Philosophy

Is knowledge of the world possible? And is there even an objective world for our knowledge to be about? These are the topics of skepticism and relativism. Skeptics challenge our ability to know anything about the world. Relativists contest that there is no absolute, objective truth. In this class, we will study both historical and contemporary thinking about these perennial topics. We will address ancient arguments for skepticism, but also look to more contemporary relativistic thinking about science, morality, and other matters.

This course addresses the interdisciplinary applicability of phenomenology, including best practices, use and application in a non-philosophical context, what qualifies a discipline or practice as phenomenological, and the core commitments of phenomenology. The first third of the course offers an introduction to core ideas and figures in phenomenology. It makes clear how phenomenology, by offering an account of human existence where the subject is understood as an embodied, socially, and culturally embedded being-in-the-world, is not only addressing specific issues relevant to several disciplines from within the humanities and social sciences, but also contributing to the philosophy of the human sciences. The rest of the course looks at successful applications in qualitative research and psychology, in discussions of gender and race, in health care (primarily psychiatry and nursing), in cognitive science (primarily developmental psychology and neuroscience), and in the social sciences (including sociology, anthropology and political science). The course offers some reflections on what a phenomenological interview might look like and discusses how ideas from phenomenology can be used in corporations and private companies.

The course discusses the intersection between human and animal based on historical cases and zooethical discussions. It explores the different ways of understanding the continuity and contiguity of animals and humans in various periods and historical cases; especially, but not exclusively, since the definitive establishment of Darwinism. This course also analyzes the zooethical dimensions related to carnivorous nutrition, bull fighting, pets, zoos, and other institutions of human/animal interaction or between human and non-human animals.

The course offers an introduction to critical thinking-- a means of looking at information and discerning true data, false data, and manipulated information.