Fall 2020 Class Schedule

Fall 2020 class Schedule

Fall 2020 course descriptions

COURSES PRIMARILY FOR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

PHIL 109: Love and Goodness from the Party-hard Bishop to Master Meng

PHIL 109: The Market and Its Limits

The market pervades every aspect of our lives, and yet its workings are in some sense hidden from view. This perhaps helps to explain the persistence of Adam Smith's metaphor of the "invisible hand" to describe how the market works. Our aim in this course is to make the invisible hand a bit more visible. What does the market do well? What does it do badly? Are there any goods, like sex or human organs, that should not be exchanged on the market? What alternatives are there to the market system? In trying to answer these questions, we will explore texts from economists, historians, and journalists as well as from philosophers.

PHIL 109: What is Democracy?

This course will explore a variety of philosophical and ethical questions about lies and other forms of deception. For instance: When is it acceptable to lie? And when it is wrong, how should we understand the nature of that wrong? Is there such a thing as a right to the truth—even when the truth might be harmful? Is it possible to forfeit one's right to the truth? Is there an ethical difference between lying to someone and merely telling misleading truths? How should a democratic society that is committed to free speech handle lies and other sorts of dishonesty? Can fiction be honest or dishonest? Is it possible to lie to oneself?

PHIL 109: Truth, Lies and Deception

This course will explore a variety of philosophical and ethical questions about lies and other forms of deception. For instance: When is it acceptable to lie? And when it is wrong, how should we understand the nature of that wrong? Is there such a thing as a right to the truth—even when the truth might be harmful? Is it possible to forfeit one's right to the truth? Is there an ethical difference between lying to someone and merely telling misleading truths? How should a democratic society that is committed to free speech handle lies and other sorts of dishonesty? Can fiction be honest or dishonest? Is it possible to lie to oneself?

PHIL 150: Introduction to Logic

Subtle mistakes in reasoning can get us into trouble, especially in philosophy where reasoning can be very intricate. Logic symbolizes arguments to make subtle mistakes easier to spot, and intricate arguments easier to follow. In this class we will first learn how to use symbols to represent certain natural language sentences. The symbolization allows us to give step-by-step reconstructions of arguments. When these step-by-step symbolized arguments have a certain profile, they represent good arguments. When they don't have that profile, the corresponding arguments can go wrong---and we can devise examples of when they go wrong! Throughout we'll address some concepts (such as truth and existence) that are deployed in philosophy, and how logical techniques can help us sort the good uses from the bad.

PHIL 210-1: History of Philosophy: Ancient

This course will introduce you to some of the greatest thinkers and movements of the ancient Greek world. We will focus on these thinkers' conceptions of the human soul, the capacity for knowledge, the good life, their views on women, and their conceptions of social justice. We will discuss the views of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and examine their answers to enduring questions such as: What are the fundamental constituents of reality? What is knowledge, and how do we come to have it? How can we be happy? What makes for a just society? We will then move to the Hellenistic period and examine Epicurean and Stoic conceptions of how we should live our lives and why philosophy can help us flourish. Our emphasis will be on analyzing these philosophers' views, and their reasons and arguments for holding these positions.

PHIL 216: Introduction of Pragmatism

Classics of Pragmatist Thought

Pragmatism is probably the first, but certainly the most important genuinely North American philosophical tradition. The classical writings of Peirce, James, Dewey set the stage for a completely new orientation in epistemology, moral and political theory, psychology and many other fields. Basic to all Pragmatist writers is the belief that the active and interactive human being in its natural and social environment has to stand at the center of reflection. They thus emphasize volitional, procedural, social, and evolutionary aspects of knowledge of any kind. Given this focus on practically involved intelligent agents, political pragmatists like Dewey, Addams, Locke explore the natural origins, revisability and legitimacy of moral and political norms. They develop the idea of a critical use of knowledge and its connection to non-violent democratic conduct. Neopragmatists (Rorty and Putnam) explore the philosophical and political implications of critical thinking.

PHIL 219: Introduction to Existentialism

This class is an introduction to existentialism through discussing texts by some of its central theorists: Dostoyevsky, Kierkegaard, Sartre and de Beauvoir. We will focus on existentialist theories of value and claims concerning human freedom and their implications. We will explore existentialist conceptions of absurdity, alienation, anxiety, authenticity, and affliction.

PHIL 253: Introduction to the Philosophy of Language

In this introduction to the philosophical study of language, we will ask questions like: What is language anyway? What is meaning? And how does the meaning carried by language vary (if it does) from the sort of meaning we attribute to natural phenomena when we say, for instance, "smoke means fire" or "those rings mean that this tree is 106 years old"? We will also touch on the role that the study of language has sometimes been thought to play in philosophical inquiry broadly, and on the connection between the philosophy of language and the empirical investigation of language in other disciplines.

PHIL 262: Ethical Problems/Public Issues

A study of ethical problems arising in public policy, as well as philosophical approaches to addressing these problems. Topics to be discussed include punishment, immigration, climate change, and global distributive justice.

PHIL 273-1: The Brady Scholars Program: The Good Life

This is the first in a sequence of three courses required of sophomores in the Brady Scholars Program in Ethics and Civic Life. Our topic, the good life, will be explored by reading and discussing several recent books, as well as authors of antiquity (Plato, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius). We will ask: Are there objective truths about what is valuable - or about anything? Does life have a point or meaning? What should one try to get out of life? How should we think about death? Is each person the final judge of what is good for that individual, or is it possible to be mistaken about where one\'s good lies? What is the relationship between living well and being moral? How important is pleasure? Since more good is better than less, should we aim at all times to promote "the greatest happiness of the greatest number"?

PHIL 312: Studies in Modern Philosophy

In this course, we will study some of the classics of conservative political philosophy from critics of the French Revolution, like Edmund Burke and Joseph de Maistre to more recent figures like Friedrich Hayek and Roger Scruton. We will spend particular attention to the relationship between conservatism and liberalism.

PHIL 328: Classics of Analytic Philosophy

This course will trace the major preoccupations of of analytic philosophy from its beginnings in the late 19th century up until the present moment, with readings by central figures such as Frege, Russell, Moore, Wittgenstein, Strawson, Quine, Grice, Evans, Lewis and Kripke, as well as by prominent historians of the tradition. We will also consider some challenges to contemporary analytic philosophy's inherited sets of priorities and methodologies.

PHIL 373-1: The Civically Engaged Life: The Good Work

Brady Scholars in their senior year will meet frequently throughout the quarter to move ahead with the collaborative project they have chosen as their service to the Evanston community.

PHIL 380: Philosophy of Art

In this course, we will investigate negative aesthetics of various kinds. We will focus first on the one that has been historically most discussed: the sublime, the experience of large, powerful objects that transcend human beings - beyond our power, beyond our comprehension - and therefore inspire a response of fear or pain, together with some sort of thrill. Because experiences of these threatening objects are in some sense unpleasant, philosophers aim to understand the attraction to having them. We will read the two most important philosophical accounts of the sublime - those of Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant - as well as some contemporary reflections on the sublime in art and nature. We will also investigate the character and (possible) appeal of ugliness, disgust, and horror, to reflect on their ever-increasing importance in modern and postmodern art. We will consider questions such as: what is the ugly, does it have a stable, identifiable character? Are the effects or underlying motivations of an attraction to horror (frightful, gory, awful works) ethical? Can the disgusting ever be pleasurable? 

PHIL 390: Philosophy of Law

This course gives students an opportunity to ask fundamental questions about the nature of law and legal systems.  Are legal rules real or just a cloak for power?  What if anything does law have to do with justice?  What do the major theories of law—in particular, “legal positivism” and “natural law”—mean for law in practice?  How do the different departments of law (e.g., contracts, torts, constitutional law, criminal law) fit together into coherent and distinct subdivisions?  And is the life of a lawyer a good life or merely a profitable one?  In examining these questions, our approach will not be pure conceptual analysis; rather, our subject matter is a set of philosophical concepts of law together with the actualization of those concepts in law as a form of social life.  Thus the assigned readings and class discussion will be primarily philosophical but will also include some practical exposure to real legal cases, providing students with, among other things, a taste of what law school would be like. 

COURSES PRIMARILY FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS

PHIL 415: Studies in French Philosophy: Biopolitics and Thanatopolitics

This course offers an introduction to biopolitics, "necropolitics" and "thanatopolitics" as intersectional terms in contemporary critical theory. In this context, intersectional takes on two meanings. On the one hand, it refers to the interrelations of race, gender, sexuality, class, poverty, health, immigration status, ability, and national "exceptionalism". On the other, it refers to the intersections of forms of power: including sovereign, disciplinary, governmental, securitizing, negative, andproductive, bio-, necro- and thanato-political. A prerequisite of the course is a basic foundation in Foucauldian theory, in particular Discipline and Punish and the first volume of History of Sexuality. Through one third of the course, students will consolidate this foundation through study of a group of Foucault's College de France lecture relevant to this period:, reading excerpts from Society Must Be Defended, Security, Territory, Population, Psychiatric Power, and Abnormal. The remainder of the course is devoted to the critical engagement with, and transformation of the biopolitical problematic in a range of contemporary critical theorists working in race, gender and sexuality studies, including Mbembe, Hartman, Wright, and Puar.

PHIL 420: Studies in Ancient Philosophy: Knowledge, Persuasion, and Power in Ancient Philosophy and Contemporary Social and Critical Epistemology

This seminar will explore the ways in which epistemology and politics are inseparable for Ancient Greek thinkers. We will put in conversation Ancient texts concerning the relationship between knowledge, experience, persuasion, and power with contemporary texts on critical and social epistemology.

Our main ancient authors will be Plato and Aristotle. We will read substantial sections from Plato's Apology, Meno, Gorgias, and Republic, as well as Aristotle's Rhetoric and Politics. We will pair the ancient sources with texts by Elizabeth Anderson, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Audre Lorde, José Medina, Amia Srinivasaan, and others.

PHIL 460: Seminar in Ethical Theory

This seminar will cover recent work on moral responsibility, with particular emphasis on the question of whether a certain degree of moral competence is a condition of responsibility.

PHIL 401-1: 1st Year Proseminar

In this course, we will study three great proponents of the metaphysical theory of art in the German philosophical tradition. The first of these is Arthur Schopenhauer, who viewed aesthetic experience as a release from empirical, individuated identity. The second is Friedrich Nietzsche, who in his earlier writings characterized art as the true metaphysical activity of man, and as offering the only true justification of existence, but who eventually rejected the philosophical presuppositions of this view. And the last is Martin Heidegger, who saw art as the becoming and happening of truth. The focus of the class will be on the complicated relationship between art and metaphysical truth. 

PHIL 402: 2nd Year Proseminar

 In this class we will consider the uses, and possible abuses, of ideal theory in moral and political philosophy. When we do ideal theory we approach a normatively significant question by first idealizing along some dimension. We assume for the sake of theory construction, eg, that everyone will operate according to the principles that a view recommends, or that we are not in a situation of massive scarcity, or that there are no significant historical injustices for which we need to correct. Proponents of ideal theory do not believe that it answers the normatively significant questions that we have about our non-ideal circumstances. But they do generally believe that ideal theory makes a necessary contribution to our understanding of these issues. We will consider examples of approaches to particular moral and political questions that treat ideal theory as prior to non-ideal theory, methodological debates about the relationship between ideal and non-ideal theory, and related issues about how we should address pressing normative questions in the real, highly non-ideal, world. We will read, among others, John Rawls, Liam Murphy, Tamar Schapiro, Elizabeth Anderson and Charles Mills.