Recent Teaching
Philosophy and Persons (Semester 1, 2022–23)
Philosophy and Persons (Semester 1, 2022–23)
- This version of Philosophy and Persons is organized around the following guiding question: how does one become a person? We will examine this question by carefully reading selected primary texts from different periods and schools in the history of Western philosophy.
- This seminar surveys some important developments in 20th century European philosophy. It introduces students to phenomenology, existentialism, feminism, continental aesthetics, and critical theory. Using methods of close reading and textual analysis, we will study important texts by authors who are either founders or leading exponents of these and related currents of thought. We will pay particular attention to how the arguments, methods, and assumptions of one philosophical movement or methodology challenge and respond to their predecessor(s). Among other topics, we will explore rival definitions of rationality, truth, subjectivity, and society, and will study how the thinkers below understand connections between self and other, language and thought, embodiment and meaning, art and truth, knowledge and power, reason and unreason, and past and present.
- With a focus on metaphysical and epistemological issues, this course offers an overview of some key arguments and conceptual developments in early-modern philosophy. The following problem will guide us: does knowledge derive from reason, experience, or from some combination of the two? We will explore responses to this question in different forms of rationalism (Descartes, Leibniz, Elisabeth), in the special case of Spinoza, and in empiricism (Hume). We will then consider how Kant's transcendental philosophy attempts to transform the terms of the debate.
- This class offers a selective introduction to some important themes, concepts, and problems in ancient Greek philosophy. We begin with a brief look at some ‘pre-Socratic’ philosophers, with special attention to these thinkers’ views about the relation between scientific and philosophical inquiry, the structure of reality, and the nature of philosophical explanation. In the remaining weeks, we will explore facets of Plato’s and Aristotle’s thought. From a selection of Platonic dialogues, and with an emphasis on Republic, we will explore Plato’s interpretation of Socrates, the theory of forms, Plato’s epistemology, his accounts of soul, body, and the good, his critique of ‘sophists’, and themes from his socio-political thought. From the Aristotelian corpus, we will study texts that develop Aristotle’s accounts of nature and physical reality, ‘first philosophy’ or metaphysics, philosophical psychology and theory of perception, and his views of ethical action and human flourishing or well-being.
- This course surveys some key developments in 19th century European philosophy. It charts the emergence of post-Kantian idealism in Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. We will pay special attention to why the latter group of thinkers believe Kant’s project remained incomplete and was in need of refinement, and how each proposes to do so. We will also evaluate challenges to philosophical idealism in the form of Marx and Engels’s historical materialism, Schopenhauer’s critique of Kant’s ‘thing in itself,’ and Nietzsche’s genealogy. The class will aim to develop students’ understanding of the genesis, motivating arguments, and fate of philosophical idealism, with special focus on how post-Kantian thinkers critically modified and sometimes broke from basic idealistic assumptions.
- This seminar offers an advanced introduction to a selection of core topics in philosophical aesthetics. It draws on a mix of contemporary and historical readings from analytic and continental sources. A guiding aim of the class is to gain an appreciation for the rich variety and complexity of aesthetic experience and its various permutations. The following questions, among others, will be of particular interest: What are the distinctive features of the ‘aesthetic’? Are there objective or universal standards in aesthetic appreciation? Can aesthetic experience, appreciation, or the concept of the aesthetic be located in natural, everyday, or practical contexts? To what degree should artistic intention constrain aesthetic appreciation? Is aesthetic experience a distinctive kind, and if so, what distinguishes it from other varieties of experience? Can science shed light on aesthetics? What is art ‘about’? The class will make frequent reference to examples from the readings and from everyday life. Students are encouraged to share their own examples and draw from their own experience.
- Phenomenology is one of the most influential philosophical traditions: its exponents have shaped humanistic fields, politics and culture, and continue to influence work in cognitive and brain sciences, psychology, sociology, and anthropology. With a focus on key primary texts, this seminar offers an intensive introduction to central phenomenological concepts, thinkers, and problems. We begin with a look at Husserl’s early account of intentionality and trace its subsequent critical transformations and extensions. A key aim will be to grasp the motivations that lead Husserl and other phenomenologists to detail the fundamental theme of consciousness-world relations by taking account of a progressively wider set of problems. These include issues in the philosophy of time, embodiment, and perception; the philosophy of science and nature; aesthetics; intersubjectivity and ethics; the lifeworld and history. To do so, we will read texts by Husserl, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, Stein, Dufrenne, Levinas, and Thompson, among others, with an eye to their contemporary relevance.
- Existentialism is one of the most important movements in European philosophy, and widely influenced later philosophical currents and intellectual culture. This class charts the genesis and evolution of key concepts, claims, and arguments in the existentialist tradition. Through close readings of influential existentialist texts by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Unamuno, Beauvoir, Sartre, and Camus, we will evaluate their persuasiveness and implications for our lives. The following questions, among others, will be of particular interest: Does life or everyday experience make sense? What is the origin and nature of value? What can I hope for? How should I live? Should I fear death? Am I free? What obligations do I have to myself and to others, and why should I follow them?
- Hermeneutics is the study and theory of interpretation. This advanced seminar explores the tradition of modern philosophical hermeneutics that emerges in the 19th century. We will attempt to develop a philosophical understanding of interpretation by posing the following questions: What is interpretation? What is the proper object of interpretation? Why have thinkers in the hermeneutical tradition stressed links between language, experience, history, and interpretation? What methodology (if any) should guide interpretation? Can interpretation be objective, or is it always subjective? What are the limits of interpretation? What relevance does philosophical hermeneutics have for other domains of philosophy and human culture? We will read texts by Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer.