Section: 001 / CRN: 71903
ONLINE / Second-Half
Instructor: Thomas

 This 8-week, 100% online course will introduce you to philosophic wonder, thought, and thinking. We’ll read, think, question, discuss, and write about persistent philosophical questions, such as those about life's meaning, good and evil, the existence of God, the reality of reality, liberty, personhood, and the philosophic life itself. The main aim of the course is for you to grow and flourish as a philosophical thinker, questioner, human being.

Required weekly work includes readings, written discussion posts, and reading quizzes. Additional required coursework includes short journal/response writings and a final exam. Coursework is due at the end of each week, at midnight on Sunday nights. You must have reliable Internet access, but no other special equipment is required.

Prerequisites: none

Section: 002 / CRN: 64047
ONLINE / Full-Term
Instructor: Hedling

This course takes a historical and cross-cultural approach to philosophy, presenting philosophy as a global activity in our human history. Unlike most courses on the “Introduction to Philosophy,” which typically begin with early Greek philosophy, the pre-Socratics followed by the classical period of Socrates and Plato, the first part of this course seeks to challenge ancient Greece as the “only” birthplace of philosophy. Although we will be concerned with the Western tradition of philosophy, we will also consider the rich philosophical thought of non-Western traditions, such as Indian, Chinese, and Islamic philosophies. The first part of the course aims to encourage a cross-cultural conversation among global philosophies. Although the second part will be more centered on the Western canon of philosophy, I hope the cross-cultural perspective gained from the first part will serve as a foundation for fostering dialogues between philosophical traditions developed at different locations and stages of our human history. In this part, I aim to take my students on a journey through early and late modern philosophy, where we will consider enlightenment and post-enlightenment philosophy and engage with the critical insights gained from major traditions such as German Idealism, Marxism, Psychoanalysis, Feminist philosophy, and Postcolonial thought. Course assignments will consist of weekly lectures and readings, bi-weekly response papers, voluntary discussion sessions, a group assignment, a midterm exam, a paper proposal, and a final paper.

Section: 003 / CRN: 64041
TR 0930-1045 / Full-Term
Instructor: Barton

In this course, students will be introduced to philosophy (i.e., “love of wisdom”) through the medium of the philosophy of religion. No prior familiarity with philosophy, religion, or the philosophy of religion will be assumed. Such a staging ground offers multiple angles of philosophical analysis: epistemology, ontology/metaphysics, ethics, logic, and so on. Students will encounter the following questions (and many more): Does God/do gods exist? Is it even possible to comprehend divine entities with our all-too-human concepts? How does God/do gods engage in revelation (if at all)? What does it mean to believe in God/gods? Drawing from different religious traditions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism, will enable students to investigate and interrogate the aforementioned questions from a variety of standpoints. Students should expect to purchase a textbook containing key readings (Readings in the Philosophy of Religion, 3rd edition edited by Kelly James Clark); however, all other texts will be made available to students at no cost.

Section: 004 / CRN: 72658
MWF 0900-0950 / Full-Term
Instructor: Ben Itzhak

In this class we will get to know central concepts and basic concepts pre-Socratics to 20th-century thinkers, through a study of the thought of its prominent representatives: Plato, Aristotle, Rene Descartes, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. The class will focus on questions and issues from the fields of metaphysics and the theory of cognition such as: the nature of truth; the nature of reason; the conditions for knowing; different perceptions of the self; the relationship between object and subject; The distinction between body and mind, human freedom, and other central questions. We will follow the way of the development of the ideas and their incarnations company by the texts.

Assessment will be through class participation, reading responses, and papers. Students should come away from this course with a general understanding of the core ideas philosophy engage with, skills for reading and evaluating philosophical texts and the ability to formulate a philosophical argument of their own.

Section: 005 / CRN: 64038
MWF 1100-1150 / Full-Term
Instructor: Mercier

In this class, students will be introduced to philosophy as a practice of rational and critical enquiry. Through our reading of philosophical texts, we will raise and address fundamental questions such as: What is justice? What is the good life? What defines human beings? What is the meaning of human life? What makes something right or wrong? Does power shape who we are, or how we conceive of the good and of truth? What is our place in the world and our relationship to other beings?

We will read major authors from the Western traditions, as well as thinkers who are in some ways critiques of this tradition and thinkers situated in the Eastern and Native American tradition. Reading and discussion will constitute the living core of the class.

Section: 006 / CRN: 72659
TR 1100-1215 / Full-Term
Instructor: Patwary

In this course, we will briefly traverse through the history of philosophy by reading short representative works from several different philosophical traditions. As we progress, we will examine the major branches of philosophy, including ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, and aesthetics, and investigate the complex relationships between them. While our survey of the history will by no means be exhaustive, our brief encounter with the thought of different philosophers through history will enable us to see the paradigms in which human beings have thought about themselves and the world and how their practice of philosophy led them to such conceptions. Ultimately, we will aim to see how philosophy can inform our lives. The readings in this course will be based not only on what is considered the traditional canon but also on some of the voices that have not been heard as intently but to whom contemporary times have started to pay attention.

All readings will be made available on Canvas. Grades will be based on participation, weekly response papers, and a final paper.

Section: 010 / CRN: 65700
MW 1700-1815 / Full-Term
Instructor: Pearce

Most, if not all of us, have spent time in our lives asking philosophical questions: Are you and I seeing the same blue when we look at the sky? What is the meaning of life? What does it mean to be a good person? While many people view these philosophical questions as just pointless musings which don't really have any answer beyond one's opinion, in this course, we will take seriously the idea that philosophy relies on rigorous, well-reasoned arguments. The goal of this course is not to answer all our philosophical questions once and for all. The goal is simply to engage with some of the important philosophers of the past in order to determine what philosophy is, how we do it, and why we ought to do it at all. We're all born as philosophers who repeatedly ask our parents "Why?" over and over until we are met with the frustrated "Because I said so!" Throughout the rest of our lives, we are often told by other authorities "this is simply the way things have to be" or "it's just common sense." Our goal is to revive that child-like wonder and questioning - philosophy is about giving actual reasons where others simply want to appeal to authority or say "it's just obvious."  

We will begin with ancient philosophy and continue all the way to the 21st century, picking out a variety of important texts throughout history. All readings will be available on Canvas. Grades will primarily be determined by argumentative papers.

Section: 001 / CRN: 75155
ONLINE / First-Half
Instructor: Gerber

Most intellectual endeavors involve argumentation. From short letters to the editor to complex philosophical essays, from everyday discussions to legal debates, arguments are constantly created and invoked to support or criticize points of view. The purpose of the course is to help you learn how to analyze, critique, and construct arguments.

There are two sections in this course. First, we have an introductory survey of important logical concepts and tools needed for analyzing arguments. The second section is an in-depth examination of philosophical essays on the philosophy of food.

Required texts:  
[1] Morrow and Weston, A Workbook for Arguments 
[2] Handouts and Essays posted on Canvas

Section: 002 / CRN: 70580
TR 1100-1215 / Full-Term
Instructor: McKinley

We encounter arguments all the time: in course readings and news articles, on social media and in everyday conversation. But how can you tell if an argument is good? When should you be persuaded? In this course, we will learn how to analyze, critique, and construct arguments. In the first half of the course, we will examine the different logical concepts and tools that are needed for analyzing and evaluating an argument. Then in the second half, we will apply these tools to a few philosophical essays in order to critically evaluate arguments "in the wild." No background in philosophy or logic is presupposed, but you should come prepared to think, talk, and write in a sophisticated, critical way.

Section: 003 / CRN: 64050
MWF 0900-0950 / Full-Term
Instructor: Swick

In this course we will develop skills in argumentation, critical thinking, and reasoning. The first part of the course will cover how to analyze and assess arguments by studying the elements of argumentation: deduction, induction, validity, soundness, scientific reasoning, moral reasoning, and more. The second part of the course will focus on applying what we learned in the first part to an assortment of texts. We will critically engage with materials from a variety of sources, including the South Asian Buddhist tradition.

The argumentative and analytical skills gained in this class will be highly useful for students in their future classes and beyond. 

Section: 004 / CRN: 64051
MWF 1000-1050 / Full-Term
Instructor: Garrido Sierralta

This course will introduce students to logical reasoning and critical thinking. This course aims to help students recognize, assess, and construct arguments. The course structure will be divided into two sections. In section one, the course will survey important concepts and tools necessary in the identification, evaluation, and formation of arguments. For instance, we will discern the differences between deductive and non-deductive reasoning, the temptations of argumentative fallacies, and the clear and unclear language uses. In section two, we will take an in-depth examination of current debates by looking at philosophical works, articles, and videos. Some discussion topics students can expect (but are not limited to) are poverty, food insecurity, economic well-being, sex and gender, and identity politics.

Section: 006 / CRN: 64053
TR 0930-1045 / Full-Term
Instructor: Kim

In this class, you will practice reading and writing to improve your academic communication skills, by which you can clearly and properly argue your position on a specific topic. For this project, by and large, you will focus on three different but complementary aspects throughout this semester: 1) having basic knowledge of logic and reasoning, 2) reading closely and thinking critically, and 3) writing essays in a proper way.

We can ask a question regarding the first aspect: how do we tell the difference between reasonable arguments and not? We have a basic understanding of good reasonings and arguments that make more sense than others. However, we sometimes struggle when explaining the conditions of good reasoning skills and applying those conditions to reading and writing. How can we work on more reasonable and persuasive arguments while making fewer logical errors? In this class, you will learn some basic rules that serve good reasoning and proper use of analytical tools, thereby making our initial and tacit understanding more explicit.

The second dimension requires your thoughtful reading of given texts, which applies the rules of logic and reasoning. It does not require you any prerequisites, but you need active engagement, concentration, and perseverance to master and apply the rules you study. The last aspect relates to some techniques for your communication in your college life (and hopefully, even after your school life). We will study and discuss some basic rules, styles, and ethical issues you need to keep in mind for writing a polished essay.

On the other hand, as a latent objective in this course, you are expected to learn how to learn through your experiences in this class. For this, you will be required to be more disciplined by understanding basic customs at college and internalizing them.

Advice for Your Enrollment Decision

[1] This is a 100-level course for first-year college students, especially those who are planning to study philosophy further at college. This class will cover basic concepts while providing students with fewer benefits for LSAT study or else. If you are considering enrolling in this class for your LSAT preparation, please think about your plan once more.

[2] This course does not require any prerequisites. However, it will require your time, effort, and concentration. You may typically need to invest 6-7 additional hours out of class to prepare for classes and master the class contents. Sometimes, you may need more time for this class.

Section: 007 / CRN: 75158
ONLINE / Second-Half
Instructor: Gatsch

How can you tell if an argument makes sense? What separates a good argument from a bad one? In this compressed online course, students will learn the skills necessary to construct, analyze, and critically assess arguments.  Beginning with the basic principles of reason and logic, students will acquire the abilities necessary to extract arguments from philosophical texts, evaluate the strength of these arguments, and craft written responses to them. This is a fully online half-term course, so be prepared to move quickly through the course material.

Required text: Critical Thinking, An Introduction to the Basic Skills (7th Edition), by William Hughes, Jonathan Lavery, Katheryn Doran (Broadview Press). (ISBN-13: 978-1554811977 ISBN-10: 155481197X)

Section: 008 / CRN: 64056
ONLINE / Full-Term
Instructor: Gatsch

How can you tell if an argument makes sense? What separates a good argument from a bad one? In this online course, students will learn the skills necessary to construct, analyze, and critically assess arguments.  Beginning with the basic principles of reason and logic, students will acquire the abilities necessary to extract arguments from philosophical texts, evaluate the strength of these arguments, and craft written responses to them.  We will also be analyzing classic philosophical texts that have profoundly influenced the structure and development of Western civilization.  

Required text: Critical Thinking, An Introduction to the Basic Skills (7th Edition), by William Hughes, Jonathan Lavery, Katheryn Doran (Broadview Press). (ISBN-13: 978-1554811977 ISBN-10: 155481197X)

Section: 001 / CRN: 64060
MWF 0900-0950 / Full-Term
Instructor: Haulotte

Early modern philosophy is typically defined as the European philosophical tradition spanning from René Descartes to Immanuel Kant. This period is defined in part by the emergence of experimental and mathematical sciences developed in part by figures such as Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Bacon and Newton. These scientific discoveries implied a revolutionary overturning of religious orthodoxy throughout Europe, which in turn called for philosophical reflection: What of old religious beliefs can be maintained in the face of the successes of the natural sciences? Is there such a thing as a soul? How is the concept of a soul related to personal identity? Is knowledge possible, and if so, what are its limitations? What is the ultimate nature of reality? Does God exist? Do I exist? These questions were raised and addressed by a series of philosophers we will examine in this course: Montaigne, Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, Princess Elisabeth, Amo, Spinoza, Leibniz, du Châtelet, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. Throughout our readings we will address questions related to epistemology (the study of knowledge), metaphysics (the study of ultimate reality), and philosophy of mind. While one of the goals of the course will be to respect the historical circumstances of the authors in question, another aim is to show that the concerns of this period of philosophers remains relevant today. This course will consist of three short papers and a longer final paper. 

The only required text is Roger Ariew and Eric Watkins (eds.), Modern Philosophy: An Anthology of Primary Sources (third edition), Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2019, ISBN-13: 978-1624668050. It is important to have the third edition. All other readings will be made available on Canvas.

Section: 003 / CRN: 74290
ONLINE / First-Half
Instructor: Domski

The philosophies that emerged during the Early Modern period can be seen as a response to a two-fold challenge: [1] the skeptical challenge to human knowledge and [2] the challenge to find a scientific method appropriate for study of the natural world.

We’ll begin the course by considering the growing popularity of skepticism in the wake of the Protestant Reformation and examine some of the skeptical arguments forwarded in Montaigne’s Apology for Raymond Sebond.  This background will set the stage for our examination of the anti-skeptical arguments of ‘rationalists’ such as Descartes and Leibniz.

The second half of the course will be dedicated to ‘empiricists’ such as Locke and Hume. Their philosophies will be placed in the scientific context of the seventeenth century, and we will examine how they attempted to integrate the empirical method of science into their respective approaches to knowledge and nature.

 All materials for this first-half, 8-week Online MAX course, including the required readings, will be available through Canvas. Course assignments include self-check quizzes, short writing assignments, and three exams. All assignments have firm deadlines and will be submitted through Canvas.

Section: 001 / CRN: 64061
TR 1100-1215 / Full-Term
Instructor: Livingston

Philosophy in the western tradition begins with the ancient Greeks, and there is no better introduction to philosophy than to study their thought and writing. In this course, we will attempt to develop our own path of questioning in critical dialogue with the Greek philosophers, with the aim of locating ourselves and the problems of contemporary life more centrally within the questions and problems that they already pursued.  Issues to be discussed include, among others: the nature of thought, reason and the soul or mind; the structure of time and space; language, meaning, and truth; being, change and becoming; ethics and the good; democracy, equality, and social transformation; life and death.   Readings are from various Pre-Socratic philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus. Course requirements: weekly short reading responses, three short tests (online), and final examination (online).

Section: 002 / CRN: 64062
ONLINE / Full-Term
Instructor: Haulotte

Philosophy in the West has its origins in the ancient Greek tradition. This class introduces philosophy through a survey of the extant material from these thinkers. In particular, this class will travel from Thales and the pre-Socratics through Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle and finally providing a brief engagement with the Stoics, Skeptics, and Epicureans of the Hellenistic period. These investigations will primarily discuss metaphysics (the nature of ultimate reality), epistemology (the study of knowledge), and ethics (the study of the good life) through critical engagement with these thinkers. What is a life worth living? How does such a life stand in relation to political authority? Should we fear death—and if so, why? Who can claim genuine knowledge of things? What is the power of philosophy? Can philosophy grasp truths of ultimate reality, and if so, how? The aim is to see how these different topics come together for the ancient Greeks, and, possibly for us as their contemporary readers as well. This course will be fully online and consists of weekly reading responses, a midterm, and a final.

Section: 001 / CRN: 72663
MWF 0900-0950 / Full-Term
Instructor: Harter

Perhaps there never was a “Greek miracle,” as some have called it, but ancient Greek civilization certainly produced one of the most impressive periods of cultural and intellectual flourishing in human history. During that period, cultural and political institutions as well as new kinds of knowledge – including history, mathematics, philosophy, biology, etc. – appeared, which led some thinkers to ask the question of what constitutes “knowledge” in general, of what constitutes a good institution and organization of society. Since then, some of these institutions like democracy have been adopted around the globe – making Greek thought not only an ancestor to Western civilizations, but part of an inheritance for much of humanity.

In this course, we will read classic works of Greek literature that were produced between the 8th century BCE to the 3rd century CE, including different kinds of literary works produced during this period, such as an epic poem from Homer, a play by Sophocles, philosophical dialogues of Plato, and treatises of Aristotle, Epicurus, and Epictetus. We will mainly proceed by topics and will adopt a double perspective: a historical perspective that aims at understanding those texts in their own terms, however different their ideas and positions might seem to us; and a critical perspective to reflect about what these texts can tell us about reality, what knowledge and truth are, what a good life is, and what thinking about politics involves. We will gain an appreciation of the lasting impact that Greek thought has had on our approach to questions concerning metaphysics, ethics, and politics through a few contemporary texts drawing on Greek philosophy that we will read. Finally, the course will also emphasize the powerful counter perspective Greek texts can offer to our most dearly held beliefs and assumptions.

Section: 002 / CRN: 74837
TR 0930-1045 / Full-Term
Instructor: Oberst

This course explores the Greek roots of Western Thought. Through lectures, discussions, group and individual work, as well as film viewings, we will uncover our ancient Greek heritage. The study of words, text fragments and the entire work of poets and philosophers are the avenues of discovery. Starting with mythology we will transition to Presocratic philosophy, encounter the enigmatic Socrates, explore Greek theatre (comedy & tragedy) and examine the philosophy of Plato & Aristotle. A brief look into Hellenistic philosophy will bring the course to a close.

Course materials will be made available on Canvas and ordered through the UNM Bookstore.

There is no prerequisite to this course. In addition to offering stimulation for intellectual development and personal enrichment through the philological treatment of texts, the course will prepare students to participate in other courses in philosophy and the humanities at large, especially in classics and the history of philosophy.  The course can also be illuminating for students of the natural sciences. 

Section: 001 / CRN: 74838
MWF 0900-0950 / Full-Term
Instructor: Seiler

This course provides an introduction to some of the important traditions, thinkers, and developments in South Asian philosophy from roughly the 7th century BCE to the 11th century CE. Our main aim will be to understand Indian philosophical texts and ideas and their relation to other Indian thinkers. In order to facilitate philosophical analysis, this course will be organized thematically rather than chronologically. We will address Indian theories of ontology (“realism” vs. “non-realism”), epistemological problems (“internalism” vs. “externalism” and the problem of the criteria), ethical questions (non-violence, action, and personal transformation), etc. In addressing these positions, we will read texts from the Brahmanical (“Hindu”) traditions as well as the Buddhist, Jain, and “secularist” philosophers. Time permitting, we will conclude the course by addressing some of the ways Indian philosophy has come into dialogue with contemporary philosophical thought thus demonstrating that Indian thought is not simply a topic for academic study but a part of living philosophy.

Section: 001 / CRN: 74839
MWF 1300-1350 / Full-Term
Instructor: Gerber

In this course, we savor questions in the philosophy of food. What is food? How do we make aesthetic judgments about food and the experience of food? How is eating connected to our fundamental human experience and the good life? How should we evaluate food choices individually, socially, and environmentally? To analyze these questions, we will explore food movements and food choices. In considering sustainability, we will examine the production of food, the transportation of food, the consumption of food, and the waste of food. 

Texts: 
[1] David Kaplan, The Philosophy of Food 
[2] A collection of essays on Canvas

Section: 002 / CRN: 74840
TR 1100-1215 / Full-Term
Instructor: Candelaria

This course examines the major writings of one of the most exciting and iconoclastic writers of the twentieth century whose works carved new paths in the well-trodden terrains of philosophy, social theory, history, political science, literary theory, anthropology, psychology and psychiatric theory. Beginning with Madness and Civilization, we will follow the trajectory of his argument that mental illness is an invention of psychology beginning with the undivided experience of reason and madness/folly in the Renaissance, through the separation of reason and unreason in the Classical age, and to the nineteenth century’s objectification of mental illness as a given. Examining ways in which knowledge of the world was ordered during these same periods, we will delve into The Order of Things seeing how rules of formation, operating mostly at the level of the unthought, govern the range of what can be accepted as knowledge and as truth. We will follow his argument that linguistics, biology, and political economy of the nineteenth century break with general grammar, natural history, and analysis of wealth in the seventeen and eighteenth-century undermining historians’ assumptions about historical continuity, causality, and subjectivity. Along the way, we will gain an understanding of his quasi-Kantian archaeological method for uncovering the historical conditions that make discursive knowledge and practice possible. We will also explore the transition from the archaeology to genealogy as laid out in his inaugural address at the College du France published in English as The Discourse on Language and its implementation in Discipline and Punish and The History of Sexuality, focusing on the link power/knowledge and the concepts of micro-power, bio-politics, and the production of sex and sexuality as discursive knowledges and practices. As we proceed, we will also draw attention to some of his novel interpretations of art and literature. A guiding question throughout will be whether Foucault is trapped in the same anthropological illusions he attributes to the human sciences —that the empirical sources of knowledge, at the same time, function as the transcendental conditions for the possibility of the knowledge of those same empirical sources.

Section: 001 / CRN: 69470
TR 1230-1345 / Full-Term
Instructor: Thomson

In this introductory survey course, we will seek together to understand the most important philosophical developments in Continental philosophy since World War II.  Our sole course text will be the recently published Cambridge History of Philosophy: 1945–2015 (full information below), a monumental work which brings together leading experts from the diverse traditions of Western philosophy in a common quest to examine, illuminate, and explain the insights and movements that most profoundly shaped philosophy in the English-speaking world over the last 75 years.  The class will begin by briefly examining ‘Continental’ philosophy and its historical differences from mainstream ‘analytic’ philosophy.  We will then dive right into a semester-long examination the most important advances and transformations that shaped ‘Continental’ philosophy during this tumultuous and fascinating historical period, developments that continue to shape the field today.

Course Requirements:  This course will require a good deal of sometimes challenging reading.  To facilitate your understanding of these works, attendance is required.  (If I conclude that class attendance needs to be enforced, that will be done with brief in-class quizzes on the reading assigned for that day’s class.)  Final course grades will be based on any such quizzes and (much more significantly) on two short but carefully composed and highly polished papers—which will be due in class near the middle and end of the semester, on dates specified on the syllabus below (or one final research paper at the end, for any graduate students taking the course for credit).

Required Text: Kelly Becker and Iain Thomson, eds., The Cambridge History of Philosophy, 1945-2015 (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 53 chapters, 888 pages, published in November 2019, subsequently abbreviated as “CHP”).  This sole required course text is currently available in an inexpensive .pdf version on Amazon.com: go to https://amzn.to/3c3wOlg (but can also be purchased from the UNM bookstore, borrowed from the library, etc.).  (Use of devices to access the text in class will therefore be fine, so long as those devices are not used for any other purpose.)

Section: 001 / CRN: 75159
ONLINE / Full-Term
Instructor: Gatsch

This course explores Epistemology, the branch of philosophy concerned with the study and theory of knowledge. Is knowledge simply a justified true belief, or is there more to it than that? When is it reasonable to claim that we know something rather than that we simply believe it to be true? Can we know things that we do not experience directly? When all is said and done, can I ever be certain that I’m not simply a brain in a vat? Or that what I see is really what I see and not a clever illusion?  

In this course we will explore a wide variety of topics in epistemology and hopefully come to a better understanding of what we know, what we don’t know, and what it means to make knowledge claims at all.  

Required text:  Sosa, Ernest, et al., editors. Epistemology: An Anthology. 2nd ed., Blackwell Publishers, 2013. (ISBN-13: 978-1405169660 ISBN-10: 1405169664)

Section: 001 / CRN: 75152
ONLINE / Full-Term
Instructor: Becker

One great thing about the human mind is its ability to draw inferences.  Better still is to do this well.  In this course, you will learn two new languages developed to clarify the notion of logical entailment, which will help you understand the nature of valid inference.  The course is good preparation for further work in logic or mathematics, but you can also take the tools you will acquire into any academic or professional discipline that requires clarity of thought.  No prerequisites.  Grades based on quizzes, homework, and exams. 

Text: Bergmann, Moor, and Nelson, The Logic Book 6/e (McGraw-Hill).  Consider renting the book.  It’s one of the best available, but the most recent addition has a significant number of typos and is quite expensive.

Section: 001 / CRN: 72662
TR 0930-1045 / Full-Term
Instructor: Kalar

Ethical theory (also called “moral philosophy”) concerns the nature of the human good and right action, human excellence, what makes a human life worthwhile, what we owe to each other (and perhaps to God), the structure of practical reasoning, and the basis of moral evaluation.  In this course, we will examine the main perspectives in the Western tradition of theorizing about such issues.  We will open with perhaps the most influential work of ethical theory in history, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.  Aristotle developed a theory of ethics as a branch of the “political” (i.e., civic) life, centered on the practice of moral and intellectual virtue, and aiming at a condition of human flourishing known as “eudaimonia” in Greek (happiness, well-being). Next, we will examine the grand medieval synthesis of Greek philosophy and Judeo-Christian theology in the natural law theory of Thomas Aquinas – the ethical theory that has more than any other underwritten traditional ethics in the West.  We will see how the ancient-medieval ethical paradigm focused on the fulfillment of human nature through the achievement of the virtues.  Since the 18^th century, however, this traditional ethical focus has been continually challenged by modern moral philosophy.  We will study arguably the high point of early modern ethical theory, the ethical constructivism of Immanuel Kant.  Kant attempts to show how determinate universal moral requirements can be generated from an a priori analysis of the conditions of one’s own rational agency, as seen from the first-person practical perspective. We then will take a look at the seminal statement of the most influential mode of consequentialism, J. S. Mill’s utilitarianism.  Mill sees universal moral requirements as based in the natural desirability of pleasure.  Finally, we will end our survey with Friedrich Nietzsche’s radical critique of morality.  Nietzsche sees moral values as a ruse stemming from the “slave revolt” of the weak against the strong, and as ultimately detrimental to human flourishing.  Requirements: regular attendance and active participation in discussions, two short analytical-critical essays, and a take-home writing-intensive final exam.

Section: 001 / CRN: 74841
TR 1230-1345 / Full-Term
Instructor: Oberst

In this seminar we will examine conceptions of the divine that have marked the Western tradition. We will use a historical and topical approach by means of exegesis. Starting with the mythological age we will proceed to look at philosophers, theologians, mystics, activists as well as secular free thinkers (among them atheists), who have poured their visions (and rejections) of the divine into religious, philosophical and political proclamations. As will become apparent, an integral part of the varying conceptions of the divine are the corresponding human self-conceptions. Any conception of the divinity of God(s) is also a reflection of the humanity of human being. Among the Greeks we shall consult Hesiod, Xenophanes, Epicurus, Plato and Aristotle; among the Judeo-Christians the Prophets, Job, Jesus, the Apostle Paul, the evangelist John, and Augustine; among the atheists and anti-Christians, Friedrich Nietzsche, Ludwig Feuerbach, Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre. Students are given the option to supplement their reading with works by Rationalists like Descartes, Voltaire and Kant as well as religious existentialists such as Søren Kierkegaard and spiritual free thinkers such as Martin Heidegger. That the (anti-)religious conception of God(s) can, does, and perhaps must speak with political force can be seen in the American tradition of Black Liberation Theology (Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, James Cone) as well as in philosophical atheists like Karl Marx. The purpose of these comparisons is not to befriend one conception over another, but to realize that any confining conception of the divine may end up in (religious) idolatry or (philosophical and political) ideology. The goal then of this seminar is to discover and develop the intellectual freedom necessary to confront any conception of the divine with honesty and integrity, which, as we will see, can then be coupled with the courage to critical self-examination.

Section: 001 / CRN: 74842
MWF 1100-1150 / Full-Term
Instructor: Johnston

 Karl Marx’s famous eleventh thesis on Feuerbach declares, in 1845, that, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways;  the point is to change it.”  He thus not only indicts philosophers of the past for describing socio-political phenomena from the sidelines of ineffective contemplation—he inaugurates a new mode of engaged political theorizing in which theory and practice are drawn into close dialectical connections with each other.  Moreover, nobody credibly can deny that Marx’s ideas managed, at least for a time, to change the world (not even those who believe the popular journalistic wisdom in the late-capitalist press according to which a supposed something named “Marxism” died and was buried with the wheezing collapses of the sclerotic nomenklatura bureaucratic state apparatuses of Yugoslavia and the Eastern bloc started with the falling of the initial dominoes in 1989).  Additionally, especially in relation to the European philosophical orientations of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Marx and his successors have been enormously influential, shaping a plethora of still-ongoing discussions and debates in so-called “Continental philosophy.”  This course will spend the first half of the semester on the texts of Marx and Engels.  The second half of the semester will involve examinations of writings by a number of Marxist and post-Marxist political thinkers/practitioners: Engels, Lenin, Lukács, Gramsci, Mao, Benjamin, Sartre, Althusser, and Balibar.  A range of issues will be discussed: the structure of collective history, the various influences of the economy, the dynamics of revolutionary changes, the shape of social justice, the nature and function of ideologies…up to and including the status of philosophy itself in light of the Marxist conception of socio-political reality as a whole.  In the process, questions will be asked about where we stand today, in our present circumstances, apropos the arguments and theories developed within the Marxist tradition.

Section: 001 / CRN: 65702
TR 1400-1515 / Full-Term
Instructor: Thomas

The question “what is law?” concerns everyone. We live under rule of law. Law orders and regulates our human conduct. Law shapes and commands our public lives, our private lives, our political lives, our social lives. Law shapes who we are allowed to be, and who we become.

Many of us take this for granted. But how does it all work? What really is the source of law, justice, liberty, and human rights? What is law’s purpose in human society? Does law ‘create’ justice? What obligates us to obey law?--must you obey ‘unjust’ law or law contrary to your beliefs? What is punishment?--is it vengeance, healing, truly deterring? And how are we to understand error in law, such as the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that a man, Dred Scott, was property, or the ongoing claim that Roe v Wade's legalization of abortion was a mistake?

Guiding our study will be the fundamental question “what is law?” but we will also consider how philosophers think about specific problems in law, including: 1) the sources, authority, and duties of law; 2) the source of rights, such as your right to personal liberty, to individual expression, to privacy; 3) civil disobedience; 4) race and law; and 5) the justice of punishment.

Coursework will improve your reasoning and reading, your familiarity with legal concepts and terminology, and your preparation for continuing undergraduate and graduate study in many areas. Students pursuing degrees in philosophy, political science, pre-law, public policy, sociology, criminology, psychology, peace studies, and/or public administration will find the course especially helpful, but all are welcome.

Course requirements include: mandatory class attendance and participation, thoughtful reading of assigned texts, short discussion posts/response papers, occasional quizzes, and one or two take-home exams. All course texts will be provided online--no text purchase required. (Optional hard copy text purchase will be available if online readings aren't your preference.)

Prerequisite: One Philosophy course. Or permission of the instructor.

Section: 001 / CRN: 74843
W 1300-1530 / Full-Term
Instructor: Harter

This course will offer a survey of Buddhist metaphysics as found in some Indian and Tibetan texts from the second to the nineteenth centuries. Metaphysics will be understood in this context as “general metaphysics” (metaphysica generalis) or ontology, a discourse investigating what it means to be in general, as well as what could be said to be different from being (or beyond or beneath). The course will focus on authors, texts, and arguments that have been classified as belonging to “Madhyamaka” or the school of the Middle (Way), which developed a sophisticated discourse around the concept of emptiness. After considering the background against which Madhyamaka developed, especially non-Buddhist Nyāya and Buddhist Abhidharma, we will read through the major texts of this “school” starting with Nāgārjuna, Buddhapālita, Bhāviveka, and Candrakīrti in India, pursuing with Tibetan interpreters, especially Tsongkhapa, Gorampa, and Mipham. The debates among Tibetan philosophers revived the metaphysical and epistemological stakes of Madhyamaka and revealed aspects that were left insufficiently unelaborated or utterly neglected by Indian thinkers. Students will also be guided through a selection of modern scholarship that will bring them up to date with the current debates about the interpretation of these authors and texts (among other: metaphysical, anti-metaphysical, anti-realist, paraconsistent interpretations). The point of this seminar is not only historical but also critical: students are expected to use those texts to reflect on the appropriateness of the application of the concept of metaphysics and whether a renewed conception of metaphysics could emerge from their study. In this sense, this seminar is intended to be an experiment in cross-cultural philosophy, or more simply and accurately in philosophy for students who want to explore metaphysics in new and creative ways.

Section: 002 / CRN: 74845
T 1600-1830 / Full-Term
Instructor: Livingston

This course will aim to assess the contemporary legacy and meaning of the Platonist tradition in philosophy, in critical relation to current leading philosophical and global problems, and especially with respect to Platonism’s determination of the One or Good as the (twofold) ultimate cause of being as well as the possibility of its being known.  We will start by examining this determination in the context of Plato’s own “middle-period” dialogues, setting the Republic’s (book 6) invocation of a “Good … beyond being” in the critical context of Plato’s engagement with the earlier thought of the Eleatics (Parmenides, Zeno, and Melissus) and Pythagoreans. We shall then read closely and patiently the densely argued and ultimately aporetic dialogue Parmenides, paying special attention to the complex dialectical engagement of the hypotheses about the being of the One and the Others in the dialogue’s second part.  Following this, we will move on to the influential reformulation of Plato’s project in the initial formulation of “Neoplatonism” in Plotinus, as well as commentaries by Proclus and the late Athenian Neoplatonist Damascius.

In the second part of the course, we will try to relate and juxtapose Platonism’s paradoxical development of the position and priority of the One with a selection of other relevant and related philosophical problematics from diverse historical and traditional sites.  We will consider, in particular, the relationship of Plato’s argument in the Parmenides to some apparently similar arguments in Buddhist Madhyamaka philosophy, including some of the argument of Nāgārjuna’s Root Verses as well as what has been called the argument of “neither One nor Many” in later Madhyamaka thought.  Following this, we will consider one early modern legacy of Plato’s appeal to the One in Spinoza’s picture of the One substance (God or nature) as ultimate cause.  In the last part of the class, we will consider the metaphysical project that Gilles Deleuze, drawing heavily on his own interpretation of Spinoza, calls “the univocity of being”, as well as the contemporary ontological, political, and militant project of Alain Badiou in Being and Event, which cites as a programmatically determining first principle its overall conviction that “the One is not.”

Enrolled students will be asked to complete weekly short (1-2 pp.) response papers, a shorter midterm paper (4-8 pp.) and a longer final paper (8-16 pp.) developing some of the themes and issues of the course and/or their implications for contemporary concerns.

Section: 001 / CRN: 75160
ONLINE / Full-Term
Instructor: Becker

Have you ever heard the expression, “It’s mind over matter”?  Is it meant to imply that the mind is not a material thing?  Descartes famously argued that matter and mind are distinct substances—the mind being neither material nor spatial.  But surely your mind, through thinking, causes your body to do things, like eat food because you desire it, avoid dark alleys because you’re afraid, or shake someone’s hand because you believe that it will seal the agreement.  How could a nonmaterial thing cause a bodily entity to do anything at all?  This sort of question will launch us into an exploration of the mind—what it is (maybe it just is the brain, but be warned, solutions to genuine philosophical problems don’t come that easy!), what kinds of states it has and events it undergoes, how it relates to (the rest of) one’s body and to other material bodies, whether a computer could have or be one, and whether consciousness can be understood in material terms. 

Readings: Furnished as .pdf’s. 

Grades for Phil 455 based on three papers (two short (4-6pp.) and one medium (6-8pp.)), discussion, and several short quizzes.  Students enrolled in Phil 555 will be expected to write a more substantial final paper (9-12pp.), including further relevant readings.

Section: 001 / CRN: 74847
M 1600-1830 / Full-Term
Instructor: Murphy

This course will explore the philosophical foundations and key debates in the field of disability studies.  We will be especially concerned with the critical interrogation of ableism as a normative framework, and the promise of care ethics when considered in the context of disability.  The course material will traverse several philosophical methodologies including phenomenology, care ethics, and biopolitics.  Finally, the course will focus on philosophy of disability in educational contexts.  As such, it may interest graduate students looking to explore how to put the principles of universal design to work in their classrooms.  The authors we will consult include: Eli Clare, Jay Timothy Dolmage, Alison Kafer, Eva Feder Kittay, Robert McRuer, David Mitchell, Jasbir Puar, Sami Schalk, Joel Michael Reynolds, Rosemarie Garland Thomson, and Shelley Tremain.

Section: 001 / CRN: 74849
TR 1400-1515 / Full-Term
Instructor: Kalar

The philosophy of art and aesthetics concerns the nature of beauty and other qualities closely related to beauty (such as the sublime), our human perception/ experience of these qualities (traditionally called “aesthetic experience”), the defining features of art, its origin and functions, what makes a work of art or aesthetic experience meaningful and worthwhile, and the relation of art and the aesthetic domain to other human goods/ values (especially moral and religious).  This course will consist of a careful examination of four representative theories of modern aesthetics.  We will open with perhaps the most influential work of aesthetics in history, Immanuel Kant’s seminal Critique of Judgment (1790).  As the culmination of his three-part “critical system,” the “third Critique” decisively established aesthetics as a branch of philosophy coequal with metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics.  Showing himself to be a representative figure of the 18^th century, which was known as the “century of taste,”  Kant is concerned especially with what he calls the “subjective universality” of the judgment of the beautiful, and its relation to moral and religious knowledge.  Next, we will turn to a highpoint of 19^th century “romantic” aesthetics, Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy (1872).  Like the romantic movement that he represents, Nietzsche sees the domain of the aesthetic as the privileged means – in the wake of the decline of the Christian religion – for accessing ultimate reality and thereby renewing European culture.  After this, we will shift to the mid-twentieth century American philosophical context, in which a logic-based and naturalistic tendency was becoming dominant.  In Philosophy in a New Key (1942), Suzanne Langer applies modern semantics to aesthetic questions.  She there develops a theory of the symbolic function of the work of art, which she sees as the expression of human feeling.  Finally, we will examine a philosopher who applies the phenomenological approach to aesthetic questions, Jean-Luc Marion.  While Nietzsche and Langer privilege the art of music, Marion sees the art of painting as the privileged site from which to explore the central concern of phenomenology: the nature of phenomenality in general.  In The Crossing of the Visible (1996), Marion is concerned with the interplay of the visible and the invisible in what the painting presents, with a particular interest in the potential religious significance of that art-form.  Requirements: (1) for undergraduates, grades will be based on attendance and participation, two short analytical-critical essays, and a take-home writing-intensive final exam; (2) for graduate students, grades will be based upon attendance and participation, a short analytical-critical essay, and a longer independent research project.

Section: 001 / CRN: 65696
R 1600-1830 / Full-Term
Instructor: Thomson

In this advanced undergraduate and graduate student seminar, we will seek to understand the philosophical significance of Jacques Derrida (1930–2004), one of the most influential and controversial thinkers of the twentieth century.  In order to chart a course through Derrida’s incredibly prolific and extremely difficult body of work, the seminar will be guided by my (once but no longer terribly controversial) interpretive thesis that Derrida is best understood as a post-Heideggerian thinker. Derrida recognized Heidegger as the most important philosopher of the twentieth century and so sought to critically appropriate Heidegger’s views.This means that Derrida develops his own views on the basis of Heidegger’s thought, as Derrida understands it (and sometimes misunderstands it), while also frequently criticizing Heidegger’s thought where (in Derrida’s evolving view) Heidegger himself failed to fully develop the radical implications of his own thinking. Indeed, Derrida usually develops Heidegger’s thought precisely by criticizing it (and vice versa), and we will seek to understand this often confusing intertwinement of critique and development (itself very Heideggerian) in terms of the deconstructive methodology Derrida develops from his reading of Heidegger. (The Derridean title of this course would thus be “Derrida on Heidegger,” where “on” means not only “on the subject of” but also “on the basis of.”)  

After some very brief background on Heidegger (with whose philosophical and post-philosophical thinking some prior acquaintance needs to be presupposed), we will carefully read some of the most important texts written by Derrida directly on Heidegger, texts in which Derrida critically appropriates and develops many of his own core ideas (such as deconstruction, différance, and writing under erasure) as critical appropriations of Heidegger’s views. We will then turn to read several longer works in which Derrida develops these (post-Heideggerian) views beyond Heidegger, extending them into the domain of ontological questions (for example, how should we understand the being of “the” animal?  Of politics?  Of death?) which Heidegger himself raised but left insufficiently thought-through and so underexplored and underdeveloped, in Derrida’s view. In these ways, we will develop the hermeneutic hypothesis that Derridean deconstruction (following its hyper-Heideggerian logic) tries to think that which went “unthought” in Heidegger’s own thinking, taking Heidegger’s thought as his own “uncircumventable” (as Derrida put it) point of departure, a “point” which Derrida thereby seeks to push further and so move beyond (without, perhaps, ever leaving it entirely behind). We will bring the course to its end by reading the brilliant final seminars Derrida gave while confronting the encroaching imminence of his own demise and making this an occasion to once again rethink (albeit for an apparently final time) the great existential and philosophical question of the meaning of death.

Section: 002 / CRN: 74851
W 1600-1830 / Full-Term
Instructor: Johnston

Jacques Lacan was a major figure in Parisian intellectual life for much of the twentieth century.  He arguably is the most important figure in the history of psychoanalysis after Sigmund Freud himself.  Lacan’s teachings and writings explore the significance of Freud’s discovery of the unconscious both within the theory and practice of analysis itself as well as in connection with a wide range of other disciplines.  Especially for those interested in the philosophical dimensions of Freudian thought, Lacan’s oeuvre is invaluable.  Over the course of the past fifty-plus years, Lacanian ideas have become absolutely central to the various receptions of things psychoanalytic in Continental philosophical circles.  Moreover, much of today’s global psychoanalytic community is Lacanian or Lacan-inspired.  This course will focus on the 1950s-era Lacanian “return to Freud” as per the first two years of Lacan’s annual Séminare:  Seminar I:  Freud’s Papers on Technique (1953-1954) and Seminar II:  The Ego in Freud’s Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis (1954-1955).

Section: 001 / CRN: 74844
W 1300-1530 / Full-Term
Instructor: Harter

This course will offer a survey of Buddhist metaphysics as found in some Indian and Tibetan texts from the second to the nineteenth centuries. Metaphysics will be understood in this context as “general metaphysics” (metaphysica generalis) or ontology, a discourse investigating what it means to be in general, as well as what could be said to be different from being (or beyond or beneath). The course will focus on authors, texts, and arguments that have been classified as belonging to “Madhyamaka” or the school of the Middle (Way), which developed a sophisticated discourse around the concept of emptiness. After considering the background against which Madhyamaka developed, especially non-Buddhist Nyāya and Buddhist Abhidharma, we will read through the major texts of this “school” starting with Nāgārjuna, Buddhapālita, Bhāviveka, and Candrakīrti in India, pursuing with Tibetan interpreters, especially Tsongkhapa, Gorampa, and Mipham. The debates among Tibetan philosophers revived the metaphysical and epistemological stakes of Madhyamaka and revealed aspects that were left insufficiently unelaborated or utterly neglected by Indian thinkers. Students will also be guided through a selection of modern scholarship that will bring them up to date with the current debates about the interpretation of these authors and texts (among other: metaphysical, anti-metaphysical, anti-realist, paraconsistent interpretations). The point of this seminar is not only historical but also critical: students are expected to use those texts to reflect on the appropriateness of the application of the concept of metaphysics and whether a renewed conception of metaphysics could emerge from their study. In this sense, this seminar is intended to be an experiment in cross-cultural philosophy, or more simply and accurately in philosophy for students who want to explore metaphysics in new and creative ways.

Section: 002 / CRN: 74846
T 1600-1830 / Full-Term
Instructor: Livingston

This course will aim to assess the contemporary legacy and meaning of the Platonist tradition in philosophy, in critical relation to current leading philosophical and global problems, and especially with respect to Platonism’s determination of the One or Good as the (twofold) ultimate cause of being as well as the possibility of its being known.  We will start by examining this determination in the context of Plato’s own “middle-period” dialogues, setting the Republic’s (book 6) invocation of a “Good … beyond being” in the critical context of Plato’s engagement with the earlier thought of the Eleatics (Parmenides, Zeno, and Melissus) and Pythagoreans. We shall then read closely and patiently the densely argued and ultimately aporetic dialogue Parmenides, paying special attention to the complex dialectical engagement of the hypotheses about the being of the One and the Others in the dialogue’s second part.  Following this, we will move on to the influential reformulation of Plato’s project in the initial formulation of “Neoplatonism” in Plotinus, as well as commentaries by Proclus and the late Athenian Neoplatonist Damascius.

In the second part of the course, we will try to relate and juxtapose Platonism’s paradoxical development of the position and priority of the One with a selection of other relevant and related philosophical problematics from diverse historical and traditional sites.  We will consider, in particular, the relationship of Plato’s argument in the Parmenides to some apparently similar arguments in Buddhist Madhyamaka philosophy, including some of the argument of Nāgārjuna’s Root Verses as well as what has been called the argument of “neither One nor Many” in later Madhyamaka thought.  Following this, we will consider one early modern legacy of Plato’s appeal to the One in Spinoza’s picture of the One substance (God or nature) as ultimate cause.  In the last part of the class, we will consider the metaphysical project that Gilles Deleuze, drawing heavily on his own interpretation of Spinoza, calls “the univocity of being”, as well as the contemporary ontological, political, and militant project of Alain Badiou in Being and Event, which cites as a programmatically determining first principle its overall conviction that “the One is not.”

Enrolled students will be asked to complete weekly short (1-2 pp.) response papers, a shorter midterm paper (4-8 pp.) and a longer final paper (8-16 pp.) developing some of the themes and issues of the course and/or their implications for contemporary concerns.

Section: 001 / CRN: 75161
ONLINE / Full-Term
Instructor: Becker

Have you ever heard the expression, “It’s mind over matter”?  Is it meant to imply that the mind is not a material thing?  Descartes famously argued that matter and mind are distinct substances—the mind being neither material nor spatial.  But surely your mind, through thinking, causes your body to do things, like eat food because you desire it, avoid dark alleys because you’re afraid, or shake someone’s hand because you believe that it will seal the agreement.  How could a nonmaterial thing cause a bodily entity to do anything at all?  This sort of question will launch us into an exploration of the mind—what it is (maybe it just is the brain, but be warned, solutions to genuine philosophical problems don’t come that easy!), what kinds of states it has and events it undergoes, how it relates to (the rest of) one’s body and to other material bodies, whether a computer could have or be one, and whether consciousness can be understood in material terms. 

Readings: Furnished as .pdf’s. 

Grades for Phil 455 based on three papers (two short (4-6pp.) and one medium (6-8pp.)), discussion, and several short quizzes.  Students enrolled in Phil 555 will be expected to write a more substantial final paper (9-12pp.), including further relevant readings.

Section: 001 / CRN: 74848
M 1600-1830 / Full-Term
Instructor: Murphy

This course will explore the philosophical foundations and key debates in the field of disability studies.  We will be especially concerned with the critical interrogation of ableism as a normative framework, and the promise of care ethics when considered in the context of disability.  The course material will traverse several philosophical methodologies including phenomenology, care ethics, and biopolitics.  Finally, the course will focus on philosophy of disability in educational contexts.  As such, it may interest graduate students looking to explore how to put the principles of universal design to work in their classrooms.  The authors we will consult include: Eli Clare, Jay Timothy Dolmage, Alison Kafer, Eva Feder Kittay, Robert McRuer, David Mitchell, Jasbir Puar, Sami Schalk, Joel Michael Reynolds, Rosemarie Garland Thomson, and Shelley Tremain.

Section: 001 / CRN: 74850
TR 1400-1515 / Full-Term
Instructor: Kalar

The philosophy of art and aesthetics concerns the nature of beauty and other qualities closely related to beauty (such as the sublime), our human perception/ experience of these qualities (traditionally called “aesthetic experience”), the defining features of art, its origin and functions, what makes a work of art or aesthetic experience meaningful and worthwhile, and the relation of art and the aesthetic domain to other human goods/ values (especially moral and religious).  This course will consist of a careful examination of four representative theories of modern aesthetics.  We will open with perhaps the most influential work of aesthetics in history, Immanuel Kant’s seminal Critique of Judgment (1790).  As the culmination of his three-part “critical system,” the “third Critique” decisively established aesthetics as a branch of philosophy coequal with metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics.  Showing himself to be a representative figure of the 18^th century, which was known as the “century of taste,”  Kant is concerned especially with what he calls the “subjective universality” of the judgment of the beautiful, and its relation to moral and religious knowledge.  Next, we will turn to a highpoint of 19^th century “romantic” aesthetics, Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy (1872).  Like the romantic movement that he represents, Nietzsche sees the domain of the aesthetic as the privileged means – in the wake of the decline of the Christian religion – for accessing ultimate reality and thereby renewing European culture.  After this, we will shift to the mid-twentieth century American philosophical context, in which a logic-based and naturalistic tendency was becoming dominant.  In Philosophy in a New Key (1942), Suzanne Langer applies modern semantics to aesthetic questions.  She there develops a theory of the symbolic function of the work of art, which she sees as the expression of human feeling.  Finally, we will examine a philosopher who applies the phenomenological approach to aesthetic questions, Jean-Luc Marion.  While Nietzsche and Langer privilege the art of music, Marion sees the art of painting as the privileged site from which to explore the central concern of phenomenology: the nature of phenomenality in general.  In The Crossing of the Visible (1996), Marion is concerned with the interplay of the visible and the invisible in what the painting presents, with a particular interest in the potential religious significance of that art-form.  Requirements: (1) for undergraduates, grades will be based on attendance and participation, two short analytical-critical essays, and a take-home writing-intensive final exam; (2) for graduate students, grades will be based upon attendance and participation, a short analytical-critical essay, and a longer independent research project.

Section: 001 / CRN: 65697
R 1600-1830 / Full-Term
Instructor: Thomson

In this advanced undergraduate and graduate student seminar, we will seek to understand the philosophical significance of Jacques Derrida (1930–2004), one of the most influential and controversial thinkers of the twentieth century.  In order to chart a course through Derrida’s incredibly prolific and extremely difficult body of work, the seminar will be guided by my (once but no longer terribly controversial) interpretive thesis that Derrida is best understood as a post-Heideggerian thinker. Derrida recognized Heidegger as the most important philosopher of the twentieth century and so sought to critically appropriate Heidegger’s views.This means that Derrida develops his own views on the basis of Heidegger’s thought, as Derrida understands it (and sometimes misunderstands it), while also frequently criticizing Heidegger’s thought where (in Derrida’s evolving view) Heidegger himself failed to fully develop the radical implications of his own thinking. Indeed, Derrida usually develops Heidegger’s thought precisely by criticizing it (and vice versa), and we will seek to understand this often confusing intertwinement of critique and development (itself very Heideggerian) in terms of the deconstructive methodology Derrida develops from his reading of Heidegger. (The Derridean title of this course would thus be “Derrida on Heidegger,” where “on” means not only “on the subject of” but also “on the basis of.”)

After some very brief background on Heidegger (with whose philosophical and post-philosophical thinking some prior acquaintance needs to be presupposed), we will carefully read some of the most important texts written by Derrida directly on Heidegger, texts in which Derrida critically appropriates and develops many of his own core ideas (such as deconstruction, différance, and writing under erasure) as critical appropriations of Heidegger’s views. We will then turn to read several longer works in which Derrida develops these (post-Heideggerian) views beyond Heidegger, extending them into the domain of ontological questions (for example, how should we understand the being of “the” animal?  Of politics?  Of death?) which Heidegger himself raised but left insufficiently thought-through and so underexplored and underdeveloped, in Derrida’s view. In these ways, we will develop the hermeneutic hypothesis that Derridean deconstruction (following its hyper-Heideggerian logic) tries to think that which went “unthought” in Heidegger’s own thinking, taking Heidegger’s thought as his own “uncircumventable” (as Derrida put it) point of departure, a “point” which Derrida thereby seeks to push further and so move beyond (without, perhaps, ever leaving it entirely behind). We will bring the course to its end by reading the brilliant final seminars Derrida gave while confronting the encroaching imminence of his own demise and making this an occasion to once again rethink (albeit for an apparently final time) the great existential and philosophical question of the meaning of death.

Section: 002 / CRN: 74852
W 1600-1830 / Full-Term
Instructor: Johnston

Jacques Lacan was a major figure in Parisian intellectual life for much of the twentieth century.  He arguably is the most important figure in the history of psychoanalysis after Sigmund Freud himself.  Lacan’s teachings and writings explore the significance of Freud’s discovery of the unconscious both within the theory and practice of analysis itself as well as in connection with a wide range of other disciplines.  Especially for those interested in the philosophical dimensions of Freudian thought, Lacan’s oeuvre is invaluable.  Over the course of the past fifty-plus years, Lacanian ideas have become absolutely central to the various receptions of things psychoanalytic in Continental philosophical circles.  Moreover, much of today’s global psychoanalytic community is Lacanian or Lacan-inspired.  This course will focus on the 1950s-era Lacanian “return to Freud” as per the first two years of Lacan’s annual Séminare:  Seminar I:  Freud’s Papers on Technique (1953-1954) and Seminar II:  The Ego in Freud’s Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis (1954-1955).