This course explores major themes in Aristotle’s philosophy belonging to the fields of natural philosophy, metaphysics, ethics and epistemology. Readings may include, though are not necessarily confined to the Ethics, Physics, Metaphysics, Categories, On the soul and Analytics.

A study of some of the principal figures and intellectual problems in the period from the first century to the sixteenth. Figures such as Philo, Augustine, Abelard, Avicenna, Maimonides, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Ockham and Suarez will be studied on topics in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and philosophy of nature.

A study of a topic or thinker in the 17th or 18th century.

An intermediate-level course on one or more philosophical traditions from the South Asian world, including orthodox Indian schools (Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mimamsa, and Vedanta) and non-orthodox schools such as Buddhism and Jainism, with a focus on their theories of religion, ethics, epistemology, or metaphysics.

A systematic study of The Critique of Pure Reason.

A study of some topic or thinker in the 19th century.

A study of recent traditions of continental philosophy such as phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics, critical theory, structuralism and post-structuralism. Figures such as Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, the Frankfurt school, Lacan, Foucault, Deleuze and Derrida.

An examination of some of the classic texts of early analytic philosophy, concentrating on the work of Frege, Russell and Wittgenstein. Central topics to be covered include: the development of logic and its relation to arithmetic; the nature of language and meaning; truth and objectivity; the distinction between sense and reference; logical analysis; the relation between language and thought; and the bounds of intelligibility.

An examination of the later analytic tradition from logical positivism to Kripke. The course will cover some of the following topics: meaning and verifiability; the relation between science and philosophy; ordinary language and philosophy; the nature and status of the analytic-synthetic distinction; meaning and theories of meaning; theories of truth; the nature of necessity; and reference and identity.

Typical topics: ontological categories; ontological commitment; the objectivity of space and time: causality and determinism; mind and body.

Typical topics: knowledge and belief, perception, the analytic-synthetic distinction, theories of truth, necessity and the a priori.

Typical topics: the brain-mind identity theory; consciousness intentionality and the mental; personal identity; the nature of human action.

(Formerly: Freedom, Responsibility, and Human Action) The course will cover various topics in action theory and the nature of practical reason, such as the nature of intentional action and intentional explanations, the relation between morality and practical reason, the distinction between theoretical and practical reasoning, and the relation between motivation and evaluation.

This course will examine the question of whether determinism is true, and to which extent and whether, determinism is compatible with the possibility that our will is free as well as the relation between freedom and responsibility. In particular, we will look at the plausibility of views such as compatibilism, hard determinism and libertarianism.

A continuation of PHL245, requiring no other prior knowledge of philosophy or mathematics. Symbolization, natural deduction, and models in polyadic predicate logic with operations and identity. Symbolization, natural deduction, and models for theories of descriptions. Introduction to metatheory, such as soundness and completeness.

An intermediate level look at reasoning and decision making in the face of uncertainty. Topics may include: decision theory, game theory, social choice theory, confirmation theory, foundations of probability and statistics, puzzles of infinity and self-location, and the relationship between knowledge and uncertainty.

Study of the concepts of necessity and possibility using extensions of classical logic: modal sentential logic, modal quantification logic, possible-world semantics, the metaphysics of modality. Other possible topics include: counterfactuals, epistemic logic, temporal logic, deontic logic, many-valued logic, and supervaluations.

Topics may include: Different approaches to the study of language; the analysis of central theoretical notions in the descriptions of language; the relation between thought and language; the relation between philosophy of language and metaphysics.

Platonism versus nominalism, the relation between logic and mathematics, implications of Godel's and Church's theorems, formalism and intuitionism.

Central problems and contemporary issues. Topics may include: scientific inference and method; explanation; under-determination; the pessimistic induction; constructive empiricism; entity realism; structural realism; laws of nature.

Conceptual issues in modern biology. Topics may include natural selection, biological kinds, the role of evolution in explaining human attributes such as rationality, cooperation, and communication, reductionism in molecular biology, and functional explanation in biology.

An examination of philosophical issues that arise in cognitive science, such as: the nature of consciousness, alternative models of computation in theories of cognition, the nature and function of perception and the emotions, the evolution of mind and language, and the relation among various fields of cognitive science such as psychology, linguistics, and neuroscience.

This course examines contemporary artificial intelligence from a philosophical perspective. Topics include: the nature of intelligence, comparisons between biological and artificial learning, linguistic understanding and grounding in foundation models, moral guidance for AI systems, and the moral status of artificial agents.

A study of work by political philosophers, typically both historical and contemporary, on topics such as justice, rights, welfare, and political authority. 

In this class we will consider the moral standards that govern states rights (if any) to enforce restrictions on immigration, residency, and citizenship and peoples rights (if any) to immigrate and emigrate. Questions to be considered include: Do people have a right to move wherever they want? Do the citizens of a state have a right to choose who will be their co-nationals? Do they have a right to prefer people of particular religious, cultural, ethnic, or political persuasions? Do people have a right to leave the country in which they are born? Do countries have special obligations to refugees who are the victims of human rights violations? Are economic migrants due the same rights? Is it morally permissible to grant lesser rights to would-be migrants than native born citizens? Is it acceptable to sell the right to citizenship or permanent residency?

This course will examine selected philosophical topics in feminism, such as multiculturalism and women's rights, feminist epistemologies, ethics of care, the intersection between sexism and other forms of oppression, pornography.

A study of major issues in the philosophy of law such as the nature of law, responsibility and punishment, the obligation to obey the law, and the moral underpinnings of particular areas of law (e.g. criminal, tort, contract). 

Normative Ethics concerns general questions about what makes actions right or wrong. Topics include, among others, the plausibility of various ethical theories such as consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics, and questions about the moral significance of distinctions such as doing vs allowing and intending vs foreseeing.

Metaethics concerns the place of values in the world, and the status of ethics as a field of inquiry. Topics may include: the objectivity of morality; moral psychology; the possibility of ethical knowledge; and meanings of ethical concepts.

This course explores the relationship between literature and philosophy. In addition to examining the historical tension between poets and philosophers, students will study how selected literary works, classic and contemporary, and from Western and non-Western traditions, engage with philosophical questions and ideas. Topics may include love, the soul's journey, death and rebirth, and the conflict between good and evil. The course will also consider philosophical issues related to translation, adaptation, and interpretation.