Courses

• GRS PH 640: Metaphysics
  This course is organized around the problem of time travel. Our question is, "Is time travel possible?", and in trying to find an answer we will confront a number of puzzles concerning time, change, possibillity, free will, personal identity and causation. The course will hence serve as an introduction to some central issues in metaphysics.
• GRS PH 641: Philosophical Idealism (Hegel)
  The course covers the development of German idealism in the mature Hegel. Close analysis and discussion of Hegel's Differenzschrift.
• GRS PH 643: Philosophy of Mind
  The topic is sentience, embodiment, and the brain. The aim is to develop a "neurophenomenological" approach to consciousness and embodied experience in cognitive science and the philosophy of mind.
• GRS PH 644: Persons and Nature
  Studies in philosophical ecology with emphasis on environmental ethics and the place of humans in the cosmos. Broad range of readings in environmental, deep, and moral ecology.
• GRS PH 646: Philosophy of Religion
  An examination of the principal issues and topics in the philosophy of religion in the following two stages: first, an historical overview of the philosophy of religion as a discipline or subdiscipline of philosophy and theology; and, second, attention to the problems and challenges facing this discipline in the context of the comparative study of religions.
• GRS PH 647: Asian Philosophy
  Topic for Spring 2005: Buddhist Philosophy. Major issues, personalities, and texts in the Buddhist philosophical tradition, including early Buddhist scriptures, intellectual developments in classical India, China, Japan, and Tibet, and the encounter with modernity in Asia and the West.
• GRS PH 650: Types of Ethical Theory
  What is happiness? How can human beings achieve a balanced, healthy, fulfilling life? Classical thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Chuang Tzu, Augustine; Stoic, Epicurean, Confucian, Buddhist paths; comparison with contemporary happiness studies. Also offered as GRS RN 752.
• GRS PH 651: Contemporary Ethical Theory
  
• GRS PH 652: Ethics of Health Care
  Medicine and health care offer a unique opportunity to explore the nature of humanity and the world and to ask fundamental questions concerning the nature of birth, life, and death, and what it is to be a person. Readings from both classical and contemporary writings in ethics, medicine, law, and public health policy.
• GRS PH 653: Theories of Political Society
  An examination of recent political accounts of “modernity,” that is, of the unique character of advanced industrial cultures. Readings include classic authors (Rousseau, Marx, Freud, Weber) and contemporary writers (Habermas, MacIntyre, Lyotard, Touimin).
• GRS PH 654: Community, Liberty, and Morality
  Challenges to liberalism's belief in the primacy of individual freedom and in governmental neutrality regarding individuals, interests, as offered by conservatism (Burke, Scruton), communitarianism (MacIntyre), feminism (Gilligan), and advocats of a "liberal" theory of the public good (Glaston).
• GRS PH 655: Legal Philos
  This course description is currently under construction.
• GRS PH 656: Topics in Philosophy and Religion
  Topic for Fall 2010: God, Politics, and Philosophy. From head scarves to school prayer, the intersection of religion and politics raises important philosophical questions. Course parallels Institute for Philosophy and Religion's lecture series. Also offered as GRS RN 697.
• GRS PH 657: Action, Interpretation, and Narrative
  What is the relationship between understanding behavior and understanding texts? What is the role of narrative in interpretation? Using philosophical reflections on narrative from Plato to MacIntyre, the course studies philosophy and tragedy as two--perhaps antithetical--traditions of interpretation.
• GRS PH 658: Crime and Punishment: Philosophical Perspectives
  Study of fundamental issues in criminal law, including the theory and definition of crime; economic, utilitarian, and retributivist justifications of punishment; exculpating circumstances; the death penalty; and the relationship between law and politics.
• GRS PH 659: Pol&Legal Phil
  This course description is currently under construction.
• GRS PH 660: Epistemology
  An examination of some of the central questions concerning the nature, scope, sources, and structure of knowledge.
• GRS PH 661: Mathematical Logic
  The syntax and semantics of sentential and quantificational logic, culminating in the Gödel Completeness Theorem. The Gödel Incompleteness Theorem and its ramifications for computability and philosophy. Also offered as CAS MA 531.
• GRS PH 662: Foundations of Mathematics
  Axiomatic set theory as a foundation for, and field of, mathematics through to the consistency results.
• GRS PH 663: Philosophy of Language
  The most representative problem areas in contemporary philosophy of language are discussed, criticized, and put into a new perspective. They include Frege's sense-reference theory, quantification and anaphora, theory of truth, the semantics of intentional and epistemic concepts, strategic aspects of language use, identification and individuation, metaphor, demonstratives and indexical, discourse and dialogue theory, and selected language disturbances (dyslexia, autism).

Note that this information may change at any time.

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