Philosophy

This course is an introduction to the burgeoning field of philosophy of psychiatry. Against a solid historical background, the course sets out to present, examine, and discuss concepts fundamental to our understanding of mental illness (mind, body, self, person, rationality, emotion, normality/disorder), the meaning of psychopathology, the relationship between biology (genetics, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience in particular) and subjectivity, and the question of therapy (the values and norms of well-being).

In this course we will explore a wide range of alternative logical systems for modelling different phenomena. We will look at the semantics and proof theory for modal logics (the logic of possibility and necessity), intuitionistic logic (the logic of constructive mathematics), “gappy” logics (where some truth values are underdetermined), the logic of paradox (where paradoxes can be true without the logic being trivial), deontic logic (the logic of actions and obligations), and dynamic epistemic logic (logics for tracking our knowledge in a changing epistemic environment). For each we will look at the philosophical motivations and payoffs that the logic has, as well as strengths and weaknesses of the formalisation.

The best possible introduction to philosophy as a subject is through engagement with Ancient Greek Philosophy. In this course, students look at some of Plato's writings about his friend and mentor Socrates, in particular those writings that bear on the trial and death of Socrates. These include Plato's APOLOGY, EUTHYPHRO, and CRITO, a series of short, lively dialogues that offer excellent introductions not only to Socrates, but to the practice of philosophy itself. Students also look back at the earliest Greek philosophers, such as Parmenides and Heraclitus, and forward to Aristotle and beyond. But the central focus of this course is on the figure of Socrates, and his impact on philosophy.

This course investigates the concepts of liberty, equality, and reconciliation. The course approaches these concepts by studying a sequence of authors including Hobbes, Locke, Wollstonecraft, Betham, Mill, Nozick, and Rawls. Students also explore important considerations of class, gender, and race, with readings from Marx and Engels, MacKinnon, and Delaney.

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?