Global Arc

This course is designed to improve the student's proficiency in the reading and comprehension of Persian texts. The emphasis is on reading and understanding and translating modern and classical prose. In the Advanced Persian course students are also expected to write essays in Persian during the course of the semester. Advanced Persian Reading class will be conducted in Persian.

This course focuses on modern Persian prose. It is the continuation of 302, and is designed to improve the student's proficiency in the reading and comprehension of Persian texts. The emphasis is on reading, understanding, and translating modern prose. The class is conducted in Persian.

This course will engage students thoughtfully with modern Iranian society and politics through documentaries. Each week, students will watch a documentary and prepare for a lively in-class discussion of the issues. Students will be heavily exposed to colloquial Persian.

A historical introduction to philosophy since 1600, emphasizing close reading of classic texts, but including some attention to the scientific, religious, political, literary, and other context. Two lectures, one precept.

This course provides an introduction to symbolic logic, which studies the principles of valid reasoning from an abstract point of view--paying attention to the form of valid arguments rather than their subject matter. Covers the basic concepts of symbolic logic: validity, logical truth, truth-functional and quantificational inference, formal languages and formal systems, axiomatic and deductive proof procedures. Two lectures, one precept.

Can questions about what is right or wrong have real answers independent of any sort of divine authority? Are there moral principles that any rational person must recognize, or is morality essentially an expression of our feelings or a product of our culture? Are we morally required to do our part in making the world as good as it can be, or does morality give us permission to pursue our own peculiar enthusiasms and interests? What should we do about deception, unwanted pregnancies, and world hunger? This course will provide an overview of these and other issues in moral philosophy. Two lectures, one precept.

An introduction to some of the central questions of pure philosophy through their treatment by traditional and contemporary writers: Questions concerning mind and matter; causation and free will; space and time; meaning, truth, and reality; knowledge, perception, belief, and thought. Two lectures, one precept.

An inquiry into the form and function of concepts, laws, and theories, and into the character of explanation and prediction, in the natural and the social sciences; and an examination of some philosophical problems concerning scientific method and scientific knowledge. Two lectures, one precept.

Designed to introduce the student to the Greek contribution to the philosophical and scientific ideas of the Western world through study of works of Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, and Lucretius in English translation. Topics in moral and political philosophy, as well as epistemology and metaphysics, will be included. Attention will be focused on the quality of the arguments presented by the philosophers. Two lectures, one precept.

Introduces students to theoretical issues that arise in the scientific study of the mind: 1) evaluate the computationalist approach to studying the mind 2) consider several issues in cognition, including the proper characterization of inference and the issue of how judgments are formed and regulated 3) explore several debates in perception, including the question of whether perception can be influenced by desires and the issue of which kinds of features we can perceive 4) we will review three major theories of emotion--cognitive theories, feeling theories, and perceptual theories -- and evaluate these in light of recent empirical results.