SPEL Graduate Courses

SPRING 2010

PHIL 510A DIETRICH
Metaphysics
Morpheus said it best: "What is real? How do you define real? If you are talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain." Apparently, Morpheus was assuming brains are real.  What if they aren't either?  So what is real?

In this course we will try to find out what is Real, paying close attention to the role our strange minds play in conjuring up the "real." We will examine the fundamental nature of existence, universals, particulars, time, concepts, consciousness, quantum mechanics, artificial intelligence, and our own examining in hopes of finding something like our ordinary world in them somewhere.

FORMAT:  Seminar/discussion. Grades based on papers and quizzes.

BOOKS:  To be determined, and selected papers

PHIL 650C GUAY
Topics in Continental Philosophy: Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil

The main component of this class is a close reading of Nietzsche’s 1886 work, Beyond Good and Evil, with special attention to understanding Nietzsche’s conception of what lies “beyond” morality and why a move beyond morality might be compelling.   To help us with this task, we shall start the semester by considering a number of alternative conceptions of the postmoral from more recent literature (e.g. Anscombe, Lovibond, Williams, MacIntyre, Taylor).  Permission of the instructor is required to register for this class. 

PHIL 540C DIETRICH
Spinoza, Berkeley and Kant
This course explores the philosophies of Spinoza (1632-1677), Berkeley (1685-1753), and Kant (1724-1804).  We will read from their primary works, and along the way learn about rationalism, empiricism, dualism, dual aspectism, monism, idealism, transcendental idealism, and God (as the universe and as a being).  We will also tackle fundamental problems in epistemology and metaphysics.  The course is intended to give students a historical view of the development (or lack thereof) of philosophy during one its greatest ages, the Age of Enlightenment, when vast and tremendous philosophical systems were constructed to explain both the nature of universe and the humans that seem to inhabit it.   Prerequisites:  two courses in philosophy.

 PHIL 505 TESSMAN
20^th Century Ethics
This course serves as the first-year ethics seminar for graduate students in the program in Social, Political, Ethical and Legal Philosophy (SPEL). The course includes a wide range of works in contemporary, mostly analytic, ethics, and is thematized by questions raised in debates about the value of ideal and nonideal theory, and about the existence and significance of genuine moral dilemmas. We will consider questions such as: What is the task of ethical theory? Should it provide a perfect decision procedure for resolving moral conflicts? Or are there some moral conflicts that are genuine moral dilemmas, namely situations in which there is a moral requirement to enact each of two possibilities, but where it is not possible to enact both? When a moral conflict can be resolved, does one of the conflicting moral requirements get cancelled or do both somehow remain in effect? Can moral wrongdoing be unavoidable? What moral conditions give rise to dilemmas? Do aspects of one’s social position (race, gender, etc.) affect which dilemmas one is likely to encounter? We will borrow insights from the moral dilemmas debate to try to understand problematic aspects of both ideal and nonideal theory.

PHIL 550B FRIEDMAN
Levinas and the Ethics of Phenomenology
This reading intensive seminar will place the ethical thought of Emmanuel Levinas in the tradition of Husserlian phenomenology. After setting the context of Husserl’s work (Crisis), we will begin with a reading of Husserl’s central (teachable) work, The Cartesian Meditations. Through a slow reading of the text, we will examine the central tools and ideas of his transcendental phenomenology: the natural attitude, reduction, transcendental reduction, and apperception.  We will also read selections from Heidegger to help set the context in which Levinas developed his thought.
 
Much of Levinas’ philosophical study of time and subjectivity flows from the unanswered questions of Husserl’s “Fifth Meditation,” specifically the approach to and relationship with alter ego, another person.  Levinas’ earliest works directly engage the core problems of Husserlian phenomenology, specifically internal time consciousness and the constitution of world-time through the encounter with the other. As we read through Levinas, we will explore how questions of transcendence, subjectivity, intersubjectivity, and temporality give way to an ethical philosophy built on notions of alterity and responsibility.
 
In the final section of the seminar, we will work through a selection of his essays and lectures in which he grounds his ethical phenomenology in classical Judaic texts and traditions.  Additionally, we will compare Levinas’ work with that of another student of Husserl, Edith Stein.

PHIL 621C PREUS  
Topics in Ancient Philosophy: Plato and Platonism
Guided by Aristotle’s characterizations of Plato’s philosophy, and by later interpreters of Plato, we will read the most relevant of Plato’s dialogues (from that perspective) to develop a construction of his philosophical position, particular as it relates to theory of knowledge and ontology. The dialogues to be read include (but are not limited to) Republic, Phaedrus, Parmenides, Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman, Philebus, and parts of the Laws. We will also examine Aristotle’s criticisms of Plato’s philosophy, especially in his Metaphysics, and some of the manifestations of Platonism in later philosophy.

 Students will write frequent short papers (possibly on a coordinated topic), will do some presentations in the seminar, put the short papers together in a longer, possibly coordinated, paper, and take a final examination (mainly as practice for other examinations).

SPRING 2010