Is free will possible if all our actions are causally determined? Might we be justified in blaming, praising, rewarding, or punishing people even if their actions are not free? Abstract metaphysical questions about freedom intersect in important ways with everyday problems in our relationships with others and our attitudes about moral ignorance, addiction, and madness. This course will examine these issues side by side in the hope of improving our understanding of freedom and responsibility.

Nagel states, "Without consciousness the mind-body problem would be much less interesting. With consciousness it seems hopeless." Chalmers calls consciousness "the hard problem." Explaining consciousness raises significant challenges for philosophers and cognitive scientists alike, and understanding the nature of the problem is half the battle. This class will explore contemporary philosophical approaches to consciousness, and draw in psychology and neuroscience perspectives. Topics may also include split-brain problems, the nature of dreaming, and altered states.

This course develops a symbolic system that can be used as the basis for inference in all fields. It will provide syntax and semantics for the language of this system and investigate its adequacy. It provides the basis for all further work in logic or in the philosophical foundations of mathematics. Much of the course has a mathematical flavor, but no knowledge of mathematics is necessary.

What is the right thing to do? What makes a life good? The purpose of this course is to critically examine some of the key theoretical approaches to answering these questions. We will focus on three main ethical theories: (1) virtue ethics, which focuses on the importance of good character; (2) utilitarianism, which focuses on promoting the happiness of all; and (3) Kantianism, which focuses on an agent's reasons for acting. We will also discuss contemporary alternatives to and criticisms of these traditions.

Philosophy was transformed during the 17th and 18th centuries, in a period known as the Modern period, or the Enlightenment. This period is important for the background of our current views both in Philosophy and in intellectual endeavor generally. In this course, we'll look at the major figures involved in this transformation, and the positions about knowledge and reality that they defended. We'll have selections from the work of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. We might not cover all of these, but will get to most.

An introduction to ancient Greek philosophy, focusing mainly but not exclusively on the works and ideas of three Athenian philosophers who worked and taught in the period between the Persian Wars and the rule of Alexander the Great, more than 2,300 years ago: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Topics to be discussed include: What is the nature of the self? What is truth, and how can it be known? What kind of life should we live? We will work to understand each philosopher's responses to these questions, but we will also learn to develop our own answers.

What kind of life should a person live? What can we know about the world? Do we have souls that are separate from our bodies? The aim of the course is to learn how to do philosophy by engaging with philosophical thinkers from around the globe. We read some philosophers from the Western tradition (such as Plato and Sartre) alongside philosophers from other historical traditions, such as the Daoist thinker Zhuangzi and the Sufi mystic al-Ghazali, and we also read the work of more recent philosophers of color (such as Anthony Appiah and Maria Lugones).

Performance study - individual instruction.

Performance study - individual instruction.

Performance study - individual instruction.