L30 Phil 500 Independent Work

Prerequisites: junior standing and permission of the department.

Credit variable, maximum 6 units.

L30 Phil 502 Proseminar in Philosophy

The chief aim of the seminar is to improve students' philosophical skills, especially their philosophy writing skills. This seminar is limited to first year Philosophy and PNP graduate students.

Credit 3 units.

L30 Phil 509 Formal Methods for Philosophy

This course is an advanced course exploring formal methods in both logic and confirmation theory. It begins with an introduction to metatheory, which is explored in more depth in the 403-404 sequence on Mathematical Logic, addressing the basic metatheory for logic in addition to alternatives to standard first-order logic. The second part of the course focuses on modal and other intensional logics. The final part of the course focuses on non-monotonic logics, focusing especially on Bayesian confirmation theory and decision theory. Prerequisite: 6 units of philosophy or permission of the instructor.
Same as L30 Phil 409

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: NSM, AN Arch: NSM Art: NSM

L30 Phil 514 Survey Seminar

This is an advanced survey of one of several basic areas of philosophy, covering a different topic each semester. Prerequisite: enrollment in Philosophy or PNP PhD program or permission of instructor.

Credit 3 units.

L30 Phil 5142 Advanced Metaphysics

Through readings from both classical and contemporary sources, a single traditional metaphysical concern will be made the subject of careful and detailed analytic attention. Possible topics include such concepts as substance, category, cause, identity, reality, and possibility, and such positions as metaphysical realism, idealism, materialism, relativism, and irrealism. Prerequisites: one course in Philosophy at the 300-level, graduate standing, or permission of the instructor.
Same as L30 Phil 4142

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Art: HUM EN: H

L30 Phil 515 Topics in Philosophy of Mind

Credit 3 units.

L30 Phil 516 Research Seminar

Students in this course have intensive focus on a specific philosophical topic, question, or figure, with an emphasis on philosophical research methods and writing. Prerequisite: enrollment in Philosophy or PNP PhD program or permission of instructor.

Credit 3 units.

L30 Phil 521 Seminar: Scientific Explanation

This course will be a deep dive on recent work on mechanistic theories of scientific explanation in the context of the wider effort to build a theory of scientific explanation. Students are encouraged to approach the subject matter of this course with some particular, actual scientific explanation in mind. We will use the philosophical material as a critical lens on student-specific research topics. Students are expected to be self-driven and active participants in their own learning, and they should be willing to explore independent avenues of research as we read together. Prerequisite: Gradate standing or permission of instructor.

Credit 3 units.

L30 Phil 5310 Metaethics

Ethics asks questions about right and wrong, good and bad, virtue and vice. Metaethics asks questions about ethics, including questions about whether we have any reason to do the right thing or to be virtuous, questions about whether it is possible to know the answer to ethical questions, and questions about what we mean by such ethical terms as "right" and "wrong" or "good and "bad." Influential metaethical views include relativism (on which ethical judgments are only true or false relative to an individual or culture) and moral skepticism (on which ethical knowledge is impossible). This course will introduce metaethics through an examination of selected texts and questions. Prerequisites: One previous course in philosophy at the 300 level, graduate standing, or permission of instructor.
Same as L30 Phil 4310

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H

L30 Phil 5315 Normative Ethical Theory

An exploration of the three major normative ethical theories debated by philosophers in the last hundred years: Kantian ethics, utilitarianism, and virtue theory. Authors covered in the course may include: Henry Sidgwick, R. M. Hare, R. B. Brandt, John Rawls, Bernard Williams, Philippa Foot, Thomas Nagel, Christine Korsgaard, Michael Slote, and Barbara Herman. Prerequisites: one course in Philosophy at the 300-level, graduate standing, or permission of the instructor.
Same as L30 Phil 4315

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H

L30 Phil 540 Topics in Social and Political Philosophy

Credit 3 units.

L30 Phil 5400 Advanced Political and Social Philosophy

A selective investigation of one or two advanced topics in the philosophical understanding of society, government, and culture. Readings may include both historical and contemporary materials. Possible topics include: liberalism, socialism, communitarianism, citizenship, nationalism, cosmopolitanism, social contract theory, anarchism, and the rights of cultural minorities. Prerequisites: one course in Philosophy at the 300-level, graduate standing, or permission of the instructor.
Same as L30 Phil 4400

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H

L30 Phil 5535 Medical Writing in the Greek Intellectual Tradition: Galen and the Hippocratic Corpus

This class will offer an introduction to the writings of the Hippocratic Corpus as well as their reception in the philosophico-medical work of Galen of Pergamum (2nd century CE), which is primarily responsible for the picture of Hippocrates and Hippocratic medicine that survives to the present. We will situate the texts of the Hippocratic Corpus in the intellectual context of the Classical period and examine how their proper interpretation became a contested site for intellectual authority in Hellenistic and Imperial discourse about texual authenticity, climate, the body, empiricism, and the role of theory in scientific endeavors.
Same as L09 Greek 5535

Credit 3 units.

L30 Phil 5570 Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

An in-depth investigation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, one of the most important books in the history of Western philosophy. Some supplementary readings from other philosophers will be used to situate Kant's work in a systematic and historical context, to present some 'Kantian' positions in current philosophy, and to bring in some important contrasting views and criticisms. Prerequisites: one course in Philosophy at the 300-level, graduate standing, or permission of the instructor.
Same as L30 Phil 4570

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H

L30 Phil 5651 Topics in the History of Philosophy

Study of individual philosophers or themes from the ancient, medieval, and/or modern periods. Examples: Spinoza, St. Thomas Aquinas, neo-Platonism, universals in ancient and medieval thought, ancient and modern theories of space and time. Prerequisite: 6 units in philosophy, or permission of instructor.
Same as L30 Phil 465

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM EN: H

L30 Phil 571 Seminar in Ethics: Problems of the Self

Work: Oral presentations, term paper in two drafts Prerequisite: Graduate Standing or permission of instructor

Credit 3 units.

L30 Phil 574 Seminar in Metaphysics

Prerequisite: graduate standing or permission of the instructor.

Credit 3 units.

L30 Phil 580 Seminar

Credit 3 units.

L30 Phil 5801 History of Analytic Philosophy

This course will begin with the reaction of G.E. Moore to the dominant idealism of the 19th century, together with the advances in formal approaches launched by Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell. It will engage in the rise of ordinary language philosophy through the later work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, as well as the important influence of the Vienna Circle and the rise and fall of Logical Positivism/Empiricism, culminating in the resurgence of metaphysics with the work of Saul Kripke. The course will close with a look at philosophy that is still in the analytic tradition after analytic philosophy itself had been abandoned. Prerequisites: One previous course in philosophy at the 300 level, graduate standing, or permission of instructor.
Same as L30 Phil 480

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H

L30 Phil 8000 Dissertation Seminar

Advanced research training and professional development for students in the 4th, 5th, and 6th years of the Philosophy and PNP PhD programs.