These latter writings of Kant's had a tremendous influence on the development of subsequent moral philosophy and indeed set the stage for contemporary discussions of the nature of practical reason, motivation, freedom, and morality. In this course we address key themes and figures from two of the most influential movements in twentieth century European philosophy, namely, existentialism and phenomenology, a philosophical approach to which existentialism is indebted. With what limits and justifications? Thus, the barber shaves himself if and only if he does not shave himself. With few exceptions, thoroughgoing skepticism and relativism have not been the prevailing views of the greatest minds in the history of philosophy. It turns out, however, to be surprisingly difficult to say what causation is. Students who have take PHIL 203 will have a good background for this class, but students who are generally comfortable with formal systems need not have taken PHIL 203. Are there incompatible but equally true ways of describing the world? Some of the questions which we will discuss are: What is a person? We will read the Oresteia and Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus, Sophocles' Theban Cycle, and the Hippolytus, Bacchae and Philoctetes by Euripides. I don't know how exactly how many grains of sand are in this heap, but let's say 100,000. In particular, one must grasp that "three of them" picks out a subset of the group picked out by "every cookie", and that there's no such thing as a cookie that is both chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin. We will begin by examining the general concepts of health and disease, and then apply them to human psychology. The worldview that underlies classical tragedy, however, seems markedly different from the one that we find in classical philosophy. While Plato and Aristotle differ on many points, they share the belief that the cosmos and the human place within it can be understood by rational means. Updated July 4, 2015 1.41am first published July 3, 2015 3.55pm. justice or passionate commitment and curiosity) over happiness? use tab and shift-tab to navigate once expanded, Covid-19 is an ongoing concern in our region, including on campus. What is the nature of consciousness and how can it be unhappy, false or double? There will be a series of short response papers in which you provide a careful analysis of particular arguments in our texts. In the last century New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani attempted to shut down the Brooklyn Museum "Sensations" exhibit because he claimed it offended Christians, and the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center was prosecuted for exhibiting allegedly obscene photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe. What kind of work is that, and how is it accomplished? To do this we will explore topics that might traditionally be considered "women's issues" in healthcare, such as medicine and body image (e.g., cosmetic surgery, eating disorders), reproductive and genetic technologies, and research on women and their health care needs. It seems like there is still a heap of sand in my backyard. more broadly, what it is like to have a first person, waking perspective at all--resists explanation in any terms other than the conscious experience itself in spite of centuries of intense effort by philosophers and, more recently, by scientists. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Yet, other lesser known experiments are equally important landmarks in research ethics, as well, such as the Willowbrook experiment, in which residents of a state home for mentally impaired children were intentionally infected with a virus that causes hepatitis, and the Kennedy-Krieger Lead Abatement study, which tested the efficacy of a new lead paint removal procedure by housing young children in partially decontaminated homes and testing those children for lead exposure. How can we ensure that AI's will act morally? How does film generate meaning? [more], Put simply, metaphilosophy is reflection on the nature of philosophy: Can it be defined? We will raise questions concerning the task of philosophy, the structure and meaning constituting function of consciousness, the relationship between self and other, the mind-body relationship, freedom, authenticity, and absurdity. The focus will be on model-theoretic semantics, the sub-field of linguistics that studies meanings. Each identified the limits, whether historical or innate, of our human capacity to know ourselves and our world, and to live harmoniously with others. Is that principle of organization justifiable or not? Could we (individually and socially) educate and cultivate them? Key ideas and concepts such as the death of god, the use and abuse of history, the eternal recurrence, will to power, and master and slave morality will be addressed. More than this, Existentialists emphasize the subjective relation we bear to our belief systems, moral codes, and personal identities. We doubt, we point out that no one can be certain in what she believes, and we are suspicious of declarations of transcendent reason or truth (unless they are our own). How can we reconcile this faith with the persistence of domination today? The first portion of the course will be devoted to considering general theories of justice as well as alternative conceptions of justice specifically within the health care context. In the first part of the course, we will read Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, one of the greatest books ever written. What is the mind? It will be very helpful, though not absolutely necessary, for you to have some familiarity with logic and some experience in reading philosophy. In fact, it seems like you can't change a heap of sand into something that isn't a heap of sand by removing one grain of sand. Is a sentence's relation to previously uttered sentences similar to its relation to extra-linguistic events? Walsh's wife Meredith was taken to a nearby hospital for cuts to her leg. What is the relationship between the mind and the body? [more], This will be a course in the philosophy of language at it has developed over the past century and a half in the analytic tradition. In the second part of the course, we will read On Certainty, and selections from other of Wittgenstein's posthumously published works: Zettel, Philosophical Grammar, Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, Culture and Value, Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief, and The Big Typescript. Is it forced on people who endorse cultural pluralism as their political ideal as the only tenable philosophical position? Does freedom require leading (or avoiding) a political life? In this course, we will spend the first third of the semester attempting to understand the metaphysics and epistemology in Plato's middle dialogues. One must grasp the meanings of the various parts of the sentence. This tutorial aims to provide students with the skills necessary for careful, serious and thorough reading of Wittgenstein's later philosophy. The first portion of the course will be devoted to developing and understanding four moral principles which have come to be accepted as canonical: respect for autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. In this course we address the question: How is the present we find ourselves living today different from the one that the author Foucault wrote about in the 1960s, 70s and early 80s before his untimely death in 1984? What are space and time? If time permits, we may also look at how the figure of Socrates has been thought about in the works of more modern thinkers. For example, many people would agree that 'Keith's favorite unicorn' is a meaningful expression. In this tutorial we will read philosophical texts from a range of approaches in professional philosophy since the early 20th Century (Analytic, Pragmatist, Continental or European, and Public). The debate never transpired - indeed, Leibniz suppressed his New Essays - because of Locke's death in 1705. We examine key concepts such as: capitalism, alienation, false consciousness, the death of God, nihilism, the unconscious, ego, id, superego, and the death drive. Of course, this question cannot really be answered, nor is there any value in trying to answer it, and any "answer" will only be "true" for you. Why do we seek to experience through film fear and anguish that we avoid in our daily lives? We will look at civil disobedience and theories of legal interpretation. According to the other, every class was well-populated, potentially by different groups. Along the way, we will need to come to grips with the following surprising fact. What are the social and ethical prerequisites--and consequences--of democracy? Your email address will not be published. In this course, we will survey the ethics of public health through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic, investigating concepts and arguments that are central to the ethics of public health research and practice. To do this, we will need to become familiar with key ethical theories; think deeply about such concepts as privacy, paternalism and autonomy, exploitation, cost-benefit analysis and justice; and compare the function of these concepts in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic with the way they work in responses to other public health concerns. We will attempt answers by studying classical works (such as Plato's Republic and John Stuart Mill's On Liberty), contemporary articles, and works of art in various media. Milan Kundera tried to answer this question by saying that a good philosophical novel does not serve philosophy but, on the contrary, tries to "get hold of a domain that () philosophy had kept for itself. UPDATE: Footy world pays tribute to Crows coach as AFL cancels Crows clash, Walsh, a man consumed by football Phil Walsh tragedy: rolling coverageCrows-Cats clash called offStatement from Gillon McLachlan on round 14. The goals of this course are to improve the critical thinking of the students, to introduce them to sentential and predicate logic, to familiarize them with enough formal logic to enable them to read some of the great works of philosophy, which use formal logic (such as Wittgenstein's. We will see how a focus on language affects our understanding of many traditional philosophical questions, ranging from epistemology and metaphysics to aesthetics and ethics. What is the mind? What are other models for understanding moral objectivity? According to one, there is a single group of students that had their hands extremely full this semester. Along the way, we will need to come to grips with the following surprising fact. In this course, we will investigate dynamic communicative phenomena and discuss competing theoretical explanations about how they're interpreted. When, if ever, is paternalistic interference by the state into the lives of its citizens justified? Why should one obey the law (if one should)? metaphysics, epistemology, moral and political philosophy, philosophy of mind. The debate between Realism and Idealism concerns whether reality is composed of mind-independent matter, or mind-like substances. Through an examination of these works, we will try to get some feeling for what Socrates' controversial positions and his arguments for these positions may have been. Students should be aware that, in the classic tradition, this class resembles a logic course. The view of the tragedians can lead to a thoroughgoing nihilism according to which --the best thing of all [for a human being] is never to have born-but the next best thing is to die soon (Aristotle's Eudemus as quoted in Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy; see also Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus)." We will read works by three of Socrates' contemporaries: Aristophanes, Xenophon, and especially Plato. this tutorial, we'll read portions of Rawls' major works. How important are honor, money, love, work, friendship and our connections to others to our happiness? How do our thoughts refer to objects? Consequently, many philosophers deeply influenced by pragmatism do not recognize the fact, while, on the other hand, some self-proclaimed pragmatists of our days can hardly be seen as continuing the tradition to which they pledge allegiance. He hoped it would occasion a public debate between Locke and himself, and prompt the intellectual community to decide, once and for all, between Empiricism and Rationalism, Realism and Idealism, and on related issues concerning the mind, language, truth, God, natural kinds, causation, and freedom. How did you develop your character? Gulliver's Travels, Part III, chapter 10. No domain of inquiry is immune to this destructive skepticism and confident relativism. Authors will include Plato, Anselm, Aquinas, Pascal, Paley, Hume, Kant, Kierkegaard, and several contemporary philosophers. What does it mean to be "philosophical" or to think "theoretically" about politics? If so, what are the constraints on good revisions? You are very likely to be offended by some of the art we discuss. In this course we take up questions such as the following: What sorts of subjects do we find in modern Western societies? Who are the people, anyway? Leibniz wrote his New Essays in 1704 as a critical response to Locke's Essay of 1690. How did you develop your character? Finally, there are those who do not think philosophy can contribute much at all to answering such questions and others who question its claims to universality given its associations with colonialism, racism, sexism, etc. Aside from its overwhelming influence on 20th and 21st century philosophy and intellectual culture, any book which contains the remark, " if a lion could talk, we could not understand him," deserves serious attention. Or is it a supreme illusion, a dream-like escape, the domain in which the viewer's unconscious wishes are magically fulfilled? The second portion of the course will use feminist philosophy to inform our understanding of the ways in which gender structures the individual's interactions with the health care system. ways of thinking about formal proof: natural deduction systems, semantic tableaux, axiomatic systems and sequent calculi. What, you may ask, is the philosophy of logic? Could the world be made up of sensory properties only? We will examine the wager in its original home of Pascal's Pensees, and look at William James' related article, "The Will to Believe." In this course, we will examine a number of Greek tragedies and philosophical writing on tragedy and the tragic. Existentialists investigate deeply irrational phenomena of human life, including anxiety, boredom, tragedy, despair, death, faith, sexuality, love, hate, sadism, masochism, and authenticity. know anything through reason alone? In this tutorial we will exploit this characteristic of biomedical ethics by using a case-based approach to examining core concepts of the field. Our study will definitely include Frege, Russell, Quine, Searle, and Kripke. Beyond this common ground, however, epistemologists are much divided. In this tutorial, we will investigate the nature of skepticism and the varieties of relativism it encourages. We will see how a focus on language affects our understanding of many traditional philosophical questions, ranging from epistemology and metaphysics to aesthetics and ethics. [more], At the beginning of the last century Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Finally, we will examine some of Aristotle's works on metaphysics, epistemology and ethics, considering some of the ways Aristotle's thought responds to that of predecessors. claimed it offended Christians, and the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center was prosecuted for exhibiting allegedly obscene photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe. Is it possible to have systematic knowledge of subjective experience? When should we give morality priority over personal commitments and relationships, and why? Among the questions that we will address: What is justice? From there it is a natural transition to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. And right now there are autonomous vehicles deciding how to behave in traffic, and autonomous weapons capable of delivering lethal force. Ms. Sydney Walsh-Wilcox '83 P'23 (Sibling) Ms. Jenny Walsh Singer '99 (Sibling) . They help us ask: What is freedom? We will then discuss philosophies of science which emerged out of various criticisms of this view - especially those of Popper, Lakatos, Kuhn and Feyerabend - and the challenges to the assumptions of scientific objectivity and rationality their works provoked. questions will be: What makes a thinker an "Existentialist"? (i) You are psyched. While you're debating whether to take this class, consider the following puzzle. Is film today really distinct from a number of new, emerging visual media? seek answers to the following kinds of questions: When is it rational to have a particular belief? We will read the great 20th century philosopher who saw education as the foundation of democracy: John Dewey. On 3 July 2015, Walsh was found dead in his Somerton Park home. Is philosophy of film really autonomous, independent from traditional philosophical disciplines which help generate its central questions, such as aesthetics, philosophy of art, epistemology, ontology, semiotics, ethics, social and political philosophy? Initial tutorial meetings will focus on theoretical materials that will background later discussions and will include classic readings from the environmental ethics literature (e.g., Leopold, Taylor, Rolston). Hegel and Karl Marx. Near the end of the semester, we'll also examine some evolutionary explanations of religious belief. (iv) It is possible that you are reading. On the sports field? Commentators ranging from technology magnates to physics geniuses-not to mention decades of apocalyptic science fiction-have urged that that future is nothing short of an existential threat to human beings. [more], Why are you here? Our discussions will range over historical and contemporary works in the Western tradition. Which characteristics of persons give them moral status? If loyalty is a virtue, what are the proper limits of its cultivation and expression? What is the nature of audience's response to film? If there are such things--we'll call them propositions--what are they like? The seminar will be structured around a close, critically engaged reading of the, Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations", action, knowledge, ethics, religion, aesthetics, culture, and of course, philosophy itself. Does freedom require leading (or avoiding) a political life? [more], It is a generally held belief, in our time and culture, that science is the best source of our knowledge of the world, and of ourselves. [more], From questions about contact tracing apps to racial and age disparities in health risk and outcomes, the COVID-19 pandemic has foregrounded the importance of ethics as a key concern in public health policies and activities. We will then turn to a variety of more recent attempts to give a clear characterization of causation. argument, the cosmological argument, the teleological argument, the argument from religious experience, and the argument from evil). No one can have an adequate understanding of western intellectual history without some familiarity with the Greeks, and we might think that an understanding of our intellectual history can deepen our understanding of our own situation. In addition we'll also look at feminist analyses of topics that traditionally have not been regarded as "gendered," such as resource allocation and end of life issues. Assigned works will include Booker T. Washington. Perhaps, then, economics is not primarily a predictive science, but instead a descriptive, historical, and/or mathematical one. [more], The aim of the course is to survey, analyze and discuss many varieties of relativism--semantic, epistemic, ontological and moral--from Plato's Theaetetus to contemporary social constructivism. Tamanika T. Steward. In this course, we will spend the first third of the semester attempting to understand the metaphysics and epistemology in Plato's middle dialogues. What are some of the necessary conditions for democracy? What are emotions, and how should we think about them? In fact, Socrates seems to have been thought of as a kind of intellectual saint in the Hellenistic world. [more], Much like the construction of medical knowledge itself, it is from specific cases that general principles of biomedical ethics arise and are systematized into a theoretical framework, and it is to cases they must return, if they are to be both useful and comprehensible to those making decisions within the biomedical context. The Wittgenstein of the Tractatus is known as the "earlier Wittgenstein," the Wittgenstein of the Investigations is known as the "later Wittgenstein." We make causal judgments constantly in our everyday lives and in scientific contexts. To notify Williams of alumni deaths, please email, Experiential Learning & Community Engagement. Finally, we will analyze the current debate about cognitive credentials of science and about proper approaches to the study of science, which came to be known as "the science wars.". Or can meaning be allocated only to entire sets of beliefs? Were they simply too unsophisticated and confused to understand what is for us the irresistible power of skepticism and relativism? Introduction to Critical Theory: The Enlightenment and Its Critics. Can we be mistaken about how well our lives are going, or about what has value? [more], The last line of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus famously reads: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." Logicians and mathematicians have done a good deal of work developing extensions of and alternatives to classical logic. Finally, is there a reason for philosophy of film and film theory to exist as a separate field? How do you expect to learn? In this tutorial we will read from Ancient, modern and contemporary philosophical sources as well several relevant studies in the social sciences and positive psychology movement in order to engage questions concerning happiness. Log in, register or subscribe to save articles for later. In this course we will investigate the the broad topics of consciousness and thought by surveying the many approaches to mind that yield the contemporary debates. In this tutorial, we will investigate the nature of skepticism and the varieties of relativism it encourages. Second, we will engage in some current philosophical debates concerning the concept of freedom in metaphysics, ethics, and political philosophy. 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