Philosophy (PHIL)

An examination of the original documents, the classic primary texts, in the history of philosophy in Western Culture. Primary source readings--including Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, and Kant--will be supplemented by a history-of-philosophy text that will place these works in historical and philosophical context.

In this course we will examine the philosophical literature of the eighth century B.C.E. through the third century C.E., including Pre-Socratic thought, Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Skepticism, with special emphasis on Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

A study of the American philosophical tradition of pragmatism as a unique and original contribution to Western philosophy. The focus of the course is on the thought of four classical American philosophers: Peirce, James, Santayana, and Dewey. It will also consider the intersection of pragmatism with analytic and linguistic philosophy. Finally, the course will examine the origin of pragmatism in American intellectual history, keeping in mind social and cultural influences, and will look ahead to the influence and relevance of pragmatism for present-day culture.

In this course we will examine philosophical issues in law and legal theory. These issues fall into three broad categories of study: (1) questions relating to the moral authority of law and its limits, questions of civil disobedience, and theories of punishment; (2) general theories of the nature of law (natural law, legal positivism, and critical theories of law as a practice of social domination); (3) questions about the role of courts and constitutions in a democratic society.

In this course we will examine the philosophy of the middle ages (dating from the fourth through sixteenth centuries C.E.). Special attention will be paid to the medieval incorporation of the Greco-Roman, Jewish and Islamic traditions, the thirteenth-century birth of the university and the gradual transition from medieval to modern philosophy.

The course studies philosophical literature of the 16th through the 18th centuries, through careful examination of, and critical engagement with, such figures as Hobbes, Descartes, Pascal, Locke, Leibniz, Spinoza, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant.

An examination of works of major thinkers and movements shaping 20th and 21st century philosophy. Movements studied include Existentialism, Phenomenology, Pragmatism, and Analytic Philosophy, represented by philosophers including Soren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, John Dewey, and Ludwig Wittgenstein.