Philosophy

Instructor: Gene Witmer

The proseminar, required of all new graduate students, is intended to ensure students have the fundamental skills needed for the successful advanced study of philosophy. This iteration of the course will be split into two parts. In the first part, we will discuss some material from each of three important areas — epistemology, ethics, and metaphysics — where students are required either to write a short paper or prepare a handout for presentation every week. At the end of this paper students are required to produce a longer paper built atop some of the work they’ve already done. In the second part, students will be grouped into pairs of people with similar interests to select a specific question they’re interested in and locate two readings on that question which (pending my approval) will be assigned to the whole class for discussion. Following such discussion each student devises a plan for a final paper and makes a presentation on that paper in progress in the last few sessions of the class. The proseminar is graded on a pass/fail basis.

Fall 2022 Proseminar Syllabus

Instructor: Stewart Duncan

The graduate catalog describes Modern 1 as involving “close reading of central texts of the rationalists in the early modern period”. This semester, we will do that by looking at selections from the work of four philosophers, all of whom were writing in seventeenth-century Europe.

The four philosophers are Descartes (1596–1650), Malebranche (1638–1715), Spinoza (1632–1677), and Leibniz (1646–1716). Though they were all wide-ranging, systematic philosophers, we will focus on their views in metaphysics and epistemology. Descartes was a prominent member of the first generation of so-called early-modern philosophers. Malebranche and Spinoza developed, in radically different ways, philosophical systems that had Cartesian starting points. And Leibniz was aware of, and criticized, the approaches of all three of those authors.

Assessment will involve three short papers and a final exam.

Syllabus

Instructor: Arina Pismenny

What are races? Are they biological, cultural, or parts of social hierarchies? How does race contribute to one’s identity? What is the nature of racism, racial oppression, and racial stigmatization? What does race have to do with power? What is racial justice? We will elucidate these issues by engaging with some classic and contemporary work in philosophy of race and other disciplines starting with The Racial Contract (1997) by Charles Mills.

Syllabus

Instructor: Jaime Ahlberg

Kant’s moral philosophy is well known for its emphasis on human reason as the foundation of the moral law and its associated concepts: duty, respect, dignity, and moral worth.  Human reason is given pride of place because it is supposed to provide unique entry into a universal and deontological moral system.  Human beings are by their nature prone to deception, excessive desire, and self-importance.  And so, essential to the nature of moral law is its abstraction from contextual detail, special interests, and egotism.  On this common picture, Kant’s ethics depicts the moral law as separate from the concerns of individuals and their lives, including their emotions, relationships, and their material conditions.

A major objective of this seminar is to complicate this traditional picture of Kant’s ethics.  While Kant does offer reason as a foundation for moral duty, in many of his works he also comments on the ways in which other facets of human beings and their lives are implicated in morality.  He discusses, among other things, the importance of moral deliberation, perception, and development, as well as the significance of desire on human motivation and ultimate moral action.  The more complex Kant’s picture of moral action and psychology becomes, the less clear it is that he offers a merely formal and abstract conception of morality, devoid of attention to the nature of human experience, feeling, and embodiment.  We will engage in careful reading of several of Kant’s texts in order to explore the ways in which Kant’s moral theory might be more nuanced in such ways, engaging with excerpts from works like the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), Critique of Practical Reason (1788), Metaphysics of Morals (and specifically the Doctrine of Virtue, 1797), and the Anthropology (1798).  When helpful, we will draw on commentaries from contemporary moral theorists such as Barbara Herman, Christine Korsgaard, and Nancy Sherman.

Students can expect to be responsible for engaged contribution to class discussion, one short and one long paper, two in-class presentations, and bi-weekly discussion posts.  Readings will be made available via Canvas.

Instructor: Greg Ray

Propositional calculus, quantificational logic through completeness, and an introduction to modal logic. [Catalog description]

Instructor: Rodrigo Borges

A survey of contemporary epistemology. Covered topics include Cartesian and Pyrrhonian skepticism, the nature of knowledge and justification, and the recent virtue–theoretic and knowledge–first movements

Instructor: Duncan Purves

This course surveys a variety of emerging technologies and the ethical issues that arise from the design, development, and implementation of those technologies. Special focus is given to ethical issues associated with emerging data-driven technologies.

Instructor: Jennifer Rothschild

This will be a course in Aristotelian ethics, anchored in Ancient philosophy but with primarily contemporary philosophical aims. In the early part of the course, we will focus on understanding Aristotelian virtue: what it is, how to build it, what it holds together and where it invites challenges. In the second part of the course we will concentrate on failures of virtue and the forms of viciousness that accompany such failures.

Instructor: Jaime Ahlberg

This seminar is designed to support graduate students complete their dissertation and start planning for a career after earning their Philosophy PhD. Students can expect opportunities to workshop their writing, develop job market materials (such as a CV, teaching portfolio, research statement, and diversity statement), and learn about research prospects in their areas of interest (including conferences, fellowships and grants, and journals). Information and tools for pursuing academic careers will be presented, as will strategies for marketing a Philosophy PhD across disciplines and outside of the academy. Students can expect to be connected with a variety of resources that aid in professionalization and job marketing.