DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY

Winter 2027 Class Schedule

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

Winter 2027 course descriptions

PHIL 101-8-20: First-Year Writing Seminar: Philosophy of the City

In the Republic, Plato uses the "Kallipolis”—the beautiful city—as a hypothetical arrangement to explore questions of justice, the soul, governance, the family, education, art, and more. This course will explore such questions as: What is a city? How should a city be governed? What does it mean to be a "city person"? How does living in a city shape our identities, habits, attitudes, and virtues/vices? How does the city influence our relationship to bodies—our own, and those of others? What is the relationship between the city and autonomy, creativity, democracy, and diversity? We will explore these questions by progressing through ways the city was conceived within the history of philosophy (eg, Plato) move into more modern conceptions (eg, Hannah Arendt) and eventually engage with philosophically-oriented analyses of current issues such as gentrification, tourism, sanctuary cities, and sustainability. Students will have occasion to discuss these readings alongside their experiences living in different kinds of political and spatial arrangements. Throughout the course, we will focus on how to become effective writers by transitioning from oral discussions and shorter, informal reflections into more formal, sophisticated written work. 

PHIL 101-8-21: First-Year Writing Seminar: Being and Becoming: An Introduction to Western Metaphysics

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that asks some of the most fundamental questions about reality and existence. What does it mean for something to exist? What is reality as a whole? How can something remain the same while changing over time? Is the world we experience real, or could it be an illusion? Why does anything exist at all rather than nothing?
Many of these questions lead to a central debate in metaphysics: the relationship between Being and Becoming and which counts as ‘true reality.’ Being has often been thought as what is real, lasting, or unchanging, while Becoming has been thought of as its opposite, referring to the world of change, growth, and passing away. Throughout the history of Western philosophy, thinkers have disagreed about how we should understand this relationship. Some have argued that what is truly real must be permanent and unchanging, such as an eternal idea, God, or an underlying essence. From this perspective, the changing world we experience may seem less real or less fundamental. Other philosophers have challenged this view, arguing that change is not something separate from reality but is part of what reality itself is.
In this course we will study this age-old debate by considering some of its central figures and their various arguments. Readings will include selections from Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. Due to the immensity of this historical debate, we can only survey some of the key turns that have profoundly shaped the tradition.Throughout the course, we will also ask a broader question: How might our understanding of reality shape the way we live? In other words, what difference would it make to our lives if we accepted one philosopher’s account of what is truly real over another’s?

PHIL 210-1: History of Philosophy - Ancient

In this course, we will consider the origins of Western philosophy, from the Presocratics to some of the main traditions of the Hellenistic period, Stoicism and skepticism. We will occasionally contrast these Greek and Roman views with those of other traditions in world philosophy. Readings will include Heraclitus, Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Sextus Empiricus.

PHIL 220: Introduction to Critical Theory

In this class, we will focus on the foundations of critical theory in the works of Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, and Weber, paying particular attention to the methods they deploy in the treatment of moral and religious phenomena.  Lectures will primarily involve a close analysis and discussion of the readings.

PHIL 250: Elementary Logic II: Logic and Philosophy

This course is about ways to change and vary the logics presented in PHIL 150 (Propositional logic, and first-order logic), and how these can and have been used to address philosophical questions. We'll examine questions of ontology--what there is--and what logic has to do with that question. We'll ask about the nature of the identity relation, and so concern ourselves with what sorts of notions are logical. We'll ask after the relation between truth and meaning, and whether classical logic (as was presented in PHIL 150) is accurate to a sophisticated understanding of these topics. We'll also spend a good amount of time on normal modal logics, which can be interpreted as addressing questions of possibility and necessity--and which circle back to questions of ontology. We will also address how to understand counterfactual conditionals, such as "If Harris had been elected, Parton wouldn't have died yet." Additional topics as time allows.

PHIL 254: Introduction to the Philosophy of Science

The course will introduce students to metaphysical and epistemological issues raised by modern natural science. We will be guided by nested "what does it take"-questions. For example: What does it take for natural science to be -in societies with a scientific culture—the legitimate authority on matters of fact about nature? What does it take for a system of assertions to count as a good scientific theory? What does it take for a scientific theory to be testable by evidence like observational and experimental data (and: what does it take for certain series of experiences to count as data, observations, experimental results?)? What does it take for a given theory to be better supported by the available evidence than its competitors? What does it take for a given theory to explain the known phenomena in an area of knowledge? What does it take for an explanatory scientific theory to be credited with reference to underlying structures of reality? We will begin with a brief overview of the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17 th century, and then turn to contemporary discussions on the problem of induction, the problem of the underdetermination of theory choice by the available data, the problem of rationality, the problem of realism. This will include reflecting on reasons philosophers of science have established against some common preconceptions about what it takes to be entitled to scientific objectivity, such as that science provides ‘proof\', or that there is one simple, context-free ‘scientific method\', or that scientific objectivity is free of considerations of values or informed judgment. Many contemporary doubt-manufacturers selectively use parts of such reasons to suggest the skeptical attitude that science produces just one among many optional beliefs about reality, and that others (like religion, or what serves the oil industry) are equally valid. Against this, we will see that the reasons against proof as the standard (and in favor of evidential support and fallibility) in fact don\'t weaken but instead strengthen the justifications of why we ought to trust scientifically formed belief where it and its institutional and social conditions are available more than any other (purported) sources of information on nature.

PHIL 255: Theory of Knowledge

The sorts of question we will address include: Are we free to believe as we like?  And even if we are, under what conditions, if any, should we deviate from what the evidence supports? To what extent should we think for ourselves, and when if at all should we rely on experts?  What (if anything) is wrong with information bubbles?  What is the responsible way to consume news?  How do we determine when our beliefs are rational, and what can be done when we detect irrationality (in ourselves or others)?  What should we do when we disagree?  What is the nature of trust (and when should we trust)?

PHIL 262: Ethical Problems and Public Issues

This course offers a survey of ethical problems and public issues, with a focus on the US context. Students will gain an understanding of prominent philosophical theories of morality and learn how to identify moral and ethical issues. Students will also learn how to critically engage with and address ethical dimensions of public issues. Some of the topics covered will include: hate speech, affirmative action, reparations, climate change and AI usage.

PHIL 273-2: Brady: The Good Life

In this course, we will consider what makes for a good life from birth to death. We will ask questions like these : is coming into existence bad for you? Is being born with a disability a harm? Is being a child good for you? How much freedom should teenagers be afforded? How can college change you for better or worse? What do parents owe their children? Is living a good life incompatible with living a moral life? What would it mean for your life to go well anyway? What is the “midlife crisis” and how could we navigate it? How can we age thoughtfully and what do we owe our elders? Is death bad? Would it be desirable to live forever? Via considering these questions, we will also focus on becoming clearer and more persuasive writers.

PHIL 313-1: Kant's Critique of Pure Reason - The Analytic

This course provides a thorough reading of the conception of empirical knowledge laid out in the first part of Kant\'s "Critique of Pure Reason" (the Analytic). The seminar will also relate Kant\'s arguments to issues in more recent philosophical debates. E.g.: Kant qualified his philosophy as "transcendental idealism and empirical realism". According to Kant, it evades the choice between saying that we must have an unconceptualized access to reality in order to have factual knowledge (so that it is hard to say how we as concept-using knowers can know reality at all) on the one hand, and saying that the reality our factual knowledge represents is determined by our concepts (so that it is hard to say in what way reality is a mind-independent constraint on belief). Kant suggests that this is a non-issue if there is only one universal set of concepts constitutive of all (genuinely fact-enabling) human experience. But the course of scientific progress since reveals this as a big (and unfulfilled) IF: in light of the diversity of experience and of the sciences, it is not easy to insist that there is only one set of forms of all possible objects of experience, one set of categories to form judgments, one set of principles to form natural laws. But the impasse confronted in Kant\'s epistemological analysis persists --for each of the variegated forms. Can Kant\'s conception of experience and empirical knowledge still help us understand how we can claim to know mind-independent reality? Another example: Much of contemporary philosophy of mind centers on the question of the relation between mind and reality. Kant criticized all such attempts at founding factual knowledge on self-knowledge (which lead into "paralogisms") or knowledge of unconceptualised reality in itself (which lead to "antinomies"). His arguments compel realizing that both (reality as such and a directly present foundational \'inner\' self) can\'t be objects of knowledge at all (=are non-objects). Does this dissolve the problems of mind and reality or rather make them cognitively insolvable?

PHIL 328: Classics of Analytic Philosophy: Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Ramsey

Modern logic begins with Gottlob Frege, a mathematician whose striking insights and methods also produced a compelling approach to philosophy. This course will explore, in the writings of Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, and Ramsey, a question that arises from Frege's approach: to what extent does having a logic, or a philosophy of logic, constitute having the rest of philosophy--for examples: an epistemology, a metaphysics, even an ethics? As time allows we'll look at the nearby work of G.E. Moore and Susan Stebbing.

A course in logic (such as PHIL 150 or PHIL 250) may be helpful for this course, but is not required.

PHIL 363: Kant's Moral Theory

This course explores the moral thought of one of the most influential figures in philosophy.  Immanuel Kant systematizes and defends several familiar moral ideas, such as the unconditional authority of moral requirements and the dignity of each individual. He argues that acting morally is both a requirement of reason and the condition for our freedom, so that morally wrong action is both irrational and a kind of bondage.  His approach to moral theory persists in its power, and remains one of a handful of live options among moral philosophers working today.  We will engage in a careful study of this system, focusing on the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, and also reading parts of the Critique of Practical Reason, the Metaphysics of Morals, and Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason.

PHIL 401-2: Proseminar I:

PHIL 402-1: Proseminar II: 20th Century Philosophy of Language: Wittgenstein, Austin, Gadamer, and Habermas

This course aims to uncover common throughlines in 20th century philosophy of language in both the Anglo-American and Continental philosophical traditions. We will read Wittgenstein, Austin, Gadamer, and Habermas to see what animates their thinking, and to put their ideas into conversation with each other. Special attention will be paid to understanding their views on the social nature of linguistic interpretation, and communicative action. This seminar will be oriented around entire books by the respective authors, and students will be assessed both on their written work and their detailed notes of the texts.

PHIL 410-2:The Contested Ideal of Value-Freedom 

Should the study of society be value-free, and is that even possible? Starting from Max Weber’s famous defense of Wertfreiheit (value freedom), this course examines debates about the fact/value distinction throughout the Twentieth Century, including readings drawn from natural right theory (Strauss), critical theory (Adorno and Habermas), hermeneutics (Taylor), pragmatism (Putnam), and feminist philosophy of science (Longino and Anderson). 

PHIL 410-3: Recent work on: "Ought to Believe"

The question What should I believe? is typically raised as an epistemological question, but many authors allow that it has a practical dimension as well.  In this seminar we will explore two recent systematic attempts to address the question.  These are found in Mona Simion’s Resistance to Evidence (Cambridge University Press, 2024), and Matt McGrath’s What Should We Believe? An Essay on Epistemic Normativity (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).   These are the required books (both of which will be provided for free).  We will address their books with an eye on addressing several subsidiary questions.  First, what kind of question(s) can be asked with this language?  What do these questions tell us about epistemic assessment? about epistemic normativity?  What significance do these questions have for epistemology more generally? 

PHIL 420:  Studies in Ancient Philosophy

An introduction to scholarship in ancient philosophy across subfields (moral & political philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics).  Authors include Plato and Aristotle. Each seminar will focus on close reading of a specific text (TBA).  Some seminar meetings will feature a visiting scholar.