'Introduces the analysis of cultural diversity, including concepts, methods, and purposes in interpreting social, economic, political, and belief systems found in human societies.'

'Introduces the analysis of cultural diversity, including concepts, methods, and purposes in interpreting social, economic, political, and belief systems found in human societies.'

'Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is one of the few works in the Western philosophic tradition that fundamentally transformed our understanding of the place of human beings in the world. This seminar involves a careful, critical reading of the text in order to assess the nature and significance of the epistemological and metaphysical views it expounds. There will be frequent, short papers.'

'This course presents a careful development of predicate calculus, formal elementary number theory, and elementary recursion theory, culminating in a proof of Godel's incompleteness results. It includes some discussion of the philosophical significance of these results for the foundations of mathematics.'

'When you act bravely, can you be scared? How do you know that you are not dreaming now? If everyone told you you weren't a person, would you believe them? These questions are raised by children's books, such as Frog and Toad Together and The Bear That Wasn't. In this course, you will learn how to conduct discussions of philosophical questions like these among elementary school children using picture books. The first half of the course will concentrate on developing the necessary skills; the second on teaching philosophy to the children.

The purpose of this course is to explore philosophical problems concerning the arts and aesthetic experience. Some questions to be explored include: What is the difference between beauty and moral goodness? Can taste be objective? What does it mean for a work of music to be 'sad'? Are the intentions of artists relevant to appreciation? What is the purpose of art criticism? How do pictures represent objects? Readings will be drawn from both historical and contemporary philosophical writings.

This course explores long-standing questions about the nature of consciousness; the relationship between mind and body; the relationship between mind and language; and the role that science has (if any) in negotiating these questions. The course will emphasize the philosophical understanding and implications of current work in neuroscience.

'Modern medicine has raised new and difficult moral and philosophical problems. Topics discussed include: What is the distinction between health and illness? How should limited health care resources be distributed? How are medical problems related to larger social problems (e.g., gender inequality)? What are the responsibilities of medical researchers toward their research subjects? What moral reasons do we have to be concerned about the growth of technology in medicine? Are the basic institutions of medicine and medical education just?'

'This course begins its survey of the discipline of the philosophy of religion with the work of Augustine. We then proceed to an examination of the classical theistic arguments for knowledge of God's existence (those of Anselm, Aquinas, and Maimonides) that dominated Scholastic thought and consider the criticisms of these approaches by Enlightenment philosophers such as Kant. We trace the rise of experience as the central category of pietism and romanticism in Schleiermacher's Speeches.

This course cultivates sound reasoning. Students will learn to see the structure of claims and arguments and to use those structures in developing strong arguments and exposing shoddy ones. We will learn to evaluate arguments on the strength of the reasoning rather than on the force of their associations and buzzwords.