Spring 2023 (Term 2234)
A comprehensive survey of the philosophy of Leibniz with primary emphasis on those of his ideas, especially in metaphysics and epistemology, which exercised a powerful influence upon later philosophers.
No course description available.
This course will survey some prominent, contemporary ethical theories, focusing on close readings of Korsgaard, Scanlon, and Foot. We will also consider some papers by other philosophers that have generated lively contemporary discussions.
No course description available.
No course description available.
My topic will be the first person. I plan to use Sebastian Rödl’s paper “The First Person and Self-Knowledge in Analytic Philosophy” to frame the seminar. Rödl argues, following G.E.M. Anscombe, that there is no first-person variety of singular reference. First-person reference (“self-reference”) is one of the varieties of reference that Gareth Evans aims to explain; Rödl argues that Evans shows, in spite of himself, that there is no such topic. Among other things, I hope to compare Rödl’s treatment of Evans and Anscombe in this paper with his earlier discussion of them in Self-Consciousness.
No course description available.
No course description available.
A practicum approach to train TAs and TFs wherein faculty and senior graduate students train the more junior TAs on how to teach philosophy. This course has been approved as an alternative to FACDEV 2200 for philosophy graduate students.
The purposes of this seminar (which has very successful counterparts at other top graduate programs in philosophy) are multifold. It gives students working on dissertation projects a community of others in the same boat, it provides them with feedback on work in progress, and practice presenting their work to an audience wider than their committee. (This is important for the impression they make on the job market.) Supposing that each student admitted to candidacy makes a seminar presentation each semester, it hastens time to completion by imposing interim deadlines on the road to a completed dissertation. The seminar gives students who have been comprehensively evaluated, but not yet defended a prospectus, examples of other students who have successfully negotiated the transition. This course is offered every fall and spring.
10-26-22