Philosophy

• CAS PH 258: Philosophy and Literature
  Examines how literature and philosophy tell us and show us how it is, through an analysis of the sorts of demands they place upon reason, experience, and language. Writers include William James, Henry James, Wallace Stevens, and T. S. Eliot.
• CAS PH 259: Philosophy of the Arts
  Introduction to aesthetics, considering such questions as: What is a work of art? How does one know whether it is good or bad?
• CAS PH 260: Knowledge and Reality
  Introduction to important issues in ancient, modern, and contemporary theories of knowledge; examination of related metaphysical questions, including first principles or foundations; necessity vs contingency; materialism, dualism, idealism; the positivist challenge to metaphysics.
• CAS PH 265: Minds and Machines
  An examination of the efforts of artificial intelligence to model the human mind and explain human thought by means of suitably programmed computers. Attention is given to the historical and mathematical origins of such efforts, as well as the main psychological and philosophical assumptions on which they depend.
• CAS PH 266: Mind, Brain, and Self
  Philosophical introduction to cognitive science. A consideration of the historical and intellectual background from which cognitive science has emerged, as well as the philosophical issues concerning the mind, brain, and self that arise from contemporary scientific research.
• CAS PH 270: Philosophy of Science
  Main features of the scientific enterprise are illustrated by examples in the study of physics, biology, and mind: the aims of scientific activities, the nature of scientific understanding and procedures, the structure and interpretation of scientific theories, and the development of science.
• CAS PH 271: History of Science
  The origin and development of modern science, including Galileo, Newton, and the new physics; Lavoisier and the birth of modern chemistry; Darwin and evolution; Mendel and genetics; Einstein and relativity; and Watson, Crick, and the double helix.
• CAS PH 272: Science, Technology, and Values
  Examination of some of the important ways in which science, technology, society, and human values are interconnected. Includes case studies of the social and ethical challenges posed by computer, military, and biological technology.
• CAS PH 277: Philosophy and Methods in the Human Sciences
  Examination of basic concepts of the social sciences, such as causal and functional explanations, prediction, rationality, reduction, and objectivity. Consideration of philosophical problems of the particular social sciences, such as psychology, economics, archaeology, and history.
• CAS PH 300: History of Ancient Philosophy
  Classical Greek philosophy, with a concentration on the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle.
• CAS PH 310: History of Modern Philosophy
  An examination of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophy from Descartes to Kant, with emphasis on the nature and extent of knowledge. Readings include Descartes, Locke, Spinoza, Berkley, Hume, and Kant.
• CAS PH 350: History of Ethics
  A critical and comparative examination of the ideas of representative moral philosophers from Plato to Nietzsche.
• CAS PH 360: Symbolic Logic
  Study of methods characteristic of modern deductive logic including use of truth tables, Boolean normal forms, models, and indirect and conditional proofs within the theory of truth-functions and quantifiers.
• CAS PH 401: Senior Independent Work
  Individual tutorial instruction and directed research at distinction level.
• CAS PH 402: Senior Independent Work
  Individual tutorial instruction and directed research at distinction level.
• CAS PH 403: Plato I
  (Knowledge of Greek is helpful but not required. Familiarity with Greek philosophy is helpful.) A close reading of the Symposium.
• CAS PH 405: Aristotle I
  A careful study of the philosophy of Aristotle conducted primarily through a close reading of several of his major works.
• CAS PH 406: Aristotle II
  A close reading of Aristotle's writings on practical philosophy (i.e., the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics) and of his philosophy of art in the Poetics, focusing on the nature of human happiness and the good life, the question of the best form of political government, and the function of art for life.
• CAS PH 409: Maimonides
  A study of major aspects of the thought of Maimonides. Primary focus on the Guide of the Perplexed, with attention to its modern reception in works by Baruch Spinoza, Hermann Cohen, Leo Strauss, and others. Also offered as CAS RN 420.
• CAS PH 410: Continental Rationalism
  A critical study of major texts of seventeenth-century philosophy.

Note that this information may change at any time.

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