42 courses with the subject PHIL H, 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.
PHIL H103GLOBAL ETHICS1.0
An exploration of selected texts on ethics in a global context. This course seeks to develop a global perspective on human values through a critical exploration of vital texts on ethics across diverse philosophical traditions. A central focus is on the challenge of articulating global ethics and global values across cultures, worldviews, and traditions. Are there global norms valid for diverse worldviews? Is there a global foundation for ethics? Are there universal human rights? How do we think critically across and between diverse worldviews and perspectives? A course in Global Philosophy, not for major or minor credit.
A critical exploration of classic texts from diverse philosophical traditions in a global context. This course seeks to cultivate a global perspective in philosophy and brings classical texts from diverse philosophical worlds into global dialogue. One aim is to help students to appreciate global patterns in rationality across traditions and to gain a critical understanding of common ground and significant differences in diverse wisdom traditions. Readings include Bhagavad-Gita, Dhamapada, Plato's Phaedo, and Descartes's Meditations. A course in Global Philosophy, not for major or minor credit.
Happiness is something that we all want, but what exactly is it? Perhaps happiness is or involves leading a flourishing life. What, then, is a flourishing life? Does such a life involve the possession and exercise of certain states of character? Which ones? This course will consider these and related issues, including the virtues and their interrelations, the nature and identity of persons, and the meaning (or meaninglessness) of life. Readings from classic and contemporary sources, including Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Hume, Nagel, and Wolf.
The capacity to reason is often seen as one of the central components of what it means to be a human being. How we reason, to what end we reason, and what constitutes “good reasoning,” however, has been the subject of debate throughout the history of philosophy. Through an engagement with prominent philosophers, both past and present, this course will examine how our understanding of reason has and continues to shape our worldviews.
This course is an introduction to metaphysics and epistemology. Metaphysics addresses questions about the nature of reality, while epistemology addresses questions about what we can know and about how we can know it. The metaphysical questions on which we will focus include the following. What is the nature of the mind? What is the nature of causation? And to what extent are metaphysical questions answerable? The epistemological questions on which we will focus include the following. Can we know anything on the basis of our senses? Can we know anything independently of our senses? And to what extent are skeptical challenges about the possibility of knowledge answerable?
This class introduces students to the disciplinary language of philosophy through the study of ethics. Emphasis will be placed on the development of critical reading and writing skills. The first half of the course examines philosophical principles through conventional moral systems like consequentialism and deontology. The second focuses on ethics as the study of value, considering wider topics of knowledge, truth, agency, and self-identity.
PHIL H119WHAT DOES PHILOSOPHY HAVE TO DO WITH SOCIAL MEDIA?1.0
What relationship does philosophy have to issues arising in the contemporary world? What relationship does philosophy have to our experiences with and usages of digital social media? What sorts of digital humanities projects might be born of the intersection of philosophy and digital social media? Through a survey of answers to these questions in the history of Western philosophy from the Ancient Greeks to contemporary thinkers, students in this course will be asked to think critically about the significance of difference to their relationship with others and their experience of their horizons.
A close reading of Plato’s Meno, Phaedo, Republic, Symposium, and Theaetetus, with a focus on issues in philosophical psychology and the theory of knowledge. Prerequisite(s): 100-level philosophy course or instructor permission.
What are essences, and how do they figure in scientific knowledge? What are perception, imagination, thought, and desire, and how do they interact? What is human happiness? We will consider these and related questions, working through some of Aristotle’s most influential discussions in philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, and ethics. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level PHIL course or consent of instructor
An examination of feminist philosophy in the lived world through reading Living a Feminist Life, The Argonauts, Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, and Freedom is a Constant Struggle to answer, What does it meant to do feminist philosophy? Prerequisite(s): 100 level Philosophy course or instructor's approval
The first (and primary) focus of this course is on various themes in Karl Marx’s social theory, including alienation and labor, commodity fetishism and ideology, historical materialism, and capitalist exploitation. The other focus is on the critical theory developed by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno in response to the events of WWII and the Holocaust. Readings will be made up mostly of primary sources, with some secondary readings to aid in the tasks of understanding and interpretation.
This course is an introduction to the philosophy of the Scottish philosopher David Hume through a close reading of some of his most influential texts. The course will address questions about Hume’s epistemology and philosophy of mind, as well as questions about his moral psychology and moral philosophy. It will also examine Hume’s ambition to provide a fully naturalistic conception of human nature. Pre-requisite(s): One 100-level course in philosophy or permission of the instructor
PHIL H240ETHICS: VALUE IN NATIVE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY1.0
In this course we’ll be discussing Indigenous values and how they’re related to Indigenous worldviews. This will include discussing issues in Native American ethics, Native American understandings of reality and knowledge, and Native American political thought. The course will be structured around three main questions: What is Native American philosophy? What is Native American science? What is sovereignty?
A critical exploration of classical Hindu thought (Vedanta) in a global and comparative context. Special focus on selected Principal Upanisads, a close meditative reading of the Bhagavad Gita and an in depth exploration of Shankara's Brahmasutra Commentary. A course in Global Philosophy, not for major or minor credit. Prerequisite(s): One PHIL course at the 100 level or consent.
PHIL H242BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT1.0
An introduction to classical Indian Buddhist thought in a global and comparative context. The course begins with a meditative reading of the classical text-The Dhamapada-and proceeds to an in depth critical exploration of the teachings of Nagarjuna, the great dialectician who founded the Madhyamika School. Prerequisite(s): At least one course in Philosophy or Religion or instructor permission. A course in Global Philosophy, not for major or minor credit.
PHIL H243TWENTIETH-CENTURY CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY: THE SUBJECT AND POWER1.0
This course examines major currents in 20th-century continental philosophy that interrogate, dismantle, and reimagine the concept of the “Subject.” Thinkers of this period challenged the Enlightenment ideal of the autonomous individual, instead drawing attention to the ways power, through its many forms, produces, disciplines, and shapes subjective experience. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level philosophy course or instructor permission.
The focus of this course is the question of the place of mind in nature, in the world. What sort of thing is a mind? What is it to be conscious? Can there be freedom of the will in a physical world? Could a computer ever be correctly described as thinking? Do animals have minds? Our aim is to clarify what we are asking when we ask such questions, and to begin at least to formulate answers.
PHIL H252GLOBAL PHILOSOPHY OF LOGIC AND LANGUAGE1.0
A comparative exploration of alternative paradigms of logic, language and meaning from a logical and philosophical point of view. Special attention is given to the classical Aristotelian grammar of thought and the modern grammars developed by Frege, Wittgenstein, Quine, Heidegger, Sommers, Derrida and others. Focus is on the quest for the fundamental logic of natural language. A course in Global Philosophy, not for major or minor credit.
A close study of seminal essays by Frege, Russell, Kripke, Quine, Davidson, and others focusing on questions of meaning, reference, and truth. An overarching aim of the course is to understand how one can approach fundamental issues in philosophy through a critical reflection on how language works. Pre-requisite(s): One 100 level class or its equivalent, or consent.
A critical examination of philosophical accounts of reality and being. Special attention is given to how world views are formed and transformed: an ontological exploration of diverse alternative categorical frameworks for experience. Metaphysical narratives of diverse thinkers in the evolution of the European tradition are explored in global context. Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, Heidegger, Whitehead...and other ontologists are explored. A course in Global Philosophy, not for major or minor credit.
This course examines the challenge that desiring subjects pose for ethics. Can we still employ the language of choice, intentionality, and responsibility when actions result from unconscious or socio-historical forces? Sexuality offers a helpful way to contemplate these questions. For instance, while object-choice can appear value-neutral (“the heart wants what it wants,” “I was born this way”), this view is contradicted by the social affirmation granted some object-choices (same or different sex adult partners) but withheld from others (the immigrant, the non-white, the non-human, the self, the transgenerational, the inanimate, etc.) Similar ethical disparities apply to sexual practices, reproductive practices, and relationship structures. In examining notions like authentic self-expression, biological drives, and perverse desire, we will move beyond stale moral claims to develop a more nuanced language of ethics that reaches beyond dynamics of natural/unnatural and normal/abnormal. (Note: course readings, lectures, and discussions will include explicit sexual language.)
An introduction to key readings in 20th century continental philosophy in the areas of semiotics, critical theory, and deconstruction. Of primary importance will be issues of language, meaning, and representation. Readings include Barthes, Althusser, Foucault, Derrida, Kristeva, and Jameson. Pre-requisites:one 100-level Philosophy course and Sophomore, Junior or Senior standing.
What are the norms that govern good deductive reasoning? Logic seeks to address this question. This course will retrace the historical development of this discipline, starting with an examination of Aristotle’s theory of syllogism, followed by a brief overview of medieval and early modern logic. The bulk of our attention will be devoted to modern symbolic logic, which is taken to originate in the work of Gottlob Frege (1848-1925). We will develop an understanding of the rules of syntax and semantics pertaining to both sentential logic and first-order predicate logic with identity. We will also introduce natural deduction systems for both. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level Philosophy course.
PHIL H261EXPERIENCE, KNOW-HOW, AND SKILLED COPING1.0
An investigation of three debates concerning the character of experiential knowledge. (1) Is experience the same as expertise? Is it required for the acquisition of expertise? (2) What is the difference between knowing-how and knowing that, and how are they related? (3) What is the phenomenology of skillful behavior?
What is psychoanalysis? How can we approach psychoanalytic practice philosophically? This course will be based on theoretical explorations and group discussion on grounding texts of psychoanalysis. We will approach psychoanalysis through conceptual analysis and philosophical inquiry, highlighting the existential and the theoretical problems raised by psychoanalytic practice. Pre-requisite(s): 100-level philosophy course or instructor permission Lottery Preference: 1. Philosophy majors; 2. Philosophy minors; 3. Sophomores; 4. First years; 5. Juniors; 6. all others
PHIL H264THE OPPOSITIONAL GAZE: ART TRAVERSING THE BINARY1.0
Through a survey of visual, literary, and performance arts primarily by Black and Latina women (e.g., Lorraine O’Grady, Adrian Piper, Christina Sharpe, Ana Victoria Jiménez) this course seeks to theorize the many dimensions of the oppositional gaze, with a focus on the ways these thinker-artists challenge, critique and disrupt various binaries that they identify with the history of western philosophy. Crosslisted: AFST,VIST.
What are space and time? Do space and time exist? If so, what is their structure? What is the relationship between our experience of space and time and scientific conceptions of space and time? Is time fundamentally different from space? Is time travel logically possible? This course provides an overview of philosophical issues surrounding space and time. Readings will draw from a mix of historical and contemporary texts from both the analytic and continental traditions. Pre-requisite(s): 100-level philosophy course or instructor permission Lottery Preference: Philosophy majors and minors, Sophomores, Juniors, then All others
PHIL H310TOPICS IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY: MEMORY, IMAGINATION, AND MADNESS1.0
An investigation of the key concepts and claims of Aristotle's psychology, with special attention to the functions of memory. Prerequisite(s): 200 level Philosophy course or Instructor's Approval
Black feminist theory offers expansive frameworks for thinking about liberation, theorizing at the intersections of race, gender, colonialism, and class. In this course, we will undertake close readings of the works of Saidiya Hartman, Sylvia Wynter, and Angela Davis, with a central focus on Black feminist critiques of generalized class struggle. Through sustained engagement with these thinkers, we will dwell in the complexities of what it means to be rendered legible—or scripted—as a human subject struggling for emancipation from domination.
PHIL H329BELL HOOKS SEMINAR: BLACK FEMINIST AUTOTHEORY AND CRITICAL PHENOMENOLOGY1.0
This course will be a survey of the critical phenomenological work of Black feminist philosopher bell hooks, with a concentration on how hooks’ theory is intertwined with her lived experience. Crosslisted: AFST,GSST. Pre-requisite(s): 200- Level Philosophy course or Instructor Permission
PHIL H332TOPICS IN TWENTIETH CENTURY CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY1.0
relates to race, class, and gender. In this light, we will explore how knowledge is produced, validated, and contested in human life. We will read the works of Michel Foucault, Walter Mignolo, Louis Althusser, Stuart Hall, Linda Martín Alcoff, Miranda Fricker, and Jose Medina. Through engagement with classical contemporary structuralism and epistemology and texts, we will analyze how our understanding of ourselves as socially mediated creatures both exposes structures of power and offers strategies for their transformation. Prerequisite(s): One 200-level Philosophy course and junior or senior standing.
This advanced seminar focuses on the development of Zen (Japanese) Buddhism culminating in the work of Nishida and his influential Kyoto School of Zen Philosophy. The background in the Indian origins of Madhyamika dialectic introduced by Nagarjuna is traced through the Zen Master Dogen and into flourishing of the modern Kyoto School founded by Nishida. The seminar focuses in the texts by Dogen and on selected writings in the Kyoto School: Nishida, Nishitani and Abe. The seminar involves intensive discussion of the issues on global context of philosophy. Nishida s thought is developed in dialogue with thinkers such as Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Sartre and Heidegger, Nagarjuna and others. A course in Global Philosophy, not for major or minor credit. Prerequisite(s): An Intro Phil course (100 series) and either 241 (Hindu Throught) or 242 Buddhist Thought) or a course in Relg or EALC Thought or consent
PHIL H343PHILOSOPHY OF TEXT AND LITERATURE: WRITING FOR PUBLICATION1.0
In this writing workshop students begin with a paper written in a previous 300-level philosophy course and develop, expand, and substantially revise it, culminating with the submission of the paper to an academic journal for publication. Students will be expected to conduct additional secondary research on their topic, produce and present multiple drafts of their work, research relevant journals for submission, employ requisite style guides, and work diligently and independently under deadline. Prerequisite(s): One 300-level course in philosophy, junior or senior standing, and submission of proposed workshop paper to course professor. Priority given to philosophy majors and minors.
PHIL H350TOPICS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS1.0
How does mathematics work? How can one come to know things by engaging in the practices mathematicians engage in, and what sorts of things does one come to know this way? Can mathematics perhaps also teach us about our philosophical concerns more broadly conceived? We explore answers to these questions through reflection on the history of mathematics from ancient Greece to the present.
PHIL H354TOPICS IN METAPHYSICS: THE PHILOSOPHY OF DONALD DAVIDSON1.0
Donald Davidson (1917-2003) was one of the most systematic and insightful philosophical thinkers of the previous century. He developed an original and deeply humanistic view of the human mind and its relation to the world. At the core of Davidson’s view is a claim about the nature of linguistic meaning, namely, that the attempt to explain it in more basic terms is misguided. He took the irreducibility of meaning to constrain in various interesting ways his views about everything else. In this course we will examine Davidson’s philosophical system. We will engage with his views of the nature of language and thought, as well as with his views of the nature of agency and value. Readings will include key texts by Davidson and illuminating responses by his critics.
An examination of some central problems concerning the varieties of cognition. Topics may include hallucination, illusion, the phenomenal character of perceptual awareness, and the nature of sense-experience. Readings from contemporary authors. Prerequisite(s): 200 level course in philosophy or psychology or instructor consent.
PHIL H372TOPICS IN PHILOSOPHY: PHILOSOPHY AND INTERSECTIONALITY1.0
This course will attempt to determine how and to what extent intersectionality may fit into the discipline of philosophy. Focusing on the ethical dimensions of the concept, we will determine the conceptual difficulties philosophy brings to bear on intersectionality. Prerequisite(s): 200 level Philosophy course or Instructor's Approval
This course has several components: (a) participation in the Altherr Symposium, including three to four meetings devoted to preparation for the symposium, (b) participation in the Distinguished Visitors series, (c) the writing of a senior thesis, and (d) presentation of one's work for critical discussion with others in the seminar, as well as a final formal presentation.
This course has several components: (a) participation in the Altherr Symposium, including three to four meetings devoted to preparation for the symposium, (b) participation in the Distinguished Visitors series, (c) the writing of a senior thesis, and (d) presentation of one's work for critical discussion with others in the seminar, as well as a final formal presentation.
