Current Courses

A survey of moral philosophy in the Western tradition. What makes right actions right and wrong actions wrong? What is it to have a virtuous rather than a vicious...

Preference to freshmen. Historical and contemporary philosophical perspectives on the limits of human knowledge of a mind-independent world and causal laws of nature. The...

Newton's Principia is widely and rightly acknowledged as a landmark achievement in physics that has had a profound impact on the subsequent development of science. This...

Aristotle claims in the Physics that, "the student of Nature must contemplate of the infinite, with a view to determining whether it exists at all, and, if so, what is its...

Survey of important formal methods used in philosophy. The course covers the basics of propositional and elementary predicate logic, probability and decision theory, game...

The nature of scientific knowledge: evidence and confirmation; scientific explanation; models and theories; objectivity; science, society, and values.

The nature of scientific knowledge: evidence and confirmation; scientific explanation; models and theories; objectivity; science, society, and values.

The nature of scientific knowledge: evidence and confirmation; scientific explanation; models and theories; objectivity; science, society, and values.

Galileo's defense of the Copernican world-system that initiated the scientific revolution of the 17th century, led to conflict between science and religion, and influenced...

This course addresses moral issues that play a major role in contemporary public discourse. The course aims to encourage students to consider moral problems in a...

This course provides an overview of core ethical problems in international politics, with special emphasis on the question of what demands justice imposes on institutions...

Intensive study of central topics in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language and mind in preparation for advanced courses in philosophy. Emphasis on development...

Intensive study of central topics in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language and mind in preparation for advanced courses in philosophy. Emphasis on development...

The most characteristic feature of analytic metaphysics is the prominent role that it assigns to logic, and analytic philosophy owes its existence to the revolutionary...

The purpose of this course is to explore questions concerning Scientific and Mathematical Realism. We ask, do entities to which scientific theories refer REALLY exist? For...

We shall cover the major developments in Greek philosophical thought, focusing on Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic schools (the Epicureans, the Stoics, and the...

The Republic is one most famous and influential texts in the history of Western philosophy. We shall read in its entirety closely (along with some other related Platonic...

This course is an introduction to the metaphysical thought of St. Thomas Aquinas (1225 ¿ 1274), one of the most important and influential philosopher-theologians of the...

(Graduate students register for 225.) The founding work of Kant's critical philosophy emphasizing his contributions to metaphysics and epistemology. His attempts to limit...

(Formerly 160A.) The syntax and semantics of sentential and first-order logic. Concepts of model theory. Gödel's completeness theorem and its consequences: the Löwenheim-...

(Graduate Students register for PHIL 253 or FEMGEN 203) Concepts and questions distinctive of feminist and LGBT scholarship and how they shape research: gender,...

This course surveys a range of non-classical logics. Each week, we discuss the formal rules and philosophical underpinnings of a different system. Key topics include...

Graduate students register for 265.) Central topic alternates annually between space-time theories and philosophical issues in quantum mechanics; the latter in Winter 2013...