Philosophy

• CAS PH 424: Wittgenstein
  An intensive (line by line) study of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations.
• 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 445: The Philosophy of Love
  What is love? What different forms does it take (e.g. parental love, romantic love)? Is love non- rational or are there reasons of love? We aim to answer these and other philosophical questions by focusing on contemporary philosophical writings on love.
• 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: Classical to Early Modern Political Theory
  Focuses on philosophical subjects relevant to ethics and politics, such as virtue and happiness; human nature and reason; qualifications of leadership; aims and means of civic education; and conceptions of law (man-made, natural, divine). Texts by Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli. This course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings, Ethical Reasoning, Critical Thinking.
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  • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
  • Ethical Reasoning
  • Critical Thinking
• 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 2019: Wisdom and Transformation. A study of the relationship between wisdom and moral transformation in several different philosophical and religions, from ancient Greece to the modern day, including an encounter with the classical traditions of India and China. This course is designed to run side by side with the Institute for Philosophy and Religion's fall lecture series.
• CAS PH 457: 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.
• 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 459: Political and Legal Philosophy
  Examination of the individual's responsibilities under law, specifically of the idea that there is a general moral obligation to obey the law, including unjust law, and the contrasting idea of civil disobedience-- the possibility of morally justified resistance to law. Also offered as CAS PO 499.
• 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 investigation of logical reasoning with mathematical methods. The syntax and semantics of sentential logic and quantificational logic. The unifying Godel Completeness Theorem, and models of theories. A look at the Godel Incompleteness Theorem and its ramifications. This course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings.
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  • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
• 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.

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