am - 12:00pm 716 Philosophy Hall Jared Jones 0.00 8/30
This course will survey a number of topics at the intersection of cognitive science and philosophy. Potential topics include free will, consciousness, embodied cognition, artificial intelligence, neural networks, and the language of thought
This course gives students an introduction to various topics in the Philosophy of Language
Questions about how people should act have historically been central to philosophy. This course introduces students to philosophy through an examination of some important moral problems that arise in the twenty-first century. The aim is not only to offer ideas for thinking through the issues covered, but also to provide tools for general moral reflection. Topics covered will include: the legitimacy of asking migrants to abandon their traditional practices, responsibilities to distant people and to future generations, abortion and genetic testing of the unborn, the proper treatment of animals, and the permissibility of war and terrorism.
Buddhist philosophers generally agree about what doesn’t exist: an enduring, unitary, and independent self. But there is surprisingly little consensus across Buddhist traditions about what does exist and what it’s like. In this course, we will examine several Buddhist theories about the nature and structure of reality and consider the epistemological and ethical implications of these radically different pictures of the world. We will analyze and evaluate arguments from some of the most influential Indian Buddhist philosophers from the second to the eleventh centuries, including Nāgārjuna, Vasubandhu, Dignāga, Candrakīrti, Śāntarakṣita, Śāntideva, and Ratnakīrti. Topics will include the existence and nature of the external world, the mind, and the self; practical and epistemological implications of the Buddhist no-self principle; personal identity; the problem of other minds; and causal determinism and moral responsibility
Prerequisites: One philosophy course or permission of the instructor.
Prerequisites: One philosophy course or permission of the instructor.
Prerequisites: One philosophy course or permission of the instructor.,\nCourse not offered in Fall 2016, will be offered in Spring 2017
Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection has been revolutionary, not just for scientists but for everyone who reflects on human nature and human destiny. The first aim of this course is to separate Darwin’s own theory from its scientific, religious, and cultural aftershocks, and to consider how its influence developed and changed over the century and a half since On the Origin of Species was published in 1859. After careful consideration of Darwin’s own life and historical context, we will read our way through the Origin, and then consider reactions to to it starting Darwin’s own day, proceeding through the “Modern Synthesis," and ending in our present moment. The final sessions of the course will explore Darwin’s impact on contemporary philosophical debates over faith, ethics, and scientific knowledge.
Explores the connections between theoretical and practical reason in Kant's thinking with special attention to the Critique of Pure Reason and the project of "transcendental" philosophy.
This course will provide an introduction to meaning, reference, understanding, and content in language, thought, and perception. A central concern will be the question of the relation of meaning to truth-conditions, and what is involved in language and thought successfully latching on to reality. If you have not already taken an elementary course in first order logic, you will need to catch up in that area to understand some crucial parts of the course. All the same, the primary concerns of the course will be philosophical, rather than technical.
Prerequisites: Phil UN2201 or PHIL UN3251 Examines major themes of Hegels philosophy, with emphasis on social and political thought. Topics include Hegels critique of Kant, the possibility of metaphysics, the master-slave dialectic, and the role of freedom in a rational society. Readings from Kant’s Third Critique help explain how Hegels project develops out of Kants transcendental idealism. Some knowledge of Kants moral theory and his Critique of Pure Reason is presupposed. Prerequisite: at least one of PHIL UN2201, PHIL UN2301, or PHIL UN3251
An examination of major themes in Nietzsche's thought. Topics include the philosophical significance of Greek tradegy, the nature of truth, the possibility of knowledge, the moral and metaphysical content of Christianity, the death of God, perspectivism, eternal recurrence, and the power to will.
Survey of selected works of Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty. Topics include intentionality, consciousness and self-consciousness, phenomenological and hermeneutical method, the question of being, authenticity and inauthenticiy, bad faith, death, and the role of the body in perception.
Prerequisites: one prior philosophy course.
Prerequisites: one philosophy course. Prerequisites: one philosophy course. A survey of Eurpoean social philosophy from the 18th to the 20th century, with special attention to theories of capitalism and the normative concepts (freedom, alienation, human flourishing) that inform them. Also: the relationship between civil society and the state
Corequisites: PHILV3413 Required Discussion Section (0 points). Advanced introduction to classical sentential and predicate logic. No previous acquaintance with logic is required; nonetheless a willingness to master technicalities and to work at a certain level of abstraction is desirable
Required discussion section for UN3411 Symbolic Logic
Prerequisites: one philosophy course or the instructor's permission. Philosophical problems within science and about the nature of scientific knowledge in the 17th-20th centuries. Sample problems: causation and scientific explanation; induction and real kinds; verification and falsification; models, analogies and simulations; the historical origins of the modern sciences; scientific revolutions; reductionism and supervenience; differences between physics, biology and the social sciences; the nature of life; cultural evolution; human nature; philosophical issues in cosmology
Philosophical problems at the foundations of quantum theory, especially those having to do with the uncertainty of relations and nature of quantum mechanical indeterminacy. Exploration of a variety of interpretation and hidden variable theory
Corequisites: PHIL V3611 Required Discussion Section (0 points). Systematic treatment of some major topics in metaphysics (e.g. modality, causation, identity through time, particulars and universals). Readings from contemporary authors
Fall 2026: PHIL UN3611 Course Number Section/Call Number Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment PHIL 3611 001/19759 W 10:10am - 11:00am 716 Philosophy Hall Saikeerthi Rachavelpula 0.00 1/30 PHIL 3611 002/19760 T 11:10am - 12:00pm 716 Philosophy Hall Xingzhi Guo 0.00 1/30
Considers psychology from the perspective of philosophy of science and the plausibility of various philosophical positions in light of the best current theories of psychology. Examines the assumptions and explanatory strategies of past and present "schools of psychology" and the implications of recent work in psychology for such perennial philosophical problems as moral responsibility and personal identity.
This course will focus on one topic at the intersection of cognitive science and philosophy. Potential topics include free will, consciousness, modularity, mental representation, probabilistic inference, the language of thought, and the computational theory of mind
This course is a survey of analytic philosophy of language. It addresses central issues about the nature of meaning, including: sense and reference, speech acts, pragmatics, and the relationship between meaning and use, meaning and context, and meaning and truth
Prerequisites: one course in philosophy. Corequisites: PHIL V3711 Required Discussion Section (0 points). Prerequisites: one course in philosophy. Corequisites: PHIL V3711 Required Discussion Section (0 points). This course is mainly an introduction to three influential approaches to normative ethics: utilitarianism, deontological views, and virtue ethics. We also consider the ethics of care, and selected topics in meta-ethics
Required discussion section for PHIL UN3701 Ethics
This course examines influential theories of nonviolence. It also considers how nonviolence can be defensible in an often violent world, and asks whether it is always clear how to distinguish violence from nonviolence
Six major concepts of political philosophy including authority, rights, equality, justice, liberty and democracy are examined in three different ways. First the conceptual issues are analyzed through contemporary essays on these topics by authors like Peters, Hart, Williams, Berlin, Rawls and Schumpeter. Second the classical sources on these topics are discussed through readings from Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Marx, Plato, Mill and Rousseau. Third some attention is paid to relevant contexts of application of these concepts in political society, including such political movements as anarchism, international human rights, conservative, liberal, and Marxist economic policies as well as competing models of democracy
This course explores philosophical reflection on the relationship between law, society and morality. We discuss the nature of law, the nature of legal reasoning, the relationship between law and social policy, and central concepts in civil and criminal law. Readings are drawn from such sources as the natural law tradition, legal positivism, legal realism, and Critical Legal Theory. Readings will be supplemented by analysis of classic cases.
This course is a philosophical examination of the meaning and significance of the concept of race. The course will chiefly aim to answer: What do we mean by the term “race”? And why is it often tied to the existence of racism? From where does the concept come? And what role did “race” play in the philosophical thought and the culture of Western modernity? Among the questions that can be asked are, How do concepts of race contribute to the formation and justification of various economic, political, and social institutions and practices, such as slavery, colonialism, and segregation? However, we will also inquire at the end of the course whether “race” is always a destructive concept, or whether it can be re-defined as part of a liberation project centered on racial identity: the appreciation and celebration of racial difference and solidarity
This course will survey political and epistemological questions that are centered around living in a society with oppression, including: What is oppression? What does it mean to be an ally? When is it right to speak for others and advocate for their interests? Do we have a duty to dissent and protest under certain circumstances? What is solidarity and how can we act in solidarity with others?
Bringing together scholars from the fields of Philosophy, Medicine, Ethics, and Religion, this course exposes students to modes of inquiry that can help to answer central questions that are often elusive and/or unconsidered: What constitutes a good human life? What do I need to be truly happy? How does the fact that I will one day die impact how I should live today? This interdisciplinary course provides a rare opportunity to consider how a wide variety of thinkers and writers have approached these questions, while also engaging with them in a personal way within our contemporary context. Lectures will be combined with group discussion and a weekend retreat, creating possibilities for interpersonal engagement and deep learning
In his Theses on Feuerbach, Karl Marx writes, “Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.” The questions to ask in response to Marx’s exhortation include: how do we recognize the need for change and appropriately effect it? What are the relations between our goals and the means to them? How can we better understand our goals to make the means more suitable? When we organize to produce results, what are we doing? Do we know exactly who and what we want to change? What are the “ethics of process”? What exactly do we do when we organize? A tentative definition: to organize is to bring together individuals who have common interests in a way that will enhance their power. What kind of power is this? What other forms of power are there? What is the best form of coordinating among individuals? If we better understand the dynamics of organizing, should we reconceive our goals accordingly? How do we better tap into shared values and concerns? What temptations and distractions get in the way of our goals? What problems prevent us from achieving them? Do we have goals that can be achieved? If not, how can we revise them?
Humans have a complicated relationship with other animals. We love them, befriend them and save them. We hunt, farm and eat them. We experiment on and observe them to discover more about them and to discover more about ourselves. For many of us, our pets are amongst the most familiar inhabitants of our world. Yet when we try to imagine what is going on in a dog or cat's mind--let alone that of a crow, octopus or bee--many of us are either stumped about how to go about this, or (the science strongly suggests) getting things radically wrong. Is our thought about and behavior towards animals ethically permissible, or even consistent, Can we reshape our habits of thought about animals to allow for a more rational, richer relationship with the other inhabitants of our planet? In this course, students will reflect on two closely intertwined questions: an ethical question, what sort of relationship ought we to have with animals?; and a metaphysical question, what is the nature of animal minds? Readings will primarily be be from philosophy and ethics and the cognitive sciences, with additional readings from literature and biology. There are no prerequisites for this class--it will be helpful but certainly not necessary to have taken previous classes in philosophy(especially ethics and philosophy of mind) or in cognitive science.
This course is an advanced introduction to philosophical aesthetics focused primarily on the question: how do artistic images achieve their distinctive effect? A traditional (Platonic) answer to that question is that images do so by resembling their objects in a distinctive way. However, criticisms of this view, from various directions, will motivate us to consider some less familiar alternatives. We will begin with a proposal from 20th century "analytical" philosophy: on this view, images "symbolize" in the way mathematical equations, linguistic signs and non artistic images like maps and diagrams do. Next, we will consider a proposal from the "phenomenological" tradition: rather than merely affording us visual experiences, images provide a holistic embodied experience in which we are solicited to move and act. Finally, we will consider a distinctive proposal from social theory, and, in particular, the Marxist tradition: on this view, images in late capitalist societies serve a distinctive secularizing function y emancipating the artwork from its ritual function and removing its sacred aura. The course is bookended by units on artistic images in general, but contains units on artistic images of all kinds (photographs, films, and paintings). Readings are numerous, short, and drawn from a wide variety of types of sources (interviews, academic articles, manifestos, book length works), thinkers, and traditions. Students will leave having read at least one modern classic in the field: Goodman's _Languages of Art_. They will also watch part of one (highly philosophical) film: Malick's _Badlands_. The course has no prerequisites.
This course will be devoted to the topic of being other than oneself and the metaphysical debate surrounding questions like: What does the possibility of being different from who we are amount to? What does it mean to be someone else? How different from ourselves can we be? Students will be offered analytical and philosophical tools that will help them to rigorously formulate those and related questions, and to think through the nature of modal variation and its boundaries. In the final weeks of the semester, we will explore the application of those theoretical tools to relevant themes in metaphysics of gender. Throughout the seminar, students will be encouraged to think of the implications of our discussion for related debates in philosophy, especially in the epistemology of the modal and counterfactual claims at issue. This course will be most suitable for students who have some background in analytical metaphysics, e.g. Philosophy 3601, “Metaphysics."
This course examines the concept of infinity throughout the history of western philosophy, looking at how the puzzles that surround the concept led to the construction and defense of many different philosophical positions on the infinite. In particular, we will examine how many different historical figures have attempted (in many different ways) to draw a distinction between what is potentially infinite and what is actually infinite, and further, how this distinction is used in attempts to solve puzzles of the infinite. We move chronologically, starting with Zeno and Aristotle, through the invention of calculi of infinitesimals, to the development of set theory, model theory, and modern mathematical logic. We will also use the tools we develop in our historical investigation to address modern discussions in philosophy about the infinite, such as the debates about supertasks and the limitations of computation. This course has no prerequisites (although having taken Symbolic Logic may be useful), and it serves well as an introduction to philosophy of mathematics because of its chronological presentation. It also intersects with a wide range of topics in other fields, such as mathematics, logic, physics, computer science, religion, and artificial intelligence, which should make it of interest even to those who may not have a strong formal background.
Rectifying injustice remains a central motivation for social and political thought. The aim of a theory of justice or injustice is often to guide us in dealing with the grave wrongs in our social world. But how should philosophy support the advancement of justice, and what do its moral ideals have to do with the political realities of power and conflict? Do we need an “ideal theory” of a perfectly just society to set the aims of social progress? Can we properly respond to racial and gendered injustices without understanding how they wrong people as members of social groups (e.g. as black Americans, women, etc.)? What limits do our theories face in helping us navigate real political decisions and problems? This course will examine different answers to these questions as well as their substantive consequences for addressing pressing injustices based on race and gender. Our investigations will emphasize the relations between political philosophy, social science, the social construction of identity, and real-world politics.
In an era in which government surveillance, hacking, and social media regularly challenge the line between our public and private lives, exploring the nature of the public/private dichotomy is a pressing task. In this course we will explore how philosophers in the Western tradition have understood the contrast between the public and the private beginning with the ancient ideal of the polis as the site of genuine human flourishing and freedom, we will go on to explore the way in which modern thinkers have problematized this ideal in the context of capitalism, mass culture, and modern pluralistic societies. By engaging with thinkers such as Aristotle, Arendt, Dewey, Rawls, and Habermas, we will ask questions such as: what kind of freedom do we enjoy when we are in public with other people, and what kind of freedom do we enjoy in private? Are both equally valuable? What is the relationship between public opinion and a healthy democracy? How does capitalism and the mass medial affect the public sphere? What are the dangers of an impoverished public sphere? Is the very distinction between the public and the private gendered in pernicious ways?
Talk about “individuality”, about being (or becoming) “yourself” is all around us. But what exactly does this mean? What is genuine individuality, and how can we develop it, in ourselves (though self-development) and in others (by designing appropriate educational institutions)? What is the relationship between being an individual and being a part of society? Is there a tension between the non-conformism often associated with genuine individuality on the one hand, and the demands of community and good citizenship, on the other? Can educational institutions be designed to fulfill both those demands (to the extent they are distinct)? And how might oppressive social institutions hinder the development of “individuality”? In this course, we will explore these and related questions by drawing on both the classics of philosophy of education (Plato, Rousseau, Nietzsche, Dewey, Du Bois), and on relevant literary material that is in conversation with the philosophical texts (Rilke, Tolstoy, Woolf)
Language is our primary means for influencing each other’s thoughts and attitudes. Sometimes, we use it to convey information explicitly, and to influence others directly. But sometimes, language is used to convey information implicitly (e.g., in hints, sarcasm and irony), or to shape the opinions of others surreptitiously (e.g., in propaganda). How do these forms of communication work? What distinguishes them? What makes for their success or failure? In this course, we will critically examine some classic theories in the philosophy of language that try to answer these questions. Then, we will turn to recent work that rejects or extends these theories in response to careful examination of the ways in which language can be exploited as a means for manipulation and control
“What is it to be happy?” Philosophers have passionately debated this question from antiquity until now. Especially in times when happiness seems difficult to find, we naturally want to know what happiness is and how best to secure it. In this course, we will consider happiness in relation to well-being, examining four major theories of well-being (hedonism, desire-fulfillment theories, objective list theories, and eudaimonism/perfectionism). We will gain a nuanced understanding of each view by juxtaposing their ancient and modern advocates and opponents
At the broadest level, this course addresses questions, What does it mean to respond to new information in a rational way? How should we update our beliefs in response to evidence? This is a central question in the philosophy of science and epistemology, but it also connects to important issues in social and political philosophy. For example, one's views about what it means to learn in a rational way might inform one's view about the significance of political polarization. Is polarization a sign that certain groups are responding to information in an irrational way? In order to address questions like this, one must first think carefully about what rational responses to inform amount to. This is what we'll do in this course. The course has three parts. In the first part, we will read some classical philosophical texts about the problem of induction. This part of the course will introduce students to some influential concepts from logic (formal learning theory), statistics (Bayesian inference), and computer science and artificial intelligence (PAC learning). Having developed a toolkit for thinking about rational learning, we will, in the third part of the course, turn to some issues in social and political philosophy. In addition to thinking about political polarization, mentioned above, we will ask whether learning based on the testimony of others has any distinctive significance, and we will study the concept of epistemic injustice. The course has no prerequisites. All of the technical concepts will be introduced in a self-contained and elemental way.
In the 1790s, when Jane Austen was beginning to write fiction, there was much debate over the value and function of the novel. Some argued that novels were dangerous to their readers, inciting violent emotional responses and corrupting the imagination (especially in women and children, who were believed to be more sensitive to such stimuli). Others saw potential in this narrative form, arguing that novels could contribute to the moral and sentimental education of their readers. Adam Smith, for example, claims that “[t]he poets and romance writers, who best paint the refinements and delicacies of love and friendship, and of all other private and domestic affections, Racine and Voltaire; Richardson, Maurivaux, and Riccoboni; are, in such cases, much better instructors than Zeno, Chrysippus, or Epictetus” (Theory of Moral Sentiments III.3.14). And David Hume argues that there is a kind of moral philosophy that paints virtue and vice rather than anatomizing it. Such philosopher-painters, he says, “make us feel the difference between vice and virtue; they excite and regulate our sentiments” (Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding 1.1). In this course, we will keep these questions about one possible function of literature in the back of our minds as we read through four of Austen’s novels. With each novel, we will focus on a specific ethical theme treated in and by that novel: with Sense and Sensibility we’ll focus on the role of the emotions in morality; with Mansfield Park we’ll focus on questions about moral education and virtue; with Emma we’ll focus on the difficulties of accurate discernment and judgment in moral matters; and with Persuasion we’ll focus on the relation between the individual and society and the complications caused by differences in gender, class, and social status. Each novel will be paired with selections from authors who were near contemporaries of Austen’s, including Samuel Johnson, David Hume, Jane Collier, Hannah More, Adam Smith, and Mary Wollstonecraft. Two warnings/things to be aware of: first, this course will require a significant amount of reading; and second, in this course, we will be approaching literature with an interest in philosophical themes and questions. We will occasionally discuss formal and stylistic aspects of Austen’s novels (for example, her use of irony and of a technique referred to as “free indirect discourse”), but these sorts of concerns will not be our main focus
Artificial intelligence (AI) promises—or threatens—to transform every area of our lives and societies. It has already begun to upend our understanding of human nature, radically alter our social institutions, and revolutionize scientific practice. And in some circles, there is increasing concern that AI is developing intelligence to rival our own. This course will explore these issues through the philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and ethics. We will ask whether AI systems could have minds like ours, whether they could be conscious, whether they might eventually deserve moral consideration, and how we can use them fairly in our current societies
Required of senior majors, but also open to junior majors, and junior and senior concentrators who have taken at least four philosophy courses. This exploration will typically involve writing a substantial research paper. Capped at 20 students with preference to philosophy majors
Corequisites: PHIL UN3963 Corequisites: PHIL W3963 Required Discussion Section (0 points). What can we know? What is knowledge? What are the different kinds of knowledge? We will read classic and contemporary texts for insight into these questions
Required discussion section for PHIL UN3960 Epistemology
Source: Barnard College's catalog, linked per course · table learning_unit · CourseShelf publish 61
