Graduate Courses

Some additional information about this semester's courses can be found at the Arts and Sciences course description page.

Spring 2023 (Term 2234) 

PHIL 2075 (30909) Topics in Ancient Philosophy
Sara Magrin
T 4:30-7:00 1008B CL
 
In this seminar we will look at some central texts in Plato’s epistemology (especially Republic, Theaetetus, and Timaeus) in order to examine what Plato means when he speaks of “opinion” (doxa) and “knowledge” (epistēmē). We will deal especially with the issue of Plato’s so-called Two Worlds epistemology, according to which opinions are exclusively about sensible objects, while knowledge is exclusively of Forms. We will consider arguments in favor and against this interpretation of Plato’s epistemology, and explore how, according to Plato, we can make epistemic progress.
 
PHIL 2130 (30908) Leibniz
Nicholas Rescher
T 9:00-11:30 1008B CL

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.

PHIL 2170 (28722) Kant
Thomas Pendlebury 
M 1:00-3:30 1008B CL

No course description available.

PHIL 2300 (30907) Ethics Core
Japa Pallikkathayil
H 10:00-12:30 1008B CL

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.

PHIL 2305 (26537) Topics in Ethics
Nandi Theunissen
W 1:00-3:30 1008B CL

No course description available.

PHIL 2421 (28726) Topics in Philosophy of Language
Kate Stanton
T 1:30-4:00 1008B CL

No course description available.

PHIL 2440 (30918) Philosophy of Mind
John McDowell
H 1:00-3:30 1008B CL

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.

PHIL 2500 (30917) Advanced Logic (Core)
Mark Wilson
M W 11:00-12:15 1008B CL

No course description available.

PHIL 2653 (31963) Realism
David Wallace
W 10:00-12:30 1008C CL

No course description available.

PHIL 2900 (21526) Teaching Philosophy
Tom Berry
F 9:30-12:00 1008B CL

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. 

PHIL 2950 (21425) Dissertation Seminar
James Shaw
M 10:00-12:30 1008C CL

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