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Courses

Schedule of classes: Fall 2007 | Winter 2008 | Spring 2008

  • PHIL 110: Introduction to Philosophy

    Philosophy 110 sections, Introduction to Philosophy: An introduction to philosophical thinking through intensive reading of primary philosophical sources and careful discussion and writing about them and the philosophical issues they raise. Each section 1) focuses on one fundamental area of philosophy while making connections with another such area, 2) involves the study of both historical and contemporary texts, and 3) pays some attention to issues of race and/or gender as they bear on the subject matter of the section. All sections follow a discussion format and require several brief papers. There are no prerequisites. The following sections will be offered in 2007-2008.not offered 2007-2008

  • PHIL 110: Evolution and Mind

    An introduction to questions in the philosophy of mind and language by considering the importance of evolution and evolutionary theory for issues relating to the nature of cognition and language. Central questions to be discussed include: the nature of Darwinian evolution; the nature, structure and function of human language; the nature and role of consciousness; the possibility of innate structures of cognition and language; the university and diversity of human culture and categorization of experience. 6; Humanities; offered Fall 2007 -- R. Elveton

  • PHIL 110: Personal Identity

    This course is an introduction to philosophy through the topic of personal identity. What is a person? What is it that makes possible our continued existence through time? Is it a soul? Our bodies? Or is it a stream of memories connecting us to past events? We also examine the place of social roles in determining personal identity. Readings will be drawn from historical as well as contemporary sources. 6; Humanities; offered Spring 2008 -- A. Curran
    Extended departmental description for PHIL 110

    See the course web site.

  • PHIL 110: Mind, Matter, Consciousness

    According to a common view of the mind, mental states are nothing more than states of the brain. There are certain features of human intellection, subjective experience, and action which have prompted some philosophers to argue that human mental activity is not reducible to brain activity. Some have gone on to argue that the human mind is immaterial and capable of surviving the death of the body. We will examine variants of these views as well as objections to them, reading selections from such historical figures as Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes, and such contemporary philosophers as Churchland, Nagel, and Searle. 6; Humanities; offered Fall 2007, Winter 2008 -- A. Moltchanova

  • PHIL 110: Skepticism, God, and Mind

    This course is an introduction to philosophy with readings from both contemporary and historical sources, including Aquinas, Descartes, and Hume. We will wrestle with the following philosophical questions: What is knowledge? Do we have knowledge of an external (i.e., mind-independent) world? Is scientific reasoning justified? Does God exist? How are our minds related to our bodies? 6; Humanities; offered Winter 2008, Spring 2008 -- B. Woodcock

  • PHIL 110: Religious Belief, Scientific Belief

    What distinguishes scientific inquiry from other areas of inquiry? Is it distinguished by its subject matter, its method of inquiry, or perhaps both? How does scientific belief differ from religious belief, in particular? Is the scientist committed (as least implicitly) to substantive metaphysical assumptions? If so, what role do these assumptions play in scientific investigation? Are they epistemically superior to, or on a par with, religious dogma? This course will introduce the student to the study of philosophy through a consideration of these (and related) epistemic and metaphysical issues surrounding science and religion. Classic and contemporary philosophical texts will be considered. 6; Humanities; offered Winter 2008, Spring 2008 -- J. Decker

  • PHIL 111: Introduction to Western Philosophy I: Ancient and Medieval

    A study of the history of Western philosophy from its beginnings to the end of the Middle Ages. The course is a series of lectures on the historical/cultural contexts of major philosophical positions, the interrelations among the central questions on which these positions focus, and the positions' relationships to today's philosophical discussions. Philosophers such as Heraclitus, Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas will be considered, and extensive selections from their writings will be read. No prerequisites. 6; Humanities; not offered 2007-2008

  • PHIL 210: Logic

    A topical and issue-centered introduction to logic, considering both historical and contemporary developments. Topics will include propositional logic, predicate logic, the relation of logic to natural languages, arguments and their analysis, and informal reasoning. No prerequisites. 6; Does not fulfill a distribution requirement; offered Fall 2007 -- B. Woodcock

  • PHIL 211: Metaphysics

    The aim of metaphysics has traditionally been to identify the nature and structure of reality. The topics of this course are the topology of time, identity of things and individuals, causality, free will, and the referents of general terms. We will read a variety of classic and contemporary texts, which are organized topically. Prerequisite: any section of Philosophy 110 or 111. 6; Humanities; offered Winter 2008 -- A. Moltchanova

  • PHIL 212: Epistemology

    A topical and issue-centered introduction to the theory of knowledge, considering both historical and contemporary developments. Topics may include foundationalism and skepticism, the a priori and the empirical, justification and reliability, naturalized epistemology, and normativity. 6; Humanities; offered Fall 2007 -- B. Woodcock

  • PHIL 213: Ethics

    In this course we will consider two kinds of ethical questions. First, we will look at normative ethical questions like: what is morally good, what is morally bad, and how should we live? Theories to be considered include virtue ethics, duty-based ethics, utilitarianism, and contractualism. Second, we will look at metaethical questions like: what are we doing when we make ethical claims? Are we attempting to describe objective reality? Do we ever succeed? Are ethical claims even in the business of describing things at all? Theories to be considered include moral realism, moral nihilism, expressivism and relativism. 6; Humanities; offered Spring 2008 -- J. Decker

  • PHIL 220: Topics: Philosophy of Law

    This course provides students with an opportunity to engage actively in a discussion of theoretical questions about law. We will consider the nature of law as it is presented by natural law theory, legal positivism and legal realism. Then we will deal with responsibility and punishment, and challenges to the idea of the primacy of individual rights from legal paternalism and moralism. We will next inquire into the relations between individuals and legal systems, explanations of why individuals should obey the law, and conditions under which civil disobedience is justified. Finally, we will discuss issues raised by feminist legal theory and some theories of minority rights. 6; Humanities; offered Fall 2007 -- A. Moltchanova

  • PHIL 220: Topics: Induction and Scientific Reasoning

    This course is an examination of inductive reasoning with a view to how such reasoning is utilized in the confirmation of scientific hypotheses. Topics in the first half of the course include the traditional problem of induction, qualitative approaches to the confirmation of scientific hypotheses, and the paradoxes of confirmation. The second half of the course consists in an introduction to probability theory and a development of the Bayesian (probabilistic) approach to scientific confirmation. 6; Humanities; offered Winter 2008 -- B. Woodcock

  • PHIL 220: Topics: Philosophy of Language

    Language is simultaneously one of the most commonplace and one of the most surprising features of human life. In this course we will look at how philosophers have tried to understand language and its connection with human thought and communication. The course will be split into two parts: Semantics and Pragmatics. In the first part, we'll look at general features of linguistic expressions like meaning and reference. In the second part, we'll look at the various ways in which speakers use language. Topics to be considered in the second part include speech acts, implicature, and presupposition. 6; Humanities; offered Winter 2008 -- J. Decker

  • PHIL 232: Social and Political Philosophy: Justice and Politics

    What distinguishes just states from unjust states? Are some states so unjust that we are not obliged to comply with their laws? We will examine answers to these and related questions proposed by liberal, socialist, libertarian, communitarian, feminist and post-modern theories of political and social justice. The following are some of the authors we will read: Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Marx, Berlin, Lyotard, Nozick, Rawls, Habermas, Sandel, Seyla Benhabib, Jean Hampton, Charles Taylor, and Amy Gutmann. 6; Humanities; not offered 2007-2008

  • PHIL 234: Aesthetics

    Various issues in aesthetics: the definition of art, the nature of the aesthetic, the description, interpretation, and evaluation of aesthetic objects. Readings will be drawn primarily from the works of philosophers and from case materials. 6; Humanities; offered Spring 2008 -- A. Curran
    Extended departmental description for PHIL 234

    Philosophy 234, Spring 2008

    The central goal of the course is to introduce you to some of the puzzles and problems that philosophers have considered when they have thought about art. After going through the course you will have learned a new way to think about art. You will also learn about philosophical thinking and see how examining art can teach us more about the nature of philosophy.

    We investigate four central topics: (1) Does art represent truth and reality? Or does art lead us away from the truth, as Plato charged? (2) What is the nature of aesthetic experience? Can something in nature be art? What is the difference between the appreciation of nature and the appreciation of art? (3) Can art be defined? Could anything, including a pile of bricks, be art? (4) Should the artist’s intention in creating a work of art determine the meaning and interpretation of the artwork? Readings will be drawn from the history of aesthetics, contemporary philosophy of art, and case materials. We will also have a trip to the Walker Art Center for a tour of the Andy Warhol collection.

  • PHIL 235: Feminist Philosophy

    Reason and objectivity are two of the most fundamental concepts of Western philosophy. Nevertheless, these concepts have undergone serious attack in the past half-century. Some of the strongest attacks have come from feminists' efforts to expose and eliminate sources of sexism and oppression. We begin with Descartes' Meditations and feminist criticisms of the "male dominated" reason which Descartes has come to represent. We then discuss whether there can be a feminist epistemology, and if so, how it differs from "non-feminist" epistemologies. Finally, in the absence of some universal notion of objectivity, we examine how to theorize about morality and science. 6; Humanities; not offered 2007-2008

  • PHIL 242: Environmental Ethics

    What moral stance should we take toward the non-human part of our natural environment? How should we treat animals, for instance? Is there any justification for treating human beings with special consideration, or is this an objectionable form of speciesism? How should we treat other non-animal beings? What stance should we take toward the ecological system as a whole? In this class we will consider various ethical approaches in an attempt to raise the level of sophistication with which we can go about framing and supporting answers to these (and other similar) questions. 6; Humanities; offered Fall 2007 -- J. Decker

  • PHIL 250: Philosophy of Physics

    Quantum theory is currently our best theoretical framework for describing the behavior of physical systems. This course is an investigation of conceptual issues that arise in the attempt to understand the implications of the theory for our picture of reality. Such issues include the problem of measurement, the nature of the probabilistic indeterminism apparent in the theory, and the relationship of quantum theory to relativity theory (our best theory of the structure of space and time). The latter topic will lead us to consider the famous EPR paper and Bell's theorem. 6; Humanities; offered Spring 2008 -- B. Woodcock
    Extended departmental description for PHIL 250

    The most important and perplexing theory in current physics is quantum mechanics. We will study some of its basic features, why they make quantum mechanics so significantly different from classical physics, and how we might understand what quantum mechanics tells us about the nature of the world. We will also study quantum computation and information theory, both for how they put all of these conceptual issues in a new framework, and for how they show us that quantum mechanics can be used to do truly surprising things in information processing and communication.

  • PHIL 251: Philosophy of Biology

    A study of some important conceptual and foundational issues in evolutionary biology. Topics to be considered will include the role of fitness in evolutionary theory, functional and teleological explanations, the problem of the units of selection, the nature of a species, the reduction of genetics to molecular biology, and sociobiology. Prerequisite: 6 credits in philosophy or biology, or permission of the instructor. 6; Humanities; not offered 2007-2008

  • PHIL 253: Philosophy of Cognitive Science

    A study of the central theories, methodological and philosophical issues and major competing paradigms regarding the nature of human cognition. Topics to be treated include: the nature of mental representations, intentionality, consciousness, the structure of language, nativism and externalism in the cognitive sciences, embodied cognition and the constitutive roles of culture and evolution in shaping cognitive processes. 6; Humanities; not offered 2007-2008

  • PHIL 270: Ancient Greek Philosophy

    The source of much of the Western way of thinking about the world can be located in the questions that intrigued ancient Greek philosophers: What is change? Can we really know anything at all about the world? How is the body related to the mind? How do we distinguish appearance and reality? And, what is the best life to live? Our principal readings will include works in translation from Heraclitus, Parmenides, the Skeptics, Stoics, and Epicureans, with particular attention paid to the philosophies of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. 6; Humanities; not offered 2007-2008
    Extended departmental description for PHIL 270

    https://apps.carleton.edu/people/acurran/courses/ancient_philosophy_at_Carleton_College/

  • PHIL 272: Modern Philosophy

    An examination of the development of Western philosophy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries through the writings of Descartes, Locke, Spinoza, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. We focus on the impact of modern scientific thought on the philosophical tradition's understanding of the place of the human being in the world. Topics include: Is it possible to have knowledge of the world? What is the nature of reality? What is the human mind? Are we free? 6; Humanities; offered Winter 2008 -- A. Curran
    Extended departmental description for PHIL 272

    Course Description:

    The modern period in western philosophy can be characterized as a reaction to the development of the modern scientific world view. Modern scientific theories challenged the traditional understanding that many in the west had about the nature of human beings and their relation to the world within which they found themselves. A central issue that philosophers in the 17th and 18th centuries wrestled with was how to accommodate their traditional beliefs about human life and divine existence to the results of the new scientific methodology. In this course, we will focus upon six major philosophers who undertook the task of assessing the importance of modern science for the world view of human beings. We will explore the extent to which a common understanding of the world united these philosophers despite the many ways in which they differed from one another. We also examine the important role that women played as commentators and respondents to the ideas of these early modern philosophers.

    While we attempt to follow the development of philosophy in the 17th and 18th centuries, we will also be learning how to interpret philosophic texts, how to defend a philosophic position verbally, and how to write coherent philosophic essays. A centerpiece of the course will be the series of three debates we have on central issues in modern philosophy.

  • PHIL 274: Existentialism

    We will consider the emergence and development of major themes of existentialism in the works of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, as well as "classical" existentialists such as Heidegger, Sartre and De Beauvoir. We will discuss key issues put forward by the existentialist movement, such as "the question of being" and human historicity, freedom and responsibility and look at how different authors analyzed the nature and ambitions of the Self and diverse aspects of subjectivity. 6; Humanities; not offered 2007-2008

  • PHIL 281: Advanced Logic

    Topics in logic presupposing familiarity with first order logic. Possible topics: metalogic (incompleteness and undecidability), non-classical logics (e.g., modal, intuitionistic and non-monotonic logics), applications to other disciplines, and philosophy of logic. Prerequisite: Philosophy 210, Mathematics 211, or permission of the instructor. 6; Humanities; not offered 2007-2008
    Extended departmental description for PHIL 281

    Our topic will be the application of modal logic to a central issue in philosophy: the nature of knowledge. We will use modal logic to develop a formal model of knowledge, prove things about properties of that model, and then explore various applications of the model to situations where there are multiple agents that reason about both the world and each other's knowledge of it. The course will be self-contained (i.e., no particular course content is presupposed), but does assume a willingness to learn how to work with formal systems and apply them to various kinds of problems.

    Text: Reasoning About Knowledge; Fagin, Halpern, Moses and Vardi; MIT Press, paperback edition (2003).
    Evaluation: Problem sets, class participation and a research project.

  • PHIL 395: Samuel Beckett

    A seminar focusing on Beckett's novels and plays within the context of twentieth century postmodern philosophy and literary theory. 6; Does not fulfill a distribution requirement; offered Winter 2008 -- R. Elveton and R. Weiner

  • PHIL 395: Moral Psychology

    Since antiquity, philosophers concerned about the nature of morality have made claims about how the mind works when we make moral judgments and exhibit morally praiseworthy behavior. Typically, these claims were supported by anecdote and introspection. But in recent years psychologists, anthropologists and neuroscientists have begun using the tools of modern science to study moral judgment and moral behavior. We will look at some of the recent findings which shed light on such traditional questions as whether genuine altruism is possible, whether emotion or reason plays a more important role in moral judgment and whether some moral disagreement is irresolvable. 6; Humanities; offered Spring 2008 -- S. Stich

  • PHIL 395: Film and the Emotions

    Horror movies, thrillers, and melodramas—the evocation of emotions, of one kind or another, is central to our experience of watching films. This class looks at some philosophical issues regarding our emotional engagement with film. Since characters in fictional film do not exist, and we know this, how can we have genuine emotions towards them? Is it rational to take pleasure in horror films when we are normally averse to experiencing horror in our every day lives? What is it to “identify” with a character in a film? Is cognition a component of our emotional response to film? Do films manipulate our emotions? Readings will be drawn from works in philosophy and film theory and criticism. Weekly film screenings are required in addition to the regular class meeting. 6; Humanities; offered Winter 2008 -- A. Curran

  • PHIL 395: Ethical Knowledge

    Ethical knowledge (knowledge of what is permissible and required) has interesting connections with modal knowledge (knowledge of what is possible and necessary), and the two domains give rise to similar epistemological difficulties. Our most straightforward epistemic access concerns what is actually the case, not what ought to be the case, and not what is necessarily the case. How then can we come to know the latter sorts of facts (if they are facts at all)? In this seminar we will explore these, and related issues, with the primary goal of gaining a deeper understanding of ethical knowledge. 6; Humanities; offered Fall 2007 -- J. Decker

  • PHIL 399: Senior Thesis

    The planning, preparation, and completion of a philosophical paper under the direction of a member of the department and as part of a seminar group. 6; Does not fulfill a distribution requirement; offered Winter 2008 -- R. Elveton

  • PHIL 400: Integrative Exercise

    A colloquium in which seniors defend their senior theses and discuss the senior theses of others. 3; S/NC; Does not fulfill a distribution requirement; offered Fall 2007, Spring 2008 -- Staff