Philosophy

This course provides an introduction to epistemology and metaphysics. Topics to be discussed include the nature of knowledge, scepticism, the existence of God, whether theism is rational, why the universe exists, free will, personal identity, and the metaphysics of race.

This course introduces and explains a range of concepts from set theory, philosophy of language and metaphysics, probability theory, and decision theory. These include the notions of set, cardinality, infinity, analyticity, necessity, possible worlds, reference, scope, probability, conditionals, utility, decision rules, dominance, backward induction. The emphasis is on basic ideas rather than on technical elaboration. The concepts are sketched, illustrated by examples, and made familiar via exercises. 

This course explores the causes of the paradigm shift in the relations between human and non-human beings. It focuses on moral and political theories and on their implementation in the law of the European Union and European member states. Legislation and case law are critically assessed in light of the relevant international rules. Particular attention is paid to the protection of endangered species; the legal regulation of the breeding and slaughter for consumption of non-human beings; the abusive practices of bio-medical research, cosmetic testing, sports and entertainment; the treatment of pets; and the deliberate extinction of undesirable non-human beings. The course discusses the contribution of the activist movements to the prohibition of cruel traditions (foie gras, corrida, fur industry, cosmetics). It focuses on the recent approaches towards a “global animal law” as a matter of global justice and on the project “1 HEALTH”. Lastly, the course offers an overview of the relations between human and non-human beings in art history, of the animals’ symbolism, and of the transition “from aesthetics to ethics."

The course introduces students to philosophical debates concerning emotions and morality in the 18th century. Students discuss topics such as human nature and personal and moral development, love, and empathy. They read selected texts by philosophers such as Damaris Masham, Mary Astell, David Hume, Adam Smith, Sophie de Grouchy, and others.

Indigenous peoples are present in the economic participation and cultural wealth of their nations.  A variety of languages can still be heard and seen, and uprisings, such as those of the Zapatistas in Chiapas, can be observed.  This second semester course analyzes the cultural knowledge and original philosophies of each of the most important groups in Mexico: Nahuatl, Zapotec, Mixtec, Purépecha, and Quechua and Aymara of Peru and Bolivia, including a few other Mexican and Latin American philosophers.  

To understand the general orientation of the kind of thought known as German idealism, this course contextualizes Kant and the post-Kantian philosophers in Leibniz's project to: (1) Recover the Platonic tradition as an antidote to the nominalist theism of Locke and Berkeley; (2) Take as a formula the Kantian claim that his philosophy, transcendental philosophy, is idealist regarding the form of experience, but not its matter.  The full development of the meaning involved in this escape from (Berkeley's) material idealism leads the course gradually from the old Kant's Critique of the Faculty of Judgment to the Nietzsche's declared death of criticism, allowing one to distinguish the unity of this important intellectual development.

The objective of epistemology is to discuss or determine the nature, limits, scope, presuppositions, and bases of human knowledge.  Its importance is extreme because it is the branch of philosophy that places very severe limits on free speculation.  For example, metaphysics and ontology can argue coherently and convincingly about the existence of anything; epistemology refers to the way in which it aims to know and justify what it proposes.  Epistemology is what determines what is mere metaphysical speculation; what seems to be able to be confirmed as part of reality; how well the claims to know something are founded; how many forms of knowledge there are; what their degrees of doubt or certainty as well as their scope, limits, sources, justifications, etc.  This course aims to give students the necessary foundations to be able to introduce some of the disturbing questions immersed in the attempt to define what human knowledge is and how it is obtained and justified.  The course, therefore, aims that students are able to understand, reflect on, and discuss the problems they face. 

In this course, students are introduced to current philosophical debates about the nature of mind and its place in the natural world. Prominent theories of the mind are considered with particular attention paid to their capacity to capture the first-personal, the apparently private, and experientially rich nature of mental life.

The course offers an overview of Western philosophy and analyses the questions treated in its main branches. This course studies the Greeks as the founders of the Western philosophical tradition, key texts, and ideas relating to Presocratic philosophers, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, emphasizing on metaphysical questions about the nature of reality and of the soul.  The course covers the medieval era through the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, emphasizing on his use of an Aristotelian approach to metaphysical notions of substance and soul, as well as his arguments for the existence of God. The study of modern philosophy focuses on Descartes, Hume, Kant, and Wittgenstein. In this part of the course, students explore the views of these thinkers on questions like: What is knowledge, and is it possible? How is the mind related to the body? What is meant by virtue ethics? What is the relation between language and the world?

This course examines the utopian, dystopian, and ambivalent implications of artificial intelligence. Grounded in the interdisciplinary field of science and technology studies, students will study how bodies, subjectivity, life, households, work, and the environment are being transformed by technoscience and artificial intelligence. It will investigate how artificial intelligence, and technoscience more broadly, blurs the boundaries between humans and machines to equip students with the knowledge and skills to critically analyze historical, social, ethical, economic, and philosophical implications of past, present, and emerging technologies. Topics may include cyborgs, biotechnologies, pharmaceuticals, cyberspace, surveillance, and technosolutionism.