Philosophy

• CAS PH 426: Phenomenology
  Rigorous examination of foundations of philosophical phenomenology in Husserl and Heidegger.
• CAS PH 427: Heidegger and Existential Philosophy
  A study of the main topics of Heidegger's philosophy against the background of his interpretation of Husserl's phenomenology, Kant's transcendental philosophy, and ancient Greek philosophy, with an emphasis on the concepts of being, time, and truth.
• CAS PH 436: Gender, Race, and Science
  Examines issues in feminist philosophy, philosophy of race, and philosophy of science. Is "race" a genuine scientific category or a social construct? How have views about gender and race changed? Why are there still so few women and minority scientists?
• CAS PH 440: Metaphysics
  A survey of basic questions in contemporary metaphysics that may include reality, time, change, free will, personal identity, and causation.
• CAS PH 443: 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.
• CAS PH 450: Types of Ethical Theory
  A survey of basic ethical theories including those in the Kantian, utilitarian, and virtue-ethics traditions.
• CAS PH 451: Contemporary Ethical Theory
  An examination of twentieth-century English and American moral theories including those of Moore, Foot, Williams, MacIntyre, and Rawls.
• CAS PH 452: 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.
• CAS PH 453: Theories of Political Society
  Considers philosophical subjects relevant to politics, such as human nature and reason; qualifications of leadership; aims and means of civic education; and conceptions of law (man-made, natural, divine). Also offered as CAS PO 495.
• CAS PH 454: Community, Liberty, and Morality
  Traces the contemporary movement known as Virtue Ethics, which has revived a characteristic approach to ethics of ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. Focus on understanding VE's critique of modern approaches and on evaluating its advocates' positive claims.
• CAS PH 456: Topics in Philosophy and Religion
  Topic for Fall 2016: Hope and Despair. This course is designed to run side by side with the Institute for Philosophy and Religion's fall lecture series on the topic of "hope and despair" in religious, philosophical, and literary sources from both the East and the West. Also offered as CAS RN 397.
• CAS PH 458: 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. Also offered as CAS PO 497.
• CAS PH 460: Epistemology
  An examination of some of the central questions concerning the nature, scope, sources, and structure of knowledge.
• CAS PH 461: 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.
• CAS PH 462: Foundations of Mathematics
  Axiomatic set theory as a foundation for, and field of, mathematics: Axiom of Choice, the Continuum Hypothesis, and consistency results. Also offered as CAS MA 532.
• CAS PH 463: Philosophy of Language
  Critical survey of the main issues in the philosophy of language and the foundations of linguistics, including the ideas of logical form and the universality of languages as well as the basic ideas of generative grammar, possible-worlds semantics, Wittgenstein, and speech-act theories.
• CAS PH 465: Philosophy of Cognitive Science
  Can humans be thought of in analogy with machines? The course examines questions of natural and artificial intelligence in light of traditional theory and of recent research in computer science and artificial intelligence.
• CAS PH 468: Philosophical Problems of Logic and Mathematics
  Selected traditional metaphysical and epistemological problems in the light of modern logic and various studies in the foundations of mathematics, including the nature of the axiomatic method, completeness in logic and mathematics, and the nature of mathematical truth.
• CAS PH 470: Philosophy of Physics
  Philosophical problems concerning the interpretation of physical discoveries. Elementary particles, the anomalies of quantum mechanics, some modern problems of space and time, and the problem of wholes and parts.
• CAS PH 472: Philosophy of Biology
  Conceptual problems in biology; unity or pluralism of science; hierarchy theory; biological explanation; evolutionary theory, teleology and casuality, statistical explanation; the species problem; mind and the brain; and language in animals and humans.

Back to full list of Courses