Graduate

PHIL 202 Topics in Ancient Greek Philosophy

Topics will vary each quarter and will focus on some major ancient Greek philosophical figure or work.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to philosophy graduate students.

Repeatable for credit

Yes

PHIL 203 Autism

Explores autism and its implications for various fields of inquiry, especially philosophy. Previous familiarity with autism is not presupposed. Some background in philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and psychology recommended.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

PHIL 213 Origins of Analytic Philosophy

Analytic philosophy remains the dominant philosophical style worldwide. As a style of philosophy, analytic philosophy places emphasis on logical form and on the use of logical structure as the key element for evaluating the normative status (the logical merits) of a specific position. The history of analytic philosophy remains key since core debates turn on the status of logic as a supposedly value-neutral tool. This impacts philosophical understanding regarding logic, mathematics, and the relation of these areas to the natural and social sciences.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

PHIL 214 Probability and Confirmation

Studies the philosophical foundations of probability, induction, and confirmation. Different interpretations of probability studied, and solutions to various problems and paradoxes investigated. Students cannot receive credit for this course and PHIL 114.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

PHIL 222 Metaphysics

Advanced introduction to topics in 20th century and contemporary analytic metaphysics. Divided into five main parts dealing, respectively, with issues about the nature of existence, properties, time, change and persistence, and material constitution.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to philosophy graduate students.

PHIL 224 Philosophy of Language

Advanced introduction to issues in the philosophy of language—primarily concerning the nature of reference, meaning, and truth. Works from such 20th-century figures as Russell, Wittgenstein, Kripke, Lewis, and Putnam discussed. Topics include what it is for a sign or a bit of language to be meaningful, or for it to identify or represent something; what it is for a statement to be truthful; what it is to be a language; and how reference works when attributed to beliefs.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to philosophy graduate students.

PHIL 225 The Pittsburgh School

Surveys representative works by three iconic "Pittsburgh School" thinkers, Wilfrid Sellars, Robert Brandom, and John McDowell, and how the issues they pursue, and the way they approach them, forms a unique and important line of thought in contemporary philosophy. These constitute an important counterexample to any claim that the problems and approaches of continental and analytic philosophy cannot be fruitfully integrated, or that analytic philosophy remains fated to be ahistorical. Course examines how Kant and Hegel, and Heideggar as well, powerfully inform the philosophical writings of all three. Also investigates how Sellars articulates an original philosophical vision that his younger colleagues and intellectual heirs at Pittsburgh further develop and yet make their own.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

PHIL 231 Epistemology

May focus on topics such as naturalized epistemology, probabilistic epistemology, theories of justification, a priori knowledge, memory, and virtue epistemology.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to philosophy graduate students.

Repeatable for credit

Yes

PHIL 232 Advanced Topics in Value Theory

Considers topics central to philosophical questions about value: ethics, normativity, practical reason, relativism, skepticism, responsibility, motivation, emotion, and so forth. In some instances, the investigation will proceed through influential historical figures, ancient to modern.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to philosophy graduate students.

Repeatable for credit

Yes

PHIL 233 Seminar in Philosophy of Mind

A study of one or more topics in contemporary philosophy of mind.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

Repeatable for credit

Yes

PHIL 235 Philosophy of Psychology

Looks at philosophical issues raised by current research on the nature of perception, cognition, and consciousness in psychology and cognitive science or neuroscience. Can there be a science of the mind? Could machines be conscious? Do animals have minds? How did the mind evolve? These and a host of related questions form the subject matter of this course.

Credits

5

Requirements

Prerequisite(s): One course in philosophy, psychology, or linguistics. Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

PHIL 237 Making Up the Mind

How does the mind come to be a thing which science can study? Readings focus on how diagnostic categories, for example, multiple personality disorder, attain scientific cachet and what issues surround the medicalization of the mind.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

PHIL 239 Philosophy of Religion

Investigation of various topics in philosophy of religion.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to philosophy graduate students or by permission of instructor.

Repeatable for credit

Yes

PHIL 246 Ethics, Nature, and Natural Selection

Explores the role, if any, that Darwinian theory and evolutionary biology should have on ethical theory. Topics range from classic work, including Darwin and classic expositors, to influential contemporary work on natural selection, in light of the best philosophical literature.

Credits

5

Cross Listed Courses

BIOE 287

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

Repeatable for credit

Yes

PHIL 270 Research Seminar

A research seminar to develop the skills of the profession with special focus on critical reading, constructing feedback, and philosophical research and writing. Enrollment is restricted to third-year Ph.D. students, and students must complete it by the end of their third year.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to philosophy graduate students. Other students may enroll with instructor permission.

Repeatable for credit

Yes

PHIL 280 Graduate Colloquia Course

This colloquia series sponsors speakers each quarter. Students must attend all colloquia and are encouraged to form discussion groups after each lecture.

Credits

2

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to philosophy graduate students.

PHIL 281 The Pedagogy of Philosophy

Provides training for graduate students in university-level pedagogy in general and in the pedagogy of philosophy specially, under the supervision of a faculty member.

Credits

2

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

Repeatable for credit

Yes

PHIL 290A Philosophy of History

Examines issues that arise with respect to constructing histories. Inter alia, these include: the traditional philosophy of history (e.g., Hegel and Marx); modes of explanation (including narrative); the reality of the past; and underdetermination in history.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

PHIL 290C Advanced Topics in Ethics

Topics vary but the course focuses on major questions in contemporary ethical theory, or figures influential on contemporary moral philosophy. Examines different foundational ethical principles and arguments for those principles, contrasting accounts of moral action and moral motivation, as well as the epistemological and motivational role of emotions in ethical theory.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to philosophy graduate students.

Repeatable for credit

Yes

PHIL 290F Topics in Philosophy of Biology

Philosophy of biology is one of the fastest-growing areas of philosophy of science. Course is designed to give seniors and graduate students an overview of many of the diverse topics currently under discussion in modern philosophy of biology and provide a foundation for further research, regardless of previous experience with the biological sciences.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

Repeatable for credit

Yes

PHIL 290H Environmental Ethics

What is our proper moral stance toward the natural environment? This question encompasses our ethical relations to individual non-human animals, to other species of living beings, and toward the biotic community as a whole. It leads us to consider the broader question: What makes anything at all worthy of our moral respect or even our moral consideration? How are we to understand the very idea of the environment, the distinction between the human world, and the natural world, and the relationships between them.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

PHIL 290J Advanced Topics in the History of Ethics

Careful study of any one of the main moral theories in the history of philosophy, with some emphasis on the relation to contemporary moral philosophy.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

Repeatable for credit

Yes

PHIL 290K Philosophical Matters of Scientific Practice

Considers the relevance of philosophical matters to the practice of science. Using quantum physics as a case study, explores historical and contemporary perspectives on issues such as those raised by the Schrodinger cat paradox, Bell's inequalities, and quantum erasers.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

PHIL 290O Majors Figures in the History of Philosophy

Focuses on philosophical writings and significance of a single major figure in the history of philosophy, ancient, medieval, or modern.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to philosophy graduate students.

Repeatable for credit

Yes

PHIL 290P Major Figures in Contemporary Philosophy

Focuses on philosophical writings and significance of a single figure in contemporary (20th- and 21st-century) philosophy. May include, but not be limited to, Russell, Whitehead, Wittgenstein, Husserl, Carnap, Murdoch, Quine, Irigaray, Derrida, and Davidson.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to philosophy graduate students.

Repeatable for credit

Yes

Quarter offered

Fall, Winter, Spring

PHIL 290Q Philosophy of Mathematics

Introduction to the problems of contemporary analytic philosophy of mathematics. Do mathematical objects exist? Are mathematical statements true? How can we know? We will examine the historical background to contemporary debates and the positions which have been taken within them.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

PHIL 290S Topics in the Philosophy of Science

An examination of a topic in current philosophy of science. The material for the course is chosen from topics such as realism and instrumentalism, scientific explanation, space and time, the confirmation of theories, laws of nature, and scientific abstraction.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

Repeatable for credit

Yes

PHIL 290W History of Consciousness

Historical study of philosophical theories of consciousness and self-consciousness. Problems include the relation of self and other, consciousness and body, and self-consciousness and ethical agency. Readings are from Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, followed by phenomenologists, poststructuralists, and analytic philosophy.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

PHIL 294 Teaching-Related Independent Study

Directed graduate research and writing coordinated with the teaching of undergraduates.

Credits

5

Repeatable for credit

Yes

PHIL 295 Directed Reading

Directed reading which does not involve a term paper.

Credits

5

Repeatable for credit

Yes

PHIL 295F Readings in Philosophy

Focuses on selected philosophical areas and/or specific philosophers. Students meet with the instructor to discuss readings and deepen their knowledge on a particular subject. Enrollment restricted to graduate students.

Credits

2

Repeatable for credit

Yes

PHIL 296 Special Student Seminar

A seminar for graduate students arranged between students and a faculty member. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

Credits

5

Repeatable for credit

Yes

PHIL 297 Independent Study

Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

Credits

5

Repeatable for credit

Yes

PHIL 297F Independent Study

Students submit petition to course sponsoring agency. Enrollment restricted to graduate students.

Credits

2

Repeatable for credit

Yes

PHIL 299 Thesis Research

Enrollment restricted to students who have advanced to candidacy.

Credits

5

Repeatable for credit

Yes

Cross-listed courses that are managed by another department are listed at the bottom.

Cross-listed Courses

BME 80G Bioethics in the 21st Century: Science, Business, and Society

Serves science and non-science majors interested in bioethics. Guest speakers and instructors lead discussions of major ethical questions having arisen from research in genetics, medicine, and industries supported by this knowledge.

Credits

5

Cross Listed Courses

PHIL 80G

General Education Code

PE-T

HISC 252 Poststructuralism

French poststructuralism, with particular attention to the main philosophical texts of Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. Other representative theorists as well as critics of poststructuralism are studied as time permits.

Credits

5

Cross Listed Courses

PHIL 252

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

STEV 136 Imagination

Examines contemporary perspectives on the theme of imagination. Course readings include philosophical treatments of imagination, Indigenous imaginative cultural formations, and Black radical imaginations for socio-spatial liberation. Addresses the following questions: To what extent is imagination tied to our particular position, culture, and time period? What are some ways to expand our imaginations and when are these approaches limited? And how can imagination help us advance radical social change? Explores imagination as an inherently cross-cultural topic and teaches students to present, analyze, and critically discuss philosophical and sociological arguments about imagination. Students cannot receive credit for this course and PHIL 136C, PRTR 175A / PHIL 136B, or COWL 175A/PHIL 136A.

Credits

5

Cross Listed Courses

PHIL 136C