Philosophy

This course examines some major topics on European Modernism. It focuses on the philosophies of the influential modern and contemporary European thinkers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, Friedrich Nietzsche, etc. Topics include Language, Poetry, European Nihilism, Power, Modernity, Value, etc.

This course introduces a selection of the main theoretical works in the Western tradition. The readings present some of the most important ideas in the history of thought, including contributions to philosophy, religion, politics, and science. Different approaches to the reading of theoretical texts are discussed and evaluated, including close reading, historical contextualization, and various critical interpretations. 

David Lewis (1941-2001) was one of the most important philosophers of the 20th Century. He made significant contributions to philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of science, decision theory, epistemology, meta-ethics and aesthetics, and most significantly to philosophy of mind and metaphysics. Despite the wide range of issues addressed in Lewis' work there is a unifying method and systematicity. This course provides an overview of Lewis' contributions by focusing on some of his key writings on various topics such as modal metaphysics, human supervienience, analytic functionalism, counterfactuals, counterpart theory, de se content, contextualism about knowledge, scorekeeping in a language game, etc. The course is oriented around a single philosopher and his work, but attention is also given to the connections between Lewis' philosophy and the enduring problems of traditional philosophy.