Click on any of the following course titles to see a course description and a link to my course syllabus. NOTE that future course syllabi may change, so don't buy the books unless you see the semester you plan to take the course listed on the syllabus itself.
This course examines the ethical decisions that individual physicians, nurses, family, and patients face in health care practice, as well as some of the larger policy questions concerning medicine and biomedical research faced by the government and the voters (e.g. whether laws should be created to allow physician-assisted suicide). Syllabus.
Is the mind a mysterious thing, forever beyond the grasp of scientific study? Or has recent work in psychology, brain physiology, and artificial intelligence shown the way to a new science of the mind?
This course will examine the history of debates about the nature of the
mind, from ancient Greek times to the present. We will begin with the
dualist, rationalist view of the mind introduced by Plato, move to Hume's
empiricist, mechanistic model, and then consider early attempts to study the
mind scientifically in 20th century psychology. We will then critically
examine an increasingly influential view according to which the mind is best
understood as a highly modular information processing mechanism, one that has
evolved into its current form through various selective pressures. Syllabus.
This is a philosophical investigation of the moral and legal dimensions of parenting. Students will become familiar with some of the significant moral controversies about parenting practices, and the laws governing those practices. The focus will be on students learning and applying techniques of moral reasoning to analyze and defend positions of their own on those controversies. One of the techniques will be the use of moral theories to better understand the deeper roots of the controversies. Students will read popular authors such as Dr. Benjamin Spock, James Dobson, and Judith Harris, as well as classic works in ethics by Aristotle, Locke, Kant, and Mill. Syllabus
An introduction to some of the philosophical ideas and problems that have
shaped our modern culture, including free will, the mind-body problem, the
existence of God, personal identity, relativism, and skepticism. Along the way
we investigate five systematic approaches to such issues: theistic dualism,
naturalism, rationalism, empiricism, and pragmatism. Syllabus.
This is an introductory course in ethics. We begin by discussing some
contemporary moral issues, including world hunger, abortion, euthanasia, and
vegetarianism. We then turn to consider some of the central questions of moral
theory. Syllabus.
This course investigates some of the major figures of the Modern period of Western philosophical thought, including Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. The focus is on the epistemological and metaphysical issues discussed by three authors: Descartes, Hume, and Kant.
Topics to be discussed include scepticism, the nature of reason, the
existence of God, the mind/body problem, free will, the nature of substance,
necessity and contingency, innate ideas, primary and secondary qualities, the
nature and sources of ideas, representational theories of perception, personal
identity, causality, a priori and a posteriori knowledge, and transcendental
idealism. Syllabus.
This course examines basic metaphysical problems such as free will, the mind-body
problem, life after death, and some of the systems of thought that attempt to
deal with them. Syllabus.
This is an introduction to moral theory, including such figures as Plato, Aristotle,
Kant, and Mill. A full syllabus is not available at this time.
This course is a philosophical examination of the nature and function of the human community and the political state, and of the implications for individual life of alternative conceptions of society and politics. We consider some of the more influential philosophical approaches to these issue by such authors as Plato, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Mill, Marx, Smith, Rawls, and Nozick.
A systematic investigation of the historical origins of the concept of
justice and its application to domestic and international issues involving
human rights. Special attention is given
to issues of power and social control. Syllabus.
This course is an examination of attempts to simulate human cognitive
processing, or intelligence, using computers. Students will learn what has and
has not been accomplished by artificial intelligence (AI) research, and the
differing approaches of symbolic AI and connectionism. We will also explore
philosophical questions about whether a machine could ever truly 'think', given
the roles of consciousness, emotion, free will, and intentionality in human
thought. Syllabus.
Modern science poses a serious challenge to traditional ways of thinking
about the universe and our place in it. In the first two units of this course
we examine the scientific theories of Einstein and Darwin. The goal is to
appreciate why these scientists thought themselves forced to their conclusions,
and to understand the effects of those conclusions on modern thought and
culture. This requires learning some of the mathematical skills and factual
knowledge involved in the development of each branch of science (physics and
evolutionary biology). The third unit of the course is devoted to studying
three revolutionary figures from outside physical science, Marx, Nietzsche, and
Freud. Each of these figures has had a significant influence on intellectual
life, and on the "high" culture of literature, music, and the visual
arts. Syllabus.
This course is a critical, in-depth examination of issues and perspectives
in the theory of knowledge. We start with Plato's Theaetetus, as an
historical introduction. We then turn to four competing theories of the sources
and possibilities of human knowledge: rationalism, empiricism, skepticism, and
pragmatism. Finally, we look at some contemporary disputes over the proper
analysis of the concept of knowledge, the nature of justified belief
(foundationalism, coherentism, and externalism), and whether the theory of
knowledge should be treated as an autonomous displine. Syllabus.
This course explores three philosophical questions about science:
1. What is the "scientific method"? What marks off science as different from religion, astrology, or art?
2. Is science "objective," or more objective than such fields as religion, astrology, or art?
3. What are the implications of science for our understanding of ourselves and of the world, for our values, and for our culture?
Along the way, we consider philosophical problems connected with induction,
falsifiability, pseudo-science, explanation, laws, observation, probability,
causation, simplicity, space and time, and quantum theory. Syllabus.