Spring 2026
Spring 2026 Upper-Level Course Schedule
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Professor
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Course
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Time
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Calarco
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Existentialism (PHIL 323)
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TTh 2:30-3:45pm
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Coplan
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Philosophy of Sex and Love (PHIL 325)
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TTh 1-2:15pm
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Coplan
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Philosophy, Literature & Cinema (PHIL 349)
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W 7-9:45pm
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Coplan
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Seminar in Contemporary Philosophy (PHIL 490)
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TTh 2:30-3:45pm
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Davis
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Medical Ethics (PHIL 314)
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MW 10-11:15am
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Davis
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Philosophy and Law in America (PHIL 355)
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MW 2:30-3:45pm
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Davis
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Ethical Theory (PHIL 410)
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MW 4-5:15pm
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Heiner
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Social/Political Philosophy (PHIL 345)
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TTh 11:30am-12:45pm
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Heiner
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Marx and Marxism (PHIL 382)
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TTh 10-11:15am
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Howat
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1st Course Symbolic Logic (PHIL 368)
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TTh 2:30-3:45pm
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Howat
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Metaphysics (PHIL 420)
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TTh 1-2:15pm
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Lambeth
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Kant and the 19th Century (PHIL 301)
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TTh 1-2:15pm
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Lee
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Philosophy of Feminism (PHIL 343)
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TTh 11:30am-12:45pm
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Lee
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Philosophy of Race, Class, & Gender (PHIL 377)
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TTh 10-11:15am
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Directed Study (PHIL 399)
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Independent Study (PHIL 499)
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Spring 2026 Course Descriptions
Calarco: Existentialism, PHIL 323 (TTH 2:30 p.m.)
This course is an introduction to existentialist perspectives on such themes as potentiality, meaning, authenticity, community, and bad faith and their relationship to ontology, ethics, and politics. To this end we will examine the writings of seminal existentialist philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger before turning to an analysis of subsequent developments, applications, and critiques of their thought in the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Emmanuel Levinas, Frantz Fanon, and Simone de Beauvoir.
Davis: Medical Ethics, PHIL 314 (MW 10:00 a.m.)
This is a philosophy course for undergraduates who intend to pursue careers in healthcare or biomedical research, and for others who are interested in bioethics as a branch of normative theory in philosophy. We will cover various philosophical issues in medical ethics, including abortion, the moral status of different forms of human life, reproductive ethics, killing and letting die, the quality of life, the definition of death, allocating organs for transplantation, experimenting on humans and animals, and informed consent and patient autonomy, among others. My teaching style combines lecture and discussion, in roughly equal measure. There are no prerequisites.
Davis: Philosophy of Law in America, PHIL 355 (MW 2:30 p.m.)
Moral issues in American law, including free speech, affirmative action, and punishment. Influence of politics on legal reasoning and the Constitution. Tension between legal reasoning and equal treatment under the law, and how philosophical theories of law respond to this. This is an upper-division, introductory survey course. There are no prerequisites. Class sessions will feature a combination of lecture and discussion.
Davis: Ethical Theory, PHIL 410 (MW 4:00 p.m.)
This is an upper-division survey course on ethical theory. Ethical theory is a blend of normative ethics and metaethics. We will read selections from the four kinds of moral theory, including both historical and contemporary writings in each of those traditions. We will also read some selections in metaethics. Class sessions will feature a combination of lecture and discussion.
Howat: Symbolic Logic, PHIL 368 (TTH 2:30 p.m.)
All of us constantly face questions about what we ought to believe. At least in professional contexts, and when the stakes are high, we ought to believe only those things for which we can find good evidence. The combination of a controversial conclusion and the evidence we can find in its favor is an argument, and the activity of constructing, deconstructing, reconstructing, and critiquing arguments is the very essence of responsible intellectual inquiry in every discipline from math and physics to nursing and English literature. Most arguments in philosophy and mathematics are deductive – they are designed to definitively prove the relevant conclusion. This is a course in the analysis and evaluation of such arguments. Our primary concern will be distinguishing good (valid) deductive arguments from bad (invalid) ones. We will learn to: (1) translate English sentences and arguments into logical symbols; (2) show that symbolic arguments are valid or invalid by using truth tables; (3) use the rules of logic to validly derive conclusions from premises. We will study sentential logic and will be introduced to predicate logic. This course is cross-listed with Math 368 and is especially recommended for those interested in law school or planning to take the LSAT.
Howat: Metaphysics, PHIL 420 (TTH 1:00 p.m.)
What, if anything, can philosophical reflection tell us about the world? Can it tell us about the nature of time, or the self, or of race or gender? Can it tell us what reality is like independently of how it seems to us to be? Many are skeptical that there is anything to be gained by reasoning about the nature of reality from the comfort of one’s armchair. Surely, if you want to understand the world, you must go out and investigate it, become a scientist of some kind? Yet even with all the extraordinary scientific achievements of the past few hundred years, many profound and fascinating philosophical questions remain unanswered. Not only that, but much of what science has taught us about the world seems only to raise more questions. As a result, the discipline of metaphysics is flourishing in contemporary Western philosophy. In this course, we will explore aspects of ourselves and our world through (mostly contemporary Western) metaphysics – the study of the nature of things by means of philosophical reflection. Most contemporary Western metaphysics involves studying our world through the lens of language and our concepts; for the most part, this will also be our focus. However, we will incorporate aspects of Eastern philosophy into our investigation of the self, particularly the Buddhist doctrine that ‘the illusion of an enduring self is the root of all suffering.’
Lambeth: Kant and the 19th century, PHIL 301 (TTh 1:00 p.m.)
This course will consider Kant’s revolutionary philosophy and its reception in the 19th century. We will focus on Kant’s account of human rationality, where our rationality radically determines what we experience, as well as the moral rules that we are obliged to follow. Turning to the 19th century, we will begin with Hegel’s support for Kant: by historicizing and justifying the form of rationality identified by Kant, Hegel positions it as the outcome of a historical progression in which we have come to know ourselves better. We will then move to Kierkegaard’s more ambiguous take on Kant: while he offers some admiration for following moral rules, he argues that there is something higher than obeying the dictates of rationality. Finally, we will conclude with Nietzsche’s critical reception of Kant: positioning Kantian morality as the outcome of a long historical process in which we have systematically deceived ourselves, Nietzsche argues that Kantian morality is no longer apt for our current historical moment.
Lee: Philosophy of Feminism, PHIL 343 (TTh 11:30am)
The difference of gender and sex is relevant to every area of human life. Feminist Philosophy begins with speculations of what does it mean to be a woman, to be the gender and the embodiment of female. How are we the same and different from men? How are we the same and different from other women? The class then turns to the question of knowledge specific to women, feminist epistemology: can women claim specific knowledge as women? Finally, we turn to the condition of pleasure and fear of sexuality for women, including the force of compulsory heterosexuality.
Lee: Philosophy of Race, Class, and Gender, PHIL 377 (TTh 10am)
Despite the history of analyzing race, class, and gender as separate phenomena, the three are integrally linked. Perhaps because our present analysis predominantly treats them as three wholly separate entities, we have yet to achieve an encompassing understanding of them. This class will focus on the interstitial connections among the three. Beginning from the Latin American and Asian American philosophy before considering the usual binary that defines studies of race—the black-white binary—we shall continue to ask how class and sexuality disrupt and force the dialogue to change and expand its parameters.
