The following descriptions of courses being offered by the Philosophy Department in Fall 2019 were submitted by the course instructors. Exceptions are descriptions in braces {…}, which have been adopted from the Undergraduate Catalogue (students desiring further information regarding the specific content of courses with bracketed descriptions are advised to contact the instructors directly).
Specific information regarding the dates, times, and locations of these courses may be found in the Registrar’s official Schedule of Courses for Fall 2019.
2000 Level Courses
PHI 2010 Introduction to Philosophy — Dr. Borges
The goal of this course is to introduce students to some of the main issues in Western Philosophy. We will do this by critically approaching classical and contemporary readings on question such as ‘What is philosophy?’, ‘What is knowledge?’, ‘What is Justice?’, ‘How should we act?’, and ‘What is the meaning of life?’. A further goal is to introduce students to the methods and tools philosophers use when approaching philosophical questions. This course counts towards the Humanities (H) general education requirement and the Writing (W) requirement (4000 words). Syllabus (PDF)
PHI 2010 Introduction to Philosophy — Dr. Dorst
This course is a general introduction to philosophical questions, methods, discussion, reading, and writing. It presumes no background in philosophy. We will be surveying various philosophical topics in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science. Some examples of questions we will be addressing are: What evidence is there for or against the existence of God? How can we be sure that there is an external world? Is the mind distinct from the brain? Do we have free will (and if not, what are the consequences for ethics)? What distribution of social goods is demanded by justice? Throughout the course, there will be a heavy emphasis on learning to discuss and write about philosophical issues, so class discussion will be an important component. Syllabus (PDF)
PHI 2010 Introduction to Philosophy — Dr. Duncan
This course is a general introduction to philosophy. It aims to introduce you to some fields and debates in philosophy; to show you something of philosophy’s history; and to develop skills in reading, discussing, and communicating that will be useful in later philosophy classes and elsewhere.
The class will be divided into three sections. The first will look at the philosophy of religion, focusing on arguments for and against the existence of God. The second section will consider topics related to the meaning of life. We will discuss how such things as pleasure, morality, love, and work relate to the value and meaning of life as a whole. The third section will look at some relevant works from the history of philosophy – namely, some of the dialogues of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato.
This class meets the Humanities general education requirement. It also counts for 4000 words of the writing requirement. The main items of assessed work will be three papers, a final exam, and regular in-class clicker quizzes.
There are two required books:
Alter and Howell, The God Dialogues (Oxford University Press, 2010), ISBN 9780195395594 (list price $19.95); and
Plato, Five Dialogues, translated by Grube and Cooper (Hackett, 2002), ISBN 9780872206335 (list price $9.50).
In addition, we will use i>clicker clickers in the class. All other readings will be made available on Canvas. Syllabus (PDF)
PHI 2010 Introduction to Philosophy — Dr. E.Palmer
This course is designed to familiarize students with some central issues in philosophy and to help develop and hone writing and critical thinking skills. Most of the semester will be devoted towards thinking through the following questions: (1) What is knowledge? Can we have knowledge of the external world? (2) What is free will, and can we have it? (3) What is morality about? Are there moral facts? If so, what do they depend on? And can they be known?
The course provides 4000 words of credit towards the Writing Requirement at UF as well as satisfying the State Core General Education requirement for Humanities. Assignments include 2-4 short writing assignments, 3 argumentative essays, and 2 exams. Success in this course depends on regular attendance, proper preparation for class, and active engagement with the materials and ideas under discussion. Syllabus (PDF)
PHI 2010 Introduction to Philosophy (online) — Dr. E.Palmer
Patient and thorough exploration of philosophical questions is an ideal way to develop skills in clear writing and critical thinking. This course introduces the discipline of philosophy with a focus on developing those skills. Most of the semester is devoted three traditional issues: (a) What is knowledge? What can we know? (b) What is free will? Is there reason to think we don’t have any free will? (c) What is morality all about? Are there facts about what is morally right and wrong? At the end of the semester, we will more briefly explore some famous questions about happiness and the meaning of life. The emphasis throughout is on writing clearly about such elusive questions and presenting good reasons to endorse one answer over another.
The course provides 4000 words of credit towards the Writing Requirement at UF as well as satisfying the State Core General Education requirement for Humanities. Assignments include three argumentative essays, four short writing assignments, several short quizzes and tests, and regular activity assignments. For each unit of the class, students are divided into small groups in which they must post their responses to the activity assignments in that unit and select, as a group, the best of those to be submitted for a grade. There are no major exams (no mid-term or final exam). No book purchases are required, as all readings are made available online through the Canvas system.
This is an entirely online course. Because there is no regular meeting time during which we all meet to discuss the material, it is especially important to keep up with all assignments, to participate in discussion boards, and to ask for help when needed. While the structure of assignments is designed to ensure that students challenge themselves, it is also designed so as to minimize the amount of stress placed on any particular assignment. Success requires, instead, regular and serious effort throughout the semester. Syllabus (PDF)
PHI 2010 Introduction to Philosophy — Dr. Pismenny
This course will introduce you to some of the main topics of philosophy. Philosophy addresses some of the most fundamental questions in life. The main tool by which Philosophy addresses these questions is the human capacity to reason. You will find that philosophical answers are based on reasoned arguments, which analyze and seek to justify beliefs. Philosophy, therefore, is a sort of self-examination, in which you discover what you think, and then reflect on whether your opinions are really worth holding. To look critically at your own ideas is the essence of the life of reason.
During this course you will examine your views on several core philosophical topics such as the existence of God, the possibility of knowledge, and the basis of morality. You will read philosophical texts, analyze their arguments and evaluate their answers to the questions of the course, see how philosophical concepts can help you understand practical dilemmas, and express your ideas through arguments – both verbal and written – which present your reasons for holding your beliefs. Syllabus (PDF)
PHI 2010 Introduction to Philosophy — J.Simpson
The course introduces students to philosophy by engaging, in a critical and substantive way, with various readings and arguments, both classical and contemporary, in the history of philosophy. The course will have a four-part structure. The first part will cover the central question in the philosophy of religion: ‘Does God exist?’ We will concentrate on critically examining two rather prominent arguments for God’s existence—the ontological argument and the contingency argument—and one rather prominent argumst against God’s existence—the argument from evil (the problem of evil). The second part of the course will focus on epistemology (theory of knowledge), specifically on epistemic justification, skepticism, and analyses of knowledge. The third part of the course will be concerned with action, primarily intentional actions, and moral responsibility. The fourth part of the course will focus on normative ethics, in particular we will examine three ways (utilitarian, deontological, and virtue-theoretical) of characterizing whether or not an action is morally right and standard difficulties that each standard of right action must face. Syllabus (PDF)
PHI 2630 Contemporary Moral Issues — Dr. Rick
Do non-human animals have moral standing, comparable to that of human beings? Is it ever morally permissible to eat animals? What is sexism, and should prostitution be ethically and legally permissible or prohibited? What is racism, and are affirmative action policies morally justified or morally bankrupt? What is the most ethically justified immigration policy – one of largely open or largely closed borders? Given the persistence of vast global poverty in our world, what moral duties do those of us in wealthy nations have to persons in impoverished states? Should private gun ownership be morally permissible or impermissible? Is climate change a significant issue for individual morality? Are individuals morally responsible for their greenhouse gas emissions, despite the fact that individual actions seem to make little difference to climate change?
These are examples of moral questions about which many of us have strong and often opposing opinions. And, just as we disagree on many of these issues, so do many philosophers, political theorists, and economists. In this course, we examine opposing philosophical arguments and points of view on these urgent moral questions. The governing aim of our course will be to come to grips with and critically reflect on the underlying justifications for the various sides of these different debates. This course counts towards the Humanities (H) general education requirement and the Writing (W) requirement (4000 words). Syllabus (PDF)
IDS 2935 The Idea of Happiness — N.Rothschild
Every person, presumably, wants to have a good life. What is it, though, to live well? What sorts of things make our lives good? These, and related questions regarding the nature of human happiness and well-being and how they may be achieved were fundamental to philosophy at its inception. Socrates famously declared that the unexamined life is not worth living, thereby calling attention to the need to focus on fundamental matters of value in order to live a genuinely worthwhile life. Philosophers have continued to approach the question of how we ought to live in order to attain genuine happiness or well-being, and in recent decades this issue has become the focus of renewed attention.
This Quest 1 course addresses the question that we cannot help but ask ourselves, “How should I live?” Drawing primarily on the disciplines of Philosophy and Classics, in conjunction with close analysis of works of literature, drama, and film, this course will expose students to both historical and contemporary perspectives on well-being and happiness. The readings have been selected to represent a number of distinct perspectives, both philosophical and non-philosophical, and to help students think for themselves about the kind of lives they want to live. Students will be encouraged to find in historical texts material relevant to their own lives, not despite, but because of the fundamentally different assumptions and commitments that animate views which are thousands of years old. Syllabus (PDF)
IDS 2936 Cultural Animals: Morality and the Limits of Nature and Culture — Dr. Rick
Humans are cultural animals. On the one hand, we are biologically evolved animals – members of nature’s kingdom, bound by its universal laws and norms. On the other hand, we are creatures of culture, variably shaped by the influences and innovations of our particular societies and communities. Given our dual citizenship within these domains, questions and challenges emerge regarding the boundaries and allegiances between human nature and human culture. These limits are especially urgent with respect to understanding the contours and content of human morality. In Cultural Animals, we will examine the interplay between the ‘natural’ and the ‘cultural’ aspects of our lives, with particular emphasis on exploring how these often-coordinating, yet potentially-competing, forces serve to shape our moral practices.
3000 Level Courses
PHH 3100 Ancient Greek Philosophy — N.Rothschild
This course is designed to familiarize students with some of the main ideas of the three most important thinkers who stand at the beginning of the western philosophical tradition: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Some attention will also be devoted to later philosophers writing in the Hellenistic era. This course is the first part of the Philosophy Department’s history of philosophy sequence. Together with PHH 3400: Modern Philosophy, it aims to give students an understanding of the major questions addressed in the history of Western philosophy, the range of answers offered to these questions, and the methods employed in addressing them. PHH 3100 is required of all philosophy majors and meets an area requirement for the philosophy minor. Syllabus (PDF)
PHM 3123 Feminist Philosophy — Dr. Ahlberg
This course will explore some of the influential theories and texts in the field of Feminist Philosophy. Feminist Philosophy encompasses a broad range of inquiry, from familiar political issues to foundational metaphysical and epistemological problems (e.g. what is a woman, and does one’s sex and/or gender provide special access to knowledge?). Our exploration will primarily focus on contemporary engagement with four central questions: What is sexism? What is gender? What is sexual orientation? What does liberation involve?
This course counts towards the Humanities (H) General Education Requirement and the Diversity (D) General Education Requirement. Syllabus (PDF)
PHI 3130 Symbolic Logic — Dr. Ray
The course is designed to provide the student with a basic working knowledge of first-order logic and semantics, and familiarize him or her with some basic metalogical results. We will cover basic topics in elementary logic including: propositional, quantificational, identity, free, and modal logics, formal semantics, completeness. We will also formulate the philosophical underpinnings of our subject with special care. Syllabus (PDF)
PHI 3300 Theory of Knowledge — Dr. Borges
This course aims at enabling the student to think critically about some of the central issues in the theory of knowledge. Among other issues, we will discuss (i) the nature of knowledge, (ii) the difference (if any) between knowledge and true belief, (iii) the distinction between perceptual and inferential knowledge, and (iv) whether knowledge is possible in the first place (skepticism). Classical and contemporary readings will be assigned. This course counts towards the Humanities (H) general education requirement. Syllabus (PDF)
PHH 3400 Modern Philosophy — Dr. Biro
The goal of this course is to familiarize you with the central doctrines of the most important philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. We will read and discuss works (or parts thereof) by Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley and Hume. All these are widely available, and any translation or edition will do for our purposes. (Two volumes that contain all that we will cover — and more besides — are R. Cummins and D. Owens (eds.), Central Readings in Modern Philosophy and S. Cahn (ed.), Classics of Western Philosophy. Both are easily found for purchase on the internet.) There will be two examinations, a mid-term and the final. In addition, you may submit a paper. If you do, your grade in the course will be based on the best two earned. Syllabus (PDF)
PHI 3400 Philosophy of the Natural Sciences — Dr. Dorst
Studies central contemporary issues in the philosophy of natural science: the nature of laws, the logic of discovery and the relationships between different sciences. The sciences used for illustration vary with the instructor. (H) Syllabus
PHI 3500 Metaphysics — Dr. Ross
Metaphysics is, generally speaking, the study of the fundamental nature of reality. This course will cover several core topics in contemporary analytic metaphysics. Topics we will likely cover (and the main questions associated with them) are:
Particulars & Universals: There are lots of particular things that are, for example, red. But is there something over and above all these instances, like the property (or “universal”) of redness? Do we need to posit such things, or can we explain everything to be explained without doing so?
Modality (Necessity & Possibility): Hilary Clinton might have been elected president in 2016. What is the nature of this “modal” fact? Is it true because there is another so-called “possible world” in which she was elected? What is the relationship between that “possible world” and the actual world (our world)?
Time (& a bit of Space): What is time exactly? Is it real? Is it an objective sort of thing? How is time related to space? Is time travel theoretically possible (is it physically possible)?
Personal Identity: How is it that one person remains the same person throughout enormous changes in their lifetime? How do other, ordinary things, persist through change? Does anything really persist through change? Syllabus (PDF)
PHM 3600 Philosophy of Education — Dr. Ahlberg
This course introduces students to terminology, concepts, and methodologies in the contemporary field of philosophy of education. For most of the semester we will explore the values that should guide the content and distribution of educational opportunities in wealthy modern industrial democracies like our own. Although “education” is a vague term, covering everything involved in raising children to adulthood (and more), our main (but not exclusive) focus will be on schooling, including the schooling of children and of adults. Themes include: the aims and purposes of education, educational authority, the distribution of educational opportunity, and the roles and nature of higher education in our society.
This course counts towards the Humanities (H) General Education Requirement. Syllabus (PDF)
PHI 3650 Moral Philosophy — Dr. Pismenny
This course provides an introduction to problems of moral philosophy, or ethics. We will be asking the following questions: 1. Where does morality come from? 2. What do we do when we make a moral judgment? 3. What should morality be like? 4. What does morality do for us? 5. Why should we be moral? In attempting to answer these questions, we will examine and scrutinize various views, theories, and arguments. For instance, we will look at the popular view of Cultural Relativism (“What’s right is whatever my culture says is right”), examine the role of religion in morality (e.g., “What’s right is just what God says is right”), and, most importantly, attempt to understand the role of reason in morality with views like Social Contract Theory, Kantian Ethics, and Utilitarianism. We will work with historical as well as contemporary texts and look at the ways in which they attempt to provide systematic procedures for answering questions about right and wrong. In addition, we will discuss a variety of specific moral issues such as assisted suicide, racial biases, and drug policies and drug addiction among others. Our discussion will also draw on empirical data pertaining to these issues. Throughout the course we will seek not so much to form judgments about specific moral issues—most of us do that on our own anyway, though with varying de grees of certitude—but to improve our thinking about the considerations that may count as reasons for and against the moral judgments we are tempted to make. Syllabus (PDF)
PHI 3650 Moral Philosophy — Dr. Purves
We make moral judgments – e.g., “You shouldn’t litter,” “It’s unfair that some children have no health care,” “Friendship helps make life worth living,” “Abortion is wrong,” “Martin Luther King was a great man” – all the time. But what are we doing when we do this? Are we describing an objective moral reality, or ultimately just expressing our feelings? Are such statements ever true? Can we ever know one to be true? If there are moral facts, are they just a subclass of the natural facts about the world? Assuming that we do have moral obligations, why should we care about them? These are some questions in metaethics to which the first part of this course will provide an introduction.
Then we will turn to normative ethics, where we attempt to figure out which moral claims – and, in particular, which fundamental moral principles – are actually true. Our main questions will be, What makes an act right or wrong?, and, What makes a state of affairs good or bad? Consequentialists believe that an act’s rightness or wrongness is to be explained solely in terms of how good or bad its outcome would be. We will explore this theory in detail, as well as theories about what makes an outcome good or bad. Deontologists reject the view that consequences are all that matter. They typically believe that we have special obligations (e.g., to our children, to people with whom we have made agreements) that are not explained by the value of outcomes. Deontologists also typically believe in constraints against certain kinds of behavior (e.g., against lying and harming the innocent) even when doing so would lead to the best outcome. We will explore Deontology as well. Finally, we will discuss Virtue Ethics. Virtue Ethics, when it is formulated as offering a moral principle, explains the rightness of actions in terms of the character of agents. Syllabus (PDF)
PHI 3693 Ethics of Communication — Dr. Auxter
In this course we will cover themes and topics in philosophical discussions of the ethics of communication. We will read both classical and contemporary texts in the Western, African, and Latin American traditions.
Topics: Across cultures, languages, geographies, and histories, what counts as communication? What is the significance of dialogue? What are the limits of the universe of discourse? What are the parameters and minimum conditions of meaningful communication? Do souls communicate with souls across the boundaries of life and death? Is communication only human to human? Animal to animal? How do answers to these questions affect choices we make about the possibilities for interaction and the development of relations? What values are at stake? How are choices defined?
Requirements for the course: There will be a midterm essay test and two essays written in a final examination in the classroom. Each of the three essays will count as one third of the grade.
This course counts toward the Humanities (H) general education requirement. Syllabus (PDF)
PHI 3930 Special Topics: Nietzsche & Ortega — Dr. Auxter
Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most influential philosophers of the nineteenth century. He is often described as one of the first existentialist philosophers. In this course, we will read and evaluate two of his most important works: Beyond Good and Evil (1888) and The Gay Science (1887).
We will ask why he classifies the Western tradition as nihilistic. What does he mean by nihilism? Why does he think it has such a hold on human beings? Why does he compare human beings to herd animals? How does religion fit into the picture? What does he mean by the death of God?
For Nietzsche, what is the alternative to nihilism? What does he think it means to affirm life and live life to the fullest? Why does he advocate a shift from moral and religious categories to artistic ways of experiencing and thinking about the world? What does it mean to take a Dionysian approach to life?
The philosophies of thought and action of Jose Ortega y Gasset will also be investigated in this course. We will read The Revolt of the Masses (1930) and History as a System (1941).
Ortega is a Spanish philosopher (1883-1955) who began his search for a new approach to philosophy where Nietzsche’s quest ended. He developed key concepts of existentialism. Ortega argued that “man has no nature” and “must make his own existence at every single moment.”
In 1936 he went into exile as the fascists in Spain were staging a military takeover. He took up residence in Argentina and had a major influence on an entire generation of philosophers in Latin America. Ortega combined insights about existential choices with new interpretations of Latin American identity.
He eventually had a major influence on European interpretations of existential reality as well — especially in philosophies developed by Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus. Camus calls Ortega “the greatest of European writers after Nietzsche.”
Intellectuals during Ortega’s time were impressed by his ability to sum up fundamental dilemmas of the human condition and pose new questions for exploration. His extraordinary writing style stems in part from an early career as a journalist – believing he must reclaim the reader’s interest in every sentence of short narratives.
We will ask why Ortega thinks that Nietzsche’s ‘herd’ of the Western tradition turns into ‘the masses’ of the twentieth century? What does this mean for our choices in life? How does this change political decisions? How do we redefine human destiny?
Requirements for the course: There will be a midterm essay test and two essays written in a final examination. Each of the three essays will count as one third of the grade. Syllabus (PDF)
PHI 3930 Special Topics: Social Philosophy — Dr. D’Amico
This course will focus on the work of Margaret Gilbert on joint action and Deborah Tollefson on group agency. We will consider alternative accounts to theirs in John Searle and Raimo Toumela, among others. But the central focus will be on the significant philosophical work of Gilbert and Tollefson. This topic and the debates surrounding it are foundational for the social sciences as well as for moral and political philosophy. Syllabus (PDF)
PHI 3930 Special Topics: Philosophy of Love and Sex — Dr. Pismenny
Love and sex are essential to human life. In this course you will be asked to reflect on the most intimate spheres of human experience, addressing questions such as what is love? What kinds of love are there? How can we distinguish between them? What is the relationship between love and reason? In what sense if any are beloveds irreplaceable? What is the relationship between love and sex? Is sexual perversion intrinsically immoral? What can transexuality tell us about gender? How does gender and sex relate to sexual orientation and romantic relationships? Is polyamory ethically superior to monogamy? Syllabus (PDF)
PHI 3930 Special Topics: Ethics of Technology — Dr. Purves
This course exposes students to important interactions between ethics, economics, and public policy in assessing the social value of emerging technologies. Students will grapple with foundational concepts in ethics, economics, and policy-making. The course pairs theoretical discussions of the philosophical dimensions of economics and policy-making with concrete issues in emerging technologies. Potential discussion topics include: cost-benefit analysis, risk, markets and market failures, economic valuations of technology, justice and fairness, and property rights. We will apply these concepts in assessing emerging technologies like autonomous cars, big data policing algorithms, and germline gene editing, among others. Syllabus (PDF)
PHI 3930 Special Topics: Philosophy & Literature — Dr. J.Rothschild
In this course we will think as philosophers about productive encounters between philosophy and literature. Our list of readings is largely drawn from ancient Greek and continental traditions and includes literary works by philosophers, some of which are designed to be pieces of philosophy in their own right and some which are not; secondary philosophical readings of literature, paired with their sources; papers which use literature as an example for doing philosophy; stories and arguments which are mutually illuminating if read side-by-side, though neither explicitly engages the other; and literature thick with philosophical content. No prior course in philosophy required. Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Freud, Murdoch, Nussbaum, Poe, Melville, Conrad, and others. Syllabus (PDF)
4000 Level Courses
PHI 4220 Philosophy of Language — Dr. Biro
This course is an introductory survey of the central issues in the philosophy of language and of the major theories of reference and of meaning. The text for the course is Philosophy of Language: A Contemporary Introduction by William G. Lycan (second edition, Routledge 2008). There will be two required examinations and an optional paper, with the course grade based on the best two earned. Syllabus (PDF)
PHI 4930 Rules and Reasoning — Dr. Borges
This course will investigate the prospect for rules for ‘good reasoning’. We want to know if any of the recent (and not-so-recent) proposed rules ultimately achieves the goal of what makes reasoning good. In order to do that, we will look at the following issues through philosophical and psychological lenses: (i) the nature of mental states and processes, (ii) the conditions under which one may be appropriately said to be following a rule; (iii) the normativity of logic and epistemology. Reasoning itself will be put under a philosophical and psychological microscope, as a result. This will enrich the student’s understanding of logic, and of its role (if any) in reasoning. Syllabus (PDF)
PHI 4930 Animal Minds — Dr. Ross
How do animals experience the world, and how is their experience similar to and different from ours? We need to be able to answer this question for many practical and theoretical purposes- what are the limits, both scientific and philosophical, of our ability to answer it? In this course we will address questions such as: What is a mind? Which animals have minds? How can we learn about them? What kinds of emotions and thoughts do nonhuman animals have? Is language required for thought? Who is self-conscious? Can animals have moral agency? The course is an examination of the philosophy of animal minds, and also draws from natural and social sciences: cognitive ethology and psychology. We will use a philosophical approach to examine several empirical examples and case studies, including: Cheney and Seyfarth’s ververt monkey research, Thorndike’s cat puzzle boxes, Jensen’s research into humans and chimpanzees and the ultimatum game, Pankseep and Burgdorf’s research on rat laughter, and Clayton and Emery’s research on memory and metamemory in scrub-jays. Syllabus (PDF)