Philosophy

This course explores the history of aesthetics and art theory. It focus on the link between art and thought, as well as some of the fundamental theoretical problems in art today and their potential resolutions.

This course explores the main lines of Latin American philosophical thought of the 20th century, starting with the problem of identity and the phenomenon of populism. In the first part of the course, it discusses the main debates of Latin American thought since the mid-20th century. In the second part, it analyzes the work of some of the most distinguished Latin American philosophers of recent decades. 

Many current philosophical discussions, both in practical and theoretical philosophy, center around the explanation of normativity. This course focuses primarily on practical normativity, starting with the crucial concept of a normative reason and then look into a number of different topics, e.g. values and reasons; reasons for attitudes and the wrong kind of reasons; and normative powers and voluntary obligations.

This course discusses the place of philosophical anthropology in the whole of philosophy. It analyzes the differences and relations between philosophical anthropology and positive anthropologies. This course examines different ways of conceiving philosophical anthropology, both historically and systematically, and its basic themes. It also explores theoretical and practical dimensions of philosophical anthropology and connections between this field and the philosophy of action and culture.

This course examines the basic nature of reasoning, and also focuses on fallacies which by their very nature obstruct good reasoning. In this respect, emphasis will be laid upon understanding the logical structure of argumentation which is important in recognizing the influence of emotional and rhetorical persuasion in everyday discourse and reasoning as well as in formal situations such as media presentations, political discussions, advertisements, general academic writings, etc.

This course mainly investigates questions and problems related to theories of human nature and ethics and their interconnectedness. It covers works by key figures in the Classical and Post-Classical periods of Islamic Philosophy including Avicenna, Averroes, Ibn ‘Arabi, al-Ījī and al-Dawwānī, and by figures in Modern and Enlightenment philosophy including Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant and Hegel. Among the main themes the course tackles is the relationship between mind and body and its implications for understanding good and evil as ethical categories in the two traditions, examining the convergences and divergences among them. Methodologically, the class combines both a thematic approach focusing on the main themes in philosophy of mind and its connection with key ethical problems with a historical approach investigating the historical development of these themes and their moral implications. This course is offered to both graduate and undergraduate students with distinct assessment requirements for each; this represents the undergraduate version of the course. 

This course considers the relationship between philosophical reflection and aesthetic practice through the lens of cinema, with the purpose of engaging students of both philosophy and film theory in a cross-disciplinary investigation into cinema. The course draws both from philosophical texts on film, and classical and contemporary film theory. Topics may include epistemological, ontological, and ethical questions about film; the role of memory, subjectivity, identity, and desire in cinema; time, space, and the nature of the image; perspectives on sexuality, gender, and race in film; psychoanalytic, feminist, and postcolonial film theory; and analytic and continental approaches to film and philosophy. This course is offered to both graduate and undergraduate students with distinct assessment requirements for each; this represents the graduate version of the course. 

This course explores the central developments in modern philosophy occurring between the foundation of modern empiricism and rationalism by Locke and Descartes in the 17th century, and the emergence of Kant’s philosophical system in the late 18th century. 

This course introduces students to important concepts, movements, and thinkers within the "late modern" period of philosophy between Kant and the early 20th century. This period encompasses many thinkers and movements of enduring relevance today. They are still relevant because they set the terms of questions that philosophers are still asking, or because important currents of contemporary philosophy are defined in terms of their opposition to these late modern movements. This course introduces students to a range of thinkers and texts from this period. Students critically engage with some of the philosophical concerns and projects that motivated late modern thinkers, and consider their relevance to philosophy today. The thinkers and texts covered vary from year to year, but the period covered by the course usually includes: Kant and post-Kantian thought; Hegel and Marx and the roots of existentialist and phenomenological philosophy (in e.g. Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, and de Beauvoir).

This political philosophy course offers a study of the basic concepts related to the ethical and legal foundation of society including justice, freedom, security, wealth, property, authority, human rights, forms of government, electoral laws, democratic institutions, etc. It covers political philosophy from Ancient Greece to Marx.