Philosophy

This course focuses on the problems and methods of philosophy through a survey of philosophical responses to the following questions: What exist and what is its nature? What is it to have a mind and knowledge, and how much knowledge do we really have? Can we freely determine our actions, what actions are moral or immoral, and what is the good life for a human being? What is justice and is it possible to design a just government for human societies? The selection of readings is taken from the following four areas of philosophical thinking: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics. The course provides a preliminary orientation to the notion of philosophical argument, its various forms, and the ways they can be analyzed. The course analyzes and comments on philosophical arguments, develops knowledge of the canonical position held by philosophers, and encourages students to develop and defend their own positions through careful argumentation.

The course explores modern and contemporary Jewish thought. It discusses the crisis of modernity and the transition towards an ethic of responsibility in Jewish authors of the 20th century. 

In the wake of the logical revolution at the end of the 19th century, a number of philosophers well-versed in formal logic turned their attention to the project of understanding human languages, not just logical ones. Others argued for a different approach, claiming that the tools of logic are either insufficient or just the wrong sort of thing to help us understand the nuances of human language use. This course introduces students to these two broad strands of philosophical thinking about language. Students cover how each strand arose, developed, and eventually intertwined with the other. Then, drawing on the tools of both, students study a range of interesting linguistic phenomena—from foundational notions like meaning and communication to more complex and recalcitrant notions like slurring and silencing.