Selected topics in philosophy of language, such as truth, meaning, reference, names, descriptions, demonstratives.

Introduction to contemporary methods in philosophical research and writing.

The goal of this course to develop a piece of philosophical writing from an initial draft into a polished piece of philosophical work. The instructor and student must agree on the paper to work on at the beginning of the practicum, which in many cases will be a past term paper written for another course which the student has received good feedback on, but still requires improvement. The student and faculty member will meet to discuss drafts of the paper and ways to improve it, including doing additional research, refining the philosophical argumentation, and improving the writing.

Not available at this time

Critical study of recent work in moral philosophy. May include utilitarian, Kantian, or other normative theories, as well as naturalistic, nonnaturalistic, or emotivist theories in metaethics.

Critical analysis of structure of scientific method and language of science, respective roles of induction and deduction in science, and the status of theoretical terms.

This is a course on some of the central topics in the philosophy of art, including (i) The Demarcation Problem (what is art?), (ii) The Existential Problem (what is art for?), (iii) the ontology of art objects (are novels and musical compositions created or discovered?), and (iv) the nature of aesthetic value

Topics may include knowledge, epistemic justification, belief, truth, perception, skepticism.