Global Arc

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 preceptorial.

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 preceptorial.

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 preceptorial.

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.

Racism is a blight wherever it exists and calls for racial justice are still essential.This course aims to show how philosophy is integral to thinking through some major issues to do with race, racism, and racial justice today.In this course we will consider broad questions vital to understanding current racial issues.What is race? What is racism? How does intersectionality complicate our understanding of these questions? We will also consider more specific questions and particular issues around racial justice. Is racial profiling wrong? What should we think about affirmative action? Should there be reparations for (past?) racial injustices?

The course will survey a range of different views about what it takes to be rational. Potential questions we will consider range from the everyday to the theoretical, including: Is there reason to vote in large elections if you know in advance that your vote will not swing the election? Could it be rational to make a sincere promise to spend the rest of your life with someone, given what is known about relationship failure rates? How should you respond to learning that you disagree with someone who seems equally well-qualified to judge the relevant issue?

Honors version of PHI 201, Introductory Logic. As such, we will go over all of the basics of introductory logic but we will proceed at a faster pace. This allows us to cover more topics and to explore in greater depth those topics that are covered by both courses. We will cover Cantor's theorem and the set-theoretic paradoxes, and we will learn tableaux as well as axiomatic proof procedures for both propositional and first-order logic. Soundness and completeness will both be covered. It is intended that those who do well in this course will be well-prepared to go on to more advanced courses in philosophical and mathematical logic.

This course focusing primarily on the Confucian tradition. Roughly half of the course will be spent on classical Chinese Philosophy from Confucius through to Hanfeizi. The second half of the course will begin with a very brief look at Chinese Buddhism, and go on to discuss in detail the development of Song and Ming Dynasty Neo-Confucianism. Students will acquire a basic knowledge of standard philosophical tools (how to reconstruct an argument from a text, how to assess the validity and soundness of an argument). They will also gain a working knowledge of the ideas of some of China's greatest philosophical thinkers.

An accessible introduction for all students to recent results by logicians, computer scientists, psychologists, engineers, and statisticians concerning the nature and limits of learning. Topics include truth and underdetermination, induction, computability, language learning, pattern recognition, neural networks, and the role of simplicity in theory choice. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

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