Fall Quarter

In this course, we will consider the role of idealization in philosophy. We’ll start with some work on idealizations and ideal theory. We’ll then read (or reread) some highlights from 20th and 21st century work in philosophy with an eye to idealization. By taking the course students will (1) gain familiarity with some important questions, debates, and texts in philosophy, and (2) further develop their ability to do philosophy, via both writing and discussion. Each week we will also discuss a question or topic related to graduate school, conferences, journals and publishing, teaching, the job market, and the profession more broadly.

This course focuses on the notion of obligation, or normativity, as it arises in the thought of some of the main thinkers during the 17th and 18th centuries often referred to as the “British Moralists.”  The thinkers addressed in this class will be Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), Ralph Cudworth (1617-1688), John Locke (1632-1704), Samuel Clarke (1675-1729), and Joseph Butler (1692-1725).   Some of the main notions we will be discussing in relation to obligation or normativity include freedom, right reason, authority, moral agency, and self-determination.

The seminar examines the development of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mind and philosophy of psychology. It includes topics such as immediate experience, sensations, private language, emotions and expression, understanding, the will, imagination, and his view of psychoanalysis. We will also examine the historical and theoretical connections with some other thinkers, among whom William James and Sigmund Freud.

In this seminar we will look at how hinge epistemology addresses core issues in social epistemology, such as deep disagreement,  genealogical challenges, testimony, trust (including trust in AI), and epistemic injustice, how it can be employed in the context of conceptual engineering, and how it can be applied to psychiatric delusions, and conspiracy theories.

What is the meaning of life? Why does life, and our lives in particular, matter (apart from mattering to us)? Is there a point or significance of it all, are we just absurd creatures with an overblown sense of self-importance? This topic, or family of topics, long associated with the heart of philosophy, is actually under-explored in the contemporary analytic wing of the discipline. Luckily, there are a few exceptions that serve as evocative doorways into the problem. We will consider these and other attempts to capture and wrestle with the problem of the meaning of life, including those of Albert Camus, Victor Frankl, Thomas Nagel, Robert Nozick, Susan Wolf and others.