Philosophy

This course explores the historical constitution of questions surrounding the mind, and the approach of the mind/body problem in modern thought. It critically examines the relevance of the approach to these topics from the perspective of analytical philosophy, taking into consideration contemporary contributions in the field of cognitive sciences.  

This course introduces students to a variety of scholarly contributions and concepts used for the analysis of American culture. It focuses on different media and forms of cultural representation including film and TV. Addressed are theories on representation and signs, discourse and power, memory and time, race and privilege, gender and queer studies, and class and popular culture. Students reflect critically on the ways these theories are engaged in the production of knowledge about symbolic and material practices.

This course examines some of the influential schools of thought which arose from pre-Han (before 206BC) China. Topics include pre-Confucian legal and political institutions of China; Confucian vision of law, ethics and human conduct; continuations and variations of the Confucian system; legalist ideas of law, human nature and statecraft; Daoist outlook on human-beings, nature, and Universe; ideas of Yin and Yang; creation of state orthodoxy in Han empire; and the limits of law, language and human understanding.

This is a systematic introduction to the problems of phenomenology. Topics like intentionality, consciousness, perception, memory, imagination, pictures, symbols, life world, intersubjectivity are discussed. This course aims to offer a gradual understanding of the substantial operation of the so-called phenomenological method and the necessary knowledge for comprehending the development of phenomenology as well. Fundamental concepts of phenomenology are explicated and illustrated, and the relevance of these concepts to our contemporary human condition are demonstrated.

After the Holocaust it perhaps appeared that an age old conflict between Judaism and Western Civilization had finally come to an end. Indeed, since 1945 Jewish life in Israel and in the Diaspora has relied on the "values and interests" that the Jewish People seems to share with the principles of Liberal Democracy that defeated Nazism in WWII. Despite this alliance (which has its roots in the humanism of the Enlightenment), the relationship between Jewish identity and the Western values of Liberal Democracy still seems complicated. Our hypothesis in this course is that modern Anti-Semitism, anti-Semitic anti-Zionism and even assimilation are products of an identity based conflict that has yet to be resolved and whose sources we shall try to trace by analyzing some key differences between Jewish and Western philosophies of identity. The course focuses on the connection between Heidegger's Being and Time (1927) and his membership in the Nazi party. The course examines the relative impact of Heidegger's Nazism on Deconstruction considering the relative impact of Heidegger and Wittgenstein on the post-modern philosophy of Derrida and Foucault. The course concludes by drawing upon this analysis to offer a fresh portrayal of the meaning of identity in the writings of Jewish thinkers such as the Ba'al Hatanya, Nefesh Hachayim, Rav Kook and Buber.

This course introduces Buddhism and its philosophies. In this course, students examine the basic tenets of Buddhism, its mythology and Buddhism’s impact in the world.