Philosophy

Philosophy studies many of humanity's fundamental questions: how should we live, what kind of society should we strive towards, what are the limits of human knowledge? What is truth? Justice? Beauty? Philosophy seeks to reflect on these questions and answer them in a systematic, explicit, and rigorous way, relying on careful argumentation, and drawing from outside fields as diverse as economics, literature, religion, law, mathematics, the physical sciences, and psychology. Undergraduates may pursue a Concentration or Secondary Fields in General Philosophy, Value Theory, Contemporary Metaphysics and Epistemology, and History of Philosophy.

Director of Undergraduate Studies: Cheryl Chen

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Gateway Courses

Spring 2024

GENED 1015 Ethics of Climate Change                         
How should governments respond to the problem of climate change? What should happen to the level of greenhouse gas emissions and how quickly? How much can the present generation be expected to sacrifice to improve conditions for future generations? How should the costs of mitigation and adaptation be apportioned between countries? Should significant funds be allocated to the study of geo-engineering? We will consider these and other questions in an effort to understand our responsibilities in respect of climate change, with a special focus on the structure of the analytical frameworks that have been dominant among policymakers.

GENED 1051 Reclaiming Argument
This course aims to teach you how to manage argument and persuasion in your own life – not just with skill, but ethically. Accordingly, we will have two main goals. The first is to develop your skill at recognizing the myriad ways in which language can be used and misused as a tool for persuasion, The second goal is even more important: we hope to show you how you can – and why you should – construct your own arguments with such clarity, honesty, and logical transparency that the people you direct them to will be optimally placed to decide, for themselves, whether and why they ought to agree with you. 

PHIL 3 The True and the Good                      
The course has a two-fold focus: we will look at some of the central figures and problems of the Western philosophical tradition, including Socrates, Plato, Descartes, Locke, Kant, and Mill. We'll also look at how contemporary writers have responded to this tradition, especially from a feminist and anti-racist perspective. These include Charles Mills, Helen Longino, bell hooks, and Paul Taylor. 

PHIL 16 Sex, Love, and Friendship  
This course is about love, sex and friendship. Philosophers spend a lot of time thinking about the structure of thought, language, and reasons. They have, at least in the western tradition, paid less attention to the more visceral and emotional aspects of human experience. In this course, we’ll use some of the tools developed in philosophy to examine questions central to most of our lives: what makes a relationship a friendship?; what do we owe our friends, and how can we be good friends?; what is love, and why is it such an important feature of human life?; when is love bad, and when is it good?; what is sex?; when is sex wrong, and when is it good?; can friends be lovers?      
            
PHIL 31 Saints, Heretics, and Atheists               
This course will explore foundational questions in the philosophy of western religion through the study of classic works by Plato, Augustine, Anselm, Ibn Sina, Al-Ghazali, Aquinas, Pascal, Spinoza, Hume, Mill, Nietzsche and James, as well as discussions by contemporary authors such as Pamala Milne, Marilynne Robinson and Daniel Dennett. Students will have the opportunity to reexamine their own views and assumptions about religion in dialogue with great thinkers of the past and present.

FYSEMR 73G: The Emotions—How do they arise? How can (and should) we manage them?
Emotions are central to our lives as human beings. Strong emotions (both our own, and other people’s) are often involved in both the best and the worst times of our lives. In this seminar we will ask questions like the following: Where do emotions come from? How do they arise, and to what extent is it possible for us to exercise agency over the existence and expression of our emotions? Are emotion categories like anger universal, or culturally relative? Is there something that all instances of anger (for example) have in common, or does “anger” encompass a diverse range of states and experiences? Is there a single basis for anger in the brain? Is it possible that we can create an emotion in ourselves by ascribing that emotion to ourselves?
For help answering these and other related questions, we will turn to three sources, considered in rotation, to help us construct a dialogue between these authors as they develop their ideas. Brene Brown, in “Atlas of the Heart,” surveys the incredible complexity of human emotion and offers advice on managing these emotions. Lisa Feldman Barrett, in “How Emotions Are Made,” describes surprising results from neuroscience that contradict folk common sense about the nature of emotions and how they come about. Jean Briggs, in “Never in Anger,” describes a way of life in which the categorization and expression of emotion is very different from certain other cultures.