Philosophy

This course analyzes and discusses the fundamental ethical dilemmas of this generation and the use of technology in today's society. In the second half of the course, students participate in debates on related topics and issues.

This course introduces foundational ideas from some of the most exciting and influential thinkers from ancient Greek philosophy. Students begin by looking at several important Pre-Socratic philosophers (such as Parmenides) with a particular focus on their contributions and approaches to epistemology and metaphysics. The course then traces the thread of these debates through to three towering figures of classical Greek philosophy and the western philosophical canon: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

Topics in this Hermeneutics and Language course include: tradition of hermeneutics; Gadamer's philosophical program; hermeneutics and dialectics; the sense of being and hermeneutic phenomenology of existence; facticity, transcendence, and freedom in fundamental ontology; Kant and the hermeneutic turn.

Knowledge seems to matter a great deal to us. We want to know the answers to various questions and are often willing to pay a high price to find out. And in evaluating other people's actions, we often care about what they knew and when they knew it. But why should we care so much about knowledge in particular? Is it important only because true belief is important? And why, for that matter, is true belief important? In this seminar we will examine some of the roles knowledge plays in our lives and evaluate a range of proposals attempting to explain its significance. Readings will be drawn primarily from contemporary analytic philosophy.

This course explores central philosophical questions about the nature of science knowledge, its methodology, and the objects it studies. The course is split into two parts. In the first, the course traces the co-development of science from proto-science in Ancient Greece through to the Scientific Revolution and beyond, and associated accounts of scientific methodology in philosophy, from Aristotle’s theory of demonstration to Karl Popper’s falsificationism and Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm shifts. Here the course encounters questions such as: What constitutes scientific progress? Can scientific theories ever be proved correct? And, how is science different from non-sciences? In the second part, the course looks at four important questions within contemporary philosophy of science: (i) Are scientists committed to the actual truth of their theories? (ii) What are scientific models, and how important are they? (iii) What is the replication crisis within science, and what’s causing it? (iv) What challenge is posed by science denialism in society?

This is the second part of my lecture series ‘Kant and the Constitution of Objectivity’.  This course deals mainly with Transcendental Dialectic. I will argue that Kant establishes a new and distinct notion of objectivity here, which is built on the insight that the objects of empirical cognition are always conditioned with respect to certain metaphysical grounding relations and provoke the idea of something that is unconditioned in this respect. Understanding how this notion of objectivity arises and why it falls short of providing us with cognition, e.g., of the self, of the world as a whole, and of God, will allow for a better understanding of Kant’s arguments against rationalist psychology, cosmology and theology. We will also deal with the object of practical reason – the good – and see in how far the objects of theoretical and practical reason are distinct and in how far they are similar.

This course offers a study of the fundamental milestones in the development of Western philosophical thought, from its beginnings in ancient Greece to the early modern age, taking into account their scope and application to the field of aesthetics. 

Through a multifaceted approach, this methodological workshop imparts an effective methodology and knowledge to apprehend the reading of political philosophy texts as a genuine interpretative experience. By focusing on famous philosophical texts, it studies the way in which argumentation is constructed and logical, articulated reflection is conducted. This methodological and practical approach focuses on providing the tools needed to understand a text properly: identifying arguments, dialectical procedures, and the use of examples. The temporal and geographical variation of the texts also provides an understanding that any reading of political philosophy is necessarily situated, inscribed in a here and now, which instructs us on the meaning of the text and enriches our understanding of it. Finally, the course cross-references the interpretations that the texts may elicit. From this point of view, the study of secondary sources offers a fresh, offbeat look at philosophical works.

This historical introduction course concentrates on two branches of philosophy: ontology or metaphysics, and epistemology thus exploring the development of Western thought. A wide range of notions are dealt with, e.g. substance and accident; existence and being; subject and object; idea, knowledge, and certainty; causality, necessity, and freedom. 

This course provides an introduction to contemporary philosophical debates about core concepts of justice, liberty, equality, community, and democracy in modern liberal-democratic societies. Students become familiar with the work of some of the leading political philosophers of today, like Thomas Hobbes, Mary Wollstonecraft, John Rawls, Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin, Frantz Fanon, Martha Nussbaum, and Achille Mbembe. Since conceptual analysis is the core business of philosophy, students learn to analyze concepts, clarify moral ideas, and how tensions between moral ideas can be made explicit. They also learn how to apply these concepts in current political debate and practice.