Fall 2026 Course Descriptions
PHIL 383 Postmodernism MW 11:30-12:45 (Matthew Calarco)
This course examines the transition from “modernism” (roughly, the period of philosophy running from Descartes to Kant and Hegel) to “postmodernism” (which begins with Nietzsche’s critique of the presuppositions of modernism and continues in twentieth-century Continental philosophy). Our guiding thread for this examination will be the question of the “subject,” that is, the “self” or “agent” that underlies cognition, ethics, and politics. Some of the questions that are posed in the transition from modernism to postmodernism include: What is the relationship between subjectivity and knowledge? And between subjectivity and morality? What occurs to classical conceptions of knowledge and morality when dominant conceptions of the subject are displaced? Does postmodernism signal the end of ethics and knowledge tout court, or does it create the conditions for another ethics and form of life? We will close the course by examining how recent critiques of digital capitalism have led to the revitalization of classical ethical notions of care of self and other.
PHIL 323 Existentialism TTh 10:00-11:15am AND TTh 2:30-3:45pm (Brady Heiner)
A hallmark of existential philosophy is the paradoxical incompleteness of existential questions. We are often led to confront this incompleteness and the structures of our existence in moments of crisis, in times of war or distress, in moods of anxiety or despair, in circumstances that unravel the habitual meaning-contexts of our concerns and force us to make choices and act in ways that exceed the framework of the familiar. Such ruptures, according to existential philosophy, exhibit the errancy of the traditional ontological claim that our being or our values have foundations in some already established transcendent essence. The existential philosophical perspective makes no such appeal to the transcendent, arguing instead that existence precedes essence. Existential thought views human being not as a given (natural or cultural) but as a project, a practice. We must choose ourselves and our values, and our choice has no other basis than our own existence as situated embodied agents. The full responsibility for our identities, our values, our actions, ultimately comes to rest upon us. As French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre put it, we are condemned to be free, and authentically inhabiting that freedom is an always unfinished process plagued with structural tendencies toward evasion and self-delusion.
This course examines existentialist perspectives on freedom, responsibility, authenticity, self-deception, racism, and oppression by studying significant texts drawn from European, Africana, and Native American existentialist philosophy, literature, and film since the late nineteenth century, and by reading those texts in relation to the lived contexts of concern from which they emerge. The first half of the course will explore the philosophical fundamentals of European existentialism, looking at the work of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and French philosophers Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. The second half of the course will examine existentialist thought beyond (and in dialogue with) Europe, from what Latin American philosopher Enrique Dussel calls “the underside of modernity.” Existential questions of identity, agency, and liberation have been continually, and often urgently, posed and confronted by people whose very humanity has been denigrated by the modern world. We will analyze such questions as they are articulated in exemplary existential works by enslaved African abolitionist Frederick Douglass, African American philosopher Angela Y. Davis, Caribbean cultural and political theorist Frantz Fanon, Native American novelist Leslie Marmon Silko, and African American novelist and cultural critic Toni Morrison.
PHIL 368 1st Course in Symbolic Logic (Andrew Howat)
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.
GE C.2 PHIL 300 Rationalism and Empiricism TTh 10:00-11:15 AND 2:30-3:45 (Morganna Lambeth)
This course will provide an overview of early modern philosophy. The early modern period saw an incredible amount of progress, both in natural science and philosophy. Throughout this course, we will engage with a question that preoccupied early modern philosophers: how can we reconcile an increasingly scientific worldview with religious convictions? Can we spell out a convincing connection between the physical body and the spiritual mind, as rationalists like Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza attempted? Should we abandon our commitment to absolutes, and build up our philosophy from empirical observations, as empiricists like Locke, Berkeley, and Hume attempted? In addition to reviewing mainstream rationalist and empiricist views, this course will pay special attention to the contributions of philosophers who have traditionally been underrepresented in the early modern canon, including Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, Anton Wilhelm Amo, and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.
PHIL 311 Aesthetics TTh 11:30-12:45 (Morganna Lambeth)
This course will provide an overview of aesthetics, or the philosophy of art. In the first part of the course, we will consider the history of aesthetics, examining thinkers such as Plato, Hume, and Kant. Here, major questions will include “What is beauty?” and “What is the relationship between art and morality?”. In the second part of the course, we will consider contemporary debates in aesthetics. Here, major questions will include “What is art?” and “Why do we resist, or fail to imaginatively cooperate with, certain works of art?”. Throughout the course, we will consider philosophical treatments of art in conjunction with real examples of artwork.
GE B.5 PHIL 303 Philosophy of Science (Emily Lee)
As a form of knowledge, science enjoys a privileged status. Its discoveries are widely regarded as uniquely objective, value-neutral, rigorously established, and consequently true. Yet in recent times, sociology, history, postmodernism, and feminist theory have challenged the conceptions of objectivity and rationality that underlie scientific claims to knowledge. This course examines the ongoing debates within philosophy of science about the claims, the reach, and limits of scientific knowledge and the scientific method.
GE Z PHIL 377 Philosophy of Race, Class, and Gender (Emily Lee)
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.
PHIL 440 Philosophy of Mind (JeeLoo Liu)
What is the nature of mind? Is it something over and above the brain, or is it simply a function of the brain itself? If some animals are said to have minds because they behave intelligently, could machines have minds as well? What does it mean to be “conscious,” and where should we draw the line between the conscious and the unconscious within the human mind? Could machines ever become conscious?
This course introduces students to some of the most important debates in contemporary philosophy of mind. We will focus on two central questions: the relation between mind and body, and the nature of consciousness. In the first half of the course, we will trace the historical development of the field and examine major theories such as substance dualism, mind-brain identity theory, functionalism, reductionism, and nonreductive physicalism. In the second half, we will turn to competing accounts of consciousness and ask what, if anything, makes human conscious experience unique. Along the way, we will consider whether advances in artificial intelligence should change how we think about mind, intelligence, and consciousness. The course is taught in a lecture-discussion format and requires close reading, analytical thinking, and active participation.
GE B.5/5U PHIL 322 Ethics, AI and Robots (JeeLoo Liu)
This interdisciplinary course explores the philosophical and ethical dimensions of AI and robotics in light of the growing impact of artificial intelligence on society. Will generative AI one day replace human thinking? What will happen to society if AI continues to displace human labor? How should we address the implicit biases embedded in AI training data and applications? How do we ensure that AI systems align with human values? How should we prepare for the social alienation that may be brought about by AI chatbots?
This course also examines major questions in robot ethics. Could robots ever become conscious? Could robots be moral agents? What ethical guidelines should govern a robot’s moral reasoning and decision-making? Should robots be permitted to lie or deceive? Could we entrust robots with the care of the elderly and children? Is it ethically permissible to develop romantic or sexual relationships with robots?
The course places heavy emphasis on class discussion and online forum participation. Students are expected to complete assigned readings prior to each class meeting and to participate actively in discussion.
