Philosophy

This course examines the question of ethics, particularly integrity, in the exercise of power by elected officials. It raises the central question of whether it is ever right to do wrong in politics; and if so, to what end. The course is divided into three parts. Drawing on selected texts of political philosophy and political science, it first explores the broad confines of morality, ethics, and integrity in politics; and subsequently focuses on the question of lying. The final part of the course examines integrity through empirical cases in contemporary politics. Overall, the course reflects on what conduct is realistically expected from those in government, and on the seemingly inevitable tension and thin line between using power to serve oneself and using power to serve the common good.

This course provides students with an introduction to some of the central debates and issues in practical philosophy, in particular in moral philosophy and political philosophy. It gives students a basic understanding of the issues in question, as well as to help them acquire and sharpen the necessary critical skills in reading, writing, and argument to engage with the debates, and develop their own views in dialogue with them. The course takes the form of an introduction to the three main divisions in moral philosophy – metaethics, moral theory, and applied ethics – as well as some of the central concepts of political philosophy. These are approached through the reading of a number of important articles and extracts, including extracts from some of the central texts in the history of moral and political philosophy. 

The course is an introduction to social theories in Artificial Intelligence (AI). The course draws reflections and theoretical comparisons between how humans engage in meaningful interactions with other humans and with social robots. The course begins with an overview of the standard and contrasting accounts of social cognition and its development, spanning from the Theory of Mind, embodied and situated approaches, and neural mirroring theories. Mainstream research paradigms to investigate human-robot interactions will be also presented. Finally, the course advances some current psychological and philosophical critical issues related to ethical, relational, and functional issues of using social robots as partners in human daily interactions.

Problems in philosophical aesthetics, both historical and contemporary, are treated in this course. They may be approached as purely philosophical questions or as questions that arise in the meeting of philosophy with the arts. For example: What is beauty and what is its place among other things in the world? What is art and what is its place among other things and other activities? How is aesthetic quality judged? Texts and focus in the course vary.

This course provides a systematic overview of the key topics of environmental ethics. It focuses on three protracted and heated debates at the interface of environmental ethics and ecological restoration. The first debate is about the value of ecological restoration (including ‘nature development’). The second debate is about the moral status of animals within ecological restoration projects. Here the course distinguishes between (complementary) two cases: the first one is about the (re)introduction of indigenous species that were once pushed out of their native environment; the other one is about the elimination or eradication of exotic and alien species that have invaded and degraded ecosystems. Both cases show that there is considerable tension between environmental ethics and animal welfare ethics. The third debate is about the role of human intervention in the Anthropocene. Old-school conservationists want to restore and protect pristine nature and call for an attitude of humility. Ecomodernists, on the other hand, see the Anthropocene not as an ecological disaster, but as an opportunity to increase human welfare and protect nature with the use of technology.

In her first book, published in 1997, Saidiya Hartman unfolds a theory of the subject based on the effects of colonialism. She studies the relation between white supremacy and the oppression of Black people through modes of self-constitution and performance. Hartman’s work is one of the canonical readings within Black studies and Black feminism and methodologically situated between history, philosophy, and performance studies. The course engages in a semester of close reading in order to get familiar with some fundamental theoretical motives in Black Studies, such as the notion of antiblackness, slave agency, the aftermath of slavery and its counterparts: the possessive individuality of the bourgeois subject and the liberal notion of freedom.

A literary and philosophical inquiry into such themes as selfhood, nothingness, name, namelessness, reality, Karma, yin-yang, and so forth through examination of great literary and philosophical writings in the East Asian tradition. All works are read in English translation. Topics covered include: Taoist thought and literature, Confucian thought and literature, Buddhist literature, the origins of East Asian thought, search for cultural archetypes, Confucian ideology in crisis, and modernity in modern Korean and Chinese fiction.

This course discusses philosophical questions such as the follows through movie appreciation and readings of related books: Who will board the Ark in the "Doomsday" scene? Can "terrorists" be tortured? Why do modern people hate going to work? (Field: Social Philosophy) Why do strangers hurt each other? Are you living in a virtual world? Can I make a choice? Is all reasonable thing the right thing? Will you fall in love with an algorithm? Who gave the meaning of life? Who has the right to decide my life and death? Will you go back after you walk out of the cave?