Graduate

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Investigation of various topics in philosophy of religion.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Directed reading which does not involve a term paper.

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.

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

Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

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

Enrollment restricted to students who have advanced to candidacy.