Philosophy

PHIL 5000 Independent Work

Prerequisites: junior standing and permission of the department.

Credit 6 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

PHIL 5001 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.

Typical periods offered: Fall

PHIL 5002 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.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

PHIL 5003 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.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

PHIL 5010 Topics in Philosophy of Language

This course allows students to explore topics in philosophy of language.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

PHIL 5011 Topics in Analytic Philosophy

This course allows students to explore topics in analytic philosophy.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

PHIL 5012 Topics in Philosophy of Mind

This course allows students to explore topics in the philosophy of mind.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

PHIL 5013 Topics in Philosophy of Psychology

This course allows students to explore multiple topics in the philosophy of psychology.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

PHIL 5014 Topics in Philosophy of Science

This course allows students to explore topics in the philosophy of science.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

PHIL 5015 Topics in Ethical Theory

This course allows students to explore topics in ethical theory.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

PHIL 5016 Topics in Social and Political Philosophy

This course allows students to explore topics in social and political philosophy.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

PHIL 5017 Topics in Philosophy of Law

This course allows students to explore topics in the philosophy of law.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

PHIL 5018 Seminar: Metaphysics

This course is a seminar in mataphysics.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

PHIL 5019 Seminar

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

PHIL 5030 Prospectus Seminar

The main goal of this seminar is to guide students as they write their dissertation prospectus, culminating in a prospectus that is ready to defend. A dissertation prospectus for a PhD in Philosophy or PNP introduces an issue, situates it within the existing literature, explains why the issue is significant and describes concretely how one aims to advance our understanding of the issue through one’s dissertation.
We will approach this process in stages. At each stage, students will write and revise drafts in response to instructor and peer feedback. Students will first work on how to introduce the issue they plan to address in the dissertation, situating it broadly within the existing literature. A successful introduction to an issue does not merely describe the problem, it motivates it and does so in the writer’s own distinctive voice. It uses clear and jargon-free language, well-chosen examples, data or illustrations, and demonstrates (rather than merely asserting) the interest and significance of the issue. Next, students add to their draft by giving an account of the competing positions and arguments concerning the issue in the background literature, both at a general level and in more detail. At the third stage, students will make clear how they aim to advance our understanding of the issue. At this stage, students must state, explain and give a preliminary defense of a main thesis, in addition to stating concrete goals for further research. In the last few weeks of the course, we will hold practice prospectus defenses for each student. We will invite a guest faculty member to attend, but not the student’s primary research advisor. Along the way, students will read and discuss two books on writing, Jean Bolker’s Write Your Dissertation in 15 minutes a Day and William Germano’s On Revision: The Only Writing that Counts. Early in the course students will also read and discuss successful defended past prospectuses. They will also gain insight from senior graduate students and faculty invited to discuss their prospectus experiences with the class

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

PHIL 5040 Tutorial in Philosophy

Manditory attendance required for graduate students in Philosophy and PNP. Weekly presentations by faculty members with a discussion in the latter half of meeting. Undergraduates majoring in Philosophy or PNP are encouraged to attend.

Credit 0 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

PHIL 5080 Topics in Advanced Philosophy of Science

This course will vary in topics related to Philosophy of Science from semester to semester.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

PHIL 5090 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.

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

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

PHIL 5130 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.

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

Typical periods offered: Fall

PHIL 5151 Advanced Epistemology

Competing theories of knowledge and belief justification will be considered. Careful attention will be given to selected problems such as skepticism, certainty, foundations, coherence, perception, induction.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall

PHIL 5200 Philosophy of Neuroscience

This course explores the philosophical foundations, implications, and challenges arising from the interdisciplinary field of neuroscience. We will delve into methodological issues specific to studying the brain, examine how neuroscience informs and challenges classical debates in the philosophy of mind, and consider the broader societal and ethical implications of our growing understanding of the neural basis of thought, behavior, and consciousness. Moving beyond methodology, we will investigate how neuroscientific findings impact our understanding of core philosophical concepts, including perception, memory, emotion, consciousness, and free will. Through careful engagement with seminal philosophical texts, cutting-edge neuroscientific research articles, and lively discussions, students will develop a sophisticated understanding of the philosophical landscape shaped by our growing knowledge of the brain and its intricate relationship with the mind and behavior

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

PHIL 5210 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.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

PHIL 5230 Topics in Ethics

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

PHIL 5240 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.

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

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

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.

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

Typical periods offered: Spring

PHIL 5340 Plato

An examination of some of Plato's most important dialogues, typically including the Gorgias, Phaedo, and Republic, with the aim of grasping the development of Plato's most influential thoughts in
ethics and in metaphysics and epistemology. In order to provide both historical understanding and philosophical evaluation, attention will be paid to the context and structure of the dialogues
and to the best of recent secondary literature.
The point of the course is to provide a survey by which advanced undergraduates and graduate
students can become acquainted with or deepen their acquaintance with Plato, an author who more
or less invented philosophy as we understand it and who still stands above us all. As Bernard Williams has written,
It is pointless to ask who is the world’s greatest philosopher: for one thing there are many different
ways of doing philosophy. But we can say what the various qualities of great philosophers are:
intellectual power and depth; a grasp of the sciences; a sense of the political, and of human
destructiveness as well as creativity; a broad range and a fertile imagination; an unwillingness to
settle for the super>icially reassuring; and, in an unusually lucky case, the gifts of a great writer. If we
ask which philosopher has, more than any other, combined all these qualities—to that question there
is certainly an answer, Plato. (“Plato: The Invention of Philosophy,” in The Sense of the Past, ed. M.F.
Burnyeat [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006], pp. 148-186, at 179-180)
Accordingly, as we try to come to grips with Plato, we will be trying to come to grips with philosophy itself, how to do it.
This semester, the centerpiece will be, as it must be, Plato’s Republic, the core of which is a question of ethics but which also includes important speculation about politics, psychology, general ontology, epistemology, and aesthetics. But we will also have a thematic focus, to track Plato’s conception of philosophical ethics, that is, how Plato thinks about how to settle how a person should live. (How!) Plato inherited from Socrates an obsession with the question of how we should live, and he inherited from Socrates the broad answer that we must be philosophers to live well. But how exactly are we supposed to philosophize, and how exactly is that supposed to help us live well? We will set up these questions (and start trying to answer them) by studying the Apology of Socrates, the Euthydemus, and Diotima’s teaching in the Symposium, before we turn to the Republic. Then, after we have followed the Republic’s wide-ranging tour, we will tackle the Philebus, which extends Plato’s re>lections on pleasure, knowledge, and the good life.
 

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

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.

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

Typical periods offered: Fall

PHIL 5490 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.

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

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

PHIL 5530 Hellenistic Philosophy

This course explores Hellenistic philosophy.

Credit 0 units.

Typical periods offered: Spring

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.

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

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

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.

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

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

PHIL 5700 Seminar in Ethics

seminar in ethics

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

PHIL 5740 Seminar in Metaphysics

Prerequisite: graduate standing or permission of the instructor.

Credit 3 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

PHIL 5901 Res Master Level

Credit 12 units.

PHIL 5910 Res Doctoral Level

Dissertation/Research

Credit 12 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

PHIL 7883 Master's Continuing Student Status

This course is for master's-level continuing student status.

Credit 0 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

PHIL 7885 Masters Nonresident

This course is for master's students not in residence.

Credit 0 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

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.

Credit 0 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

PHIL 8884 Doctoral Continuing Student Status

This course is to indicate doctoral continuing student status.

Credit 0 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring

PHIL 8886 Doctoral Nonresident

This course is for doctoral students who are not in residence at the time.

Credit 0 units.

Typical periods offered: Fall, Spring