Philosophy

This course explores the main political and moral theories that have been developed to face the new reality of unprecedented ecological upheaval caused by human activity. It imagines political solutions (environmental ethics, critique of technology, radical ecology, ecological democracy) to address several questions at the heart of contemporary political debates: whether humans should have a moral obligation towards nature and living beings; recognize a crime of ecocide; fight against the ideology of technical progress and invent new forms of life that are more resilient and respectful of the environment; reaffirm the importance of the precautionary principle in public action; and imagine a new social and ecological contract that would include non-human life forms and future generations.

This course encourages students to consider if, when, and how ethical considerations can or must play a role in the practice of the medical profession. Students are schooled in philosophical techniques that form the basis of sound ethical reasoning, become aware that the health sciences do not operate in a moral or philosophical vacuum, and that a good knowledge of both the older and recent ethical and philosophical debates is of the greatest significance. There are philosophical lectures, ethical discussions, and the study of practical cases that reflect the most important problems and topics that make up the moral and philosophical challenges of the medical discipline of today. Topics addressed include euthanasia, embryo research, HIV and Aids, imperiled newborns, gene therapy and cloning, involuntary psychiatric treatment, and allocation of limited medical resources.

This course examines the philosophy of sex and gender in three steps. It first looks at how the human subject in the history of philosophy is sexed and privileged as a man. It then examines the metaphysics of gender, questioning both essentialist and constructionist versions of gender ontology. Lastly, it pursues the question of intersectionality and its relationship with sex and gender

A research project that assigns students to expert professors in their proposed research topic. The course takes which takes the students' research capabilities to a more professional level. This can be most closely compared to what is called a supervised research project in the USA.

Is Chinese philosophy incommensurable with Western philosophy, or is there a philosophy in general? There are stereotypes (opinions) about Chinese philosophy, and this course examines the truth of Chinese philosophy in particular and the truth of philosophy in general. This course introduces classical (pre-Qin) Confucianism and Legalism; investigates the problems the pre-Qin Confucian and Legalist philosophers try to answer, what their answers are, whether the answers are coherent within one text and how these answers are related to each other; and examines how these philosophical texts address philosophical problems, that is, problems that transcend a particular people, a particular time, and a particular locale. By comparing these philosophers' answers to those by other philosophers (Chinese or non-Chinese), students see the merits and problems of these answers that are still relevant today.

Full course description

The mind-body problem is a legacy from the scientific revolution which started in the 16th century and reached its culmination point with Newtonian physics. Starting with Galileo’s and Descartes’ formulation of this problem we will discuss different philosophical positions in a more in-depth fashion. In the behavioral- and neurosciences these problems transform into questions about consciousness, conscious experience, and conscious perception. Those topics disappeared from science with the rise of behaviorism in the early twentieth century. But now they are back in the behavioral- and neurosciences again. Only over the past few decades consciousness has reappeared in cognitive science and neuropsychology. We will start this course with some philosophy, then we will scrutinize modern day sciences, especially cognitive science and neuroscience for ideas on mind and consciousness. At the end of the course we will go back to philosophy and we will ask ourselves whether all this empirical knowledge from psychology and neuroscience has brought us further in unraveling the brain-consciousness- (or mind-body) problem.

Course objectives

• To acquaint students with current ideas, philosophical arguments and empirical evidence on the nature of mind and the relationship between mind and body. We focus on modern cognitive and neuropsychological theories in the area of consciousness. Philosophical reflection on the caveats and problems associated with the notion of consciousness will be stimulated.  

Prerequisites

COR1002 Philosophy of Science and at least one 2000-level course from either Humanities, Social Sciences or Sciences.

The first part of the course introduces students to Kant’s theoretical philosophy as articulated in the Critique of Pure Reason. The course focuses primarily, but not exclusively, on topics from the first half of the book, and examine core topics such as the Copernican Turn, Kant’s doctrine of transcendental idealism, the analytic/synthetic distinction, the nature of space, the problem of causation and the response to Humean scepticism, and Kant’s theory of the self.   The course aims to show the centrality of Kant’s thought both to an understanding of the development of the history of philosophy and as a source of philosophical interest for contemporary epistemology and metaphysics.

This course examines the workings of science through four core topics: how science explains, how we reason to science, what scientific theories tell us about the world, and what role values play in science. Students consider cases where science succeeds, as well as cases where it fails, and they learn to explore deep philosophical issues about our knowledge of the world.