DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY

Spring 2026 Class Schedule

Courses are subject to change. Check Caesar for the most up-to-date list of the current quarter.

spring 2026 course descriptions

PHIL 101-8-20: First-Year Writing Seminar:  Puzzles & Paradoxes in Ethical Theory

Most of us have basic ethical commitments: it's wrong to kill, we ought to help others in need, etc. But if we take a moment to reflect, it turns out that these commitments can come into conflict with each another, or else lead to injunctions which many of us find unacceptable. Is it wrong to kill one person, if doing so will save others? If helping the world's neediest individuals would require us to put our own lives hold, sacrificing our own personal hopes and ambitions for the benefit of others, then is this what morality requires of us? Can we justify putting the interests of our family and friends ahead of those of strangers? In this course, we will work to develop your writing and critical thinking by exploring some of the most enduring problems in moral philosophy. By focusing on the precise structure of these puzzles, and how philosophers have tried to resolve them, we will cultivate skills of rigorous analytical thought, critical dialogue, and oral presentation.

PHIL 210-3: History of Philosophy: Early Modern

The transition from the Medieval to the Modern era in philosophy began, roughly, in the late 16th and early 17th centuries and ended, again roughly, in the late 18th century. New methods of acquiring knowledge, along with a radically different conception of the world, permanently transformed the philosophical enterprise and the broader culture. In this course we will examine the views of some of the most important modern philosophers—especially Descartes, Spinoza, Malebranche, Leibniz, Bayle, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Du Châtelet—on the nature of God, causation, substance, mind, knowledge, and the material world. Additional readings will be drawn from Elizabeth, Galileo, Masham, Boyle, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Shepherd, and Cordova.

PHIL 250: Elementary Logic II: Possible worlds and possible beings

This course is about ways to change and vary the logic learned in PHIL 150. The main variation in focus is what are called normal modal logics, and how they address questions of necessity and actuality. One typical way to think of necessity is "fails at no possible world we can access". Now, it seems clear that (A) "Necessarily, 1+1=3" should turn out false. Suppose though that we can't access any possible world, even the actual one. Then (A) will turn out true, because "1+1=3" fails at no possible world we can access (because we can't access any). So, when thinking about the truth of (A), our logic should assume we can access at least some possible world, preferably the actual one. This is a simple case with a simple fix, but some are much harder! The aim of the course is to use formal tools to understand a range of puzzles about necessity and their proposed solutions.

PHIL 259: Introduction to Metaphysics

Metaphysics asks a variety of questions, mostly of the form: what are the most fundamental features of reality? For example: most birds walk on two legs. So, most birds have something in common: walking on two legs. Does this mean that when we list all that exists, we have to list this property of bipedalism? Other questions we'll ask concern what it means for something to be possible, what it means for objects to be what they are, and whether they can change their properties but remain the same thing (if I pluck a tulip from my garden, have I created a whole new garden?). The course will conclude by bringing several of these topics together as we consider one of the most vexing arguments in the history of philosophy: the ontological argument for the existence of God. We will critically reflect, in readings, lectures, discussion, and written work, on these and other problems that exist in the background of many discussions.

PHIL 261: Introduction to Political Philosophy

This course is an introduction to fundamental topics, concepts, and theories of contemporary political philosophy. In the first part of the course, we will ask what a just society would look like. We will study theories of justice in the liberal egalitarian, libertarian, and socialist traditions. In the second part of the course, we will ask how we should understand—and respond to—injustice, particularly economic and racial injustice.

PHIL 262: Ethical Problems & Public Issues

Liberalism, democracy, capitalism: together, these three represent the default institutional framework for developed societies. Today, however, this framework is increasingly coming under criticism from both the left and the right. In this course, we will examine the philosophical justifications for these institutions, as well as prominent critiques of them, from across the political spectrum. We will examine these institutional frameworks through the lens of prominent philosophical theories of morality such as utilitarianism, contractualism, and virtue ethics.

PHIL 269: Bioethics

This course is a study of moral and political problems related to biomedicine and biotechnology. In the first part of the course, we will study the physician-patient relationship. We will consider what values ought to govern that relationship, how those values may conflict, and how such conflicts are best resolved. We will pay special attention to ethical problems related to cultural differences and to the application of Western bioethical principles in global clinical and research settings. In the second part of the course, we will turn to some specific ethical challenges related to biotechnology, including abortion, genetic manipulation, and physician-assisted suicide. We will close the course by surveying the burgeoning field of public health ethics, with particular attention to ethical issues related to global pandemic preparedness and response.

PHIL 273-1: Brady: The Moral Life

We will consider how we are to treat and interact with others. Should we try, in all our actions, to bring about the greatest good, or are there other considerations to which we should be responsive? Are there some things that we should never do, no matter how much good we could bring about by doing so? Should we always keep our promises, and if so why? Do we have, or can we justify, special obligations to our friends and family? Do our professional and other roles shape what we have reason to do? How do we understand our obligations towards strangers?

PHIL 319: Existentialism and Its Sources: Kierkegaard and Indirect Communication

 This class will involve a close reading of one of the great masterpieces of existential literature, Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript. In that book, Kierkegaard asks whether we, despite living in the midst of Christendom, have the faintest idea about how to _become_ a Christian, and he raises the paradoxical question of whether this is even the sort of thing that one person could directly communicate to another (say by writing a book). In this course, we will also consider several other figures in the history of thought who similarly insisted upon the need for what Kierkegaard calls ‘indirect communication’ (possibly including Plato, Lessing, Friedrich Schlegel, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Leo Strauss, Paul de Man, Susanne Langer, and Jonathan Lear).

PHIL 353: Philosophy of Language

The philosophy of language traditionally centered its theorizing on cases of in-person, spoken language: language use that was not technologically mediated. In contrast, this class will take a look at how our philosophical views on language, meaning, and communication might be troubled by considering language use in the context of various technologies. Possible topics include the technology of writing (an old technology, but a technology nonetheless), technologies of recording and reproduction, the internet, and language models.

PHIL 372-2: Civic Reflections

PHIL 375: Issues in Environmental Philosophy

This course will explore how we should understand the relationship between human beings and their natural environment. Our focus will be on conceptions of nature originating in Europe, but along the way we will challenge those conceptions in light of others, especially from Indigenous thought. Our survey will be rooted in philosophical understandings of nature but draw on resources in biology, sociology, political science, and history. We will start by considering two opposed models of nature as it has been understood in Western philosophy: rationalism and romanticism. We will contrast this with a look at the stress on care for nature in Indigenous kinship ethics. Then, we will explore various themes that latch on to these three models: the impact of humanity on nature and the idea of the Anthropocene; visions of nature beyond human control, such as deep ecology; and a variety of ideas for how to remedy our relationship with nature.
Thinkers read include Isaac Newton, Karoline von Günderrode, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Henri Bergson, Henry David Thoreau, Arne Næss, Jane Bennett, and Robin Wall Kimmerer.

PHIL 390: Ethics in Rhetoric

“Rhetoric” is commonly used as an epithet, describing either manipulation or pandering, in either case misleading its audience. There is, however, another tradition that holds that the power of persuasive speech is the indispensable foundation of civilized life, and that persuasion is the only possible basis for democratic governance and for respectful relations between persons. The debate between these two lines of thought has gone on for millenia. We will explore the arguments, and consider them in light of some major deployments of rhetoric in American Constitutional Law. In so doing will consider some perennial issues concerning the relationships between philosophy, democracy, and law.

PHIL 410-1: Epistemic Wrongs & Epistemic Repair

Much work in social epistemology has been devoted to understanding the distinctively epistemic ways in which people can be harmed and wronged. From epistemic injustice to epistemic appropriation, the philosophical literature is rich with discussions of how we can and do fall short epistemically in our treatment of others. In this course, we will examine some of the central kinds of epistemic wrongdoing as well as views about the work that needs to be done to epistemically repair these wrongs. Topics to be discussed include the right to know, the right to be known, perfect and imperfect epistemic duties, epistemically generative features of conversations, narratives, ways to know people, and duties to know.

PHIL 410-3: Address

Our representational acts are directional: when we engage in speech, say, we aim that speech at some particular individual(s)--- our addressee(s). This seminar will take up the phenomenon of address through texts in the philosophy of language, ethics, and social philosophy as well as linguistics and sociology. Possible questions include: What determines the addressee of an action? How does the phenomenon of address connect to that of intentionality? What kinds of entities are addressable? What are the implications of address for our ability to gain normative traction on one another? And how do the dynamics of address contract and expand our social possibilities?

PHIL 488: Professional Skills

This workshop aims to prepare students for the academic job market, as well as guiding them towards resources for various alt-ac careers. It is aimed primarily at students planning to go on the job market in Fall 2026.