Survey of medieval thought with special emphasis upon the two leading philosophers of that age: St. Augustine and St. Thomas of Aquinas. Course 101 is strongly recommended prior to taking this course.
The three major poststructuralist philosophers are Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Gilles Deleuze. After studying their rejection of phenomenological accounts of consciousness and agency—as well as their program for studying power, bio-power, multiplicity, difference, and repetition,—current critics , such as Slavoj Zizek and Judith Butler, are also read for contrast between the methods of phenomenology, genealogy, and critical theory.
A close study of early and late texts by Martin Heidegger, especially Being and Time.
Training in philosophical thinking and its expression in written form.
Self, Self-Deception, Self and Other: Exploration of selected problems in philosophical psychology (e.g., personal identity, disembodied minds, bad faith, private languages) through readings in modern and contemporary philosophy and psychology.
Examines challenges to what has been a dominant understanding of practical rationality: the claim that reason can never guide action in itself; that acting against one's better judgment is necessarily irrational; that emotions disrupt rather than facilitate practical reasoning.
Study of ethical issues involved in recent and upcoming advances in genetic research and technology such as genetic engineering, cloning, human embryo research, genetic experimentation, use of an individual's genetic information, and the manipulation of human evolution. Also discusses fundamental issues such as the moral responsibility of scientists, our obligations to future generations, and the notion of human perfectability.
How should you act when any course of action would contradict the rules of morality? This situation is the question of dirty hands. It is connected to the doctrine of double effect: the claim that although willing evil as a means to some good result is always wrong, it is permissible to cause evil as a side effect while aiming at a good result. Discussions include practical issues, such as democracy's combat against terrorism; and theoretical issues, such as the difference between action and omission, and the connection between goodwill and good (or bad) results.
Questions of social and distributive justice are as ancient as Aristotle; yet, modern philosophy, with its developing notions of democracy and quality, has added much sophistication and subtlety to these questions, especially since the publication of John Rawls' A Theory of Justice (1971). Issues discussed include: personal relations, concept of community, the notion of the State, and global justice.
Story, drama, and poetry considered as sources of philosophical perspective or as particular challenges to philosophical interpretation. Also, discussion of literary and imaginative elements in philosophical writing. One course in philosophy is strongly recommended prior to taking this course.
A study of different philosophical responses to religious belief and practice, from the classical proofs of religion, to skeptical critiques of religious experience, to conceptual issues in the interpretation of religious texts.
An intensive study of the thirteen principal Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita with a view to understanding their philosophic-religious content.
A study of Confucian and Daoist responses to the questions of how to restore order to society and how to conduct oneself at the individual level in the wake of breakdown of traditional norms and values in ancient China.
Topic is the nature of consciousness. Two recent theories by analytic philosophers of mind are discussed for their answers to the questions of why living beings become conscious, and what defines consciousness.
What kind of injury is an insult? Is its infliction determined by the insulter or the insulted? What does it reveal of the character of each? What is its role in social and legal life (from play to jokes to ritual to war, and from defamation to fighting words to harassment)? Philosophical, anthropological, psychoanalytic, and legal approaches to the questions are emphasized.