Undergraduate Course Listing New York University Philosophy

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Undergraduate Courses Summer 2012

First Session

PHIL-UA 4
Life and Death
MTWR 1:30–3:05pm
Olla Solomyak

This course will serve as an introduction to some of the central philosophical questions surrounding life and death. Some of the questions we'll consider are: What does it mean to be alive? What does it take for a person to persist over time? Is some sort of afterlife possible? What makes a life go well? What makes death bad for the person who dies? Would immortality be desirable? We'll also consider some real-world ethical issues concerning life and death, such as abortion, human cloning, and euthanasia. We will examine both classical and contemporary sources, with an emphasis on developing the tools required to analyze philosophical arguments and to reason clearly and creatively about philosophical questions. No background in philosophy is required.

PHIL-UA 20
History of Ancient Philosophy
MTWR 6–7:35pm

Description forthcoming.

PHIL-UA 60
Aesthetics
MTWR 11:30am–1:05pm
Zee Perry

What makes artworks different from ordinary objects? Is Plan 9 from Outer Space a bad work of art or not an artwork at all? What makes art different from pornography? How much should we care about what the author intended when we read a work of literature? Why is there only one Mona Lisa but there can be three performances of Hamlet on a given night in New York? Is beauty objective? Why do we pity Anna Karenina even though we know she isn't real? What are we doing when we appreciate a work of art?

Aesthetics and the philosophy of art involves the study of problems raised by the nature of art, artworks, and aesthetic judgment—like the ones mentioned above. The goal will be to think clearly and reason efficiently and creatively about these and other philosophical questions. We will discuss answers to these questions defended by classic and contemporary philosophers, and attempt to analyze and critique these arguments using the tools of philosophical argumentation.

PHIL-UA 70
Logic
MTWR 1:30–3:05pm
Philippe Lusson

This course will introduce students to two logical languages whose aim is to formalize reasoning: sentential logic and predicate logic. We will learn how to put arguments from ordinary English into formulas that use symbols in these languages, how to construct logically correct arguments within these formal systems, and how to ascertain the validity of formulas using truth tables or models.

PHIL-UA 78
Metaphysics
MTWR 3:30–5:05pm
Rohan Prince

Metaphysics is a huge, diverse (and important!) area of philosophy, and this course represents a sampler of metaphysical issues. Some of the questions we will be covering include: Can you survive death, perhaps as an immaterial substance or is the death of the body it? What changes can you as a person survive and what makes you the same person as you were last year (or last minute)? Do we have free will, or are our choices predetermined? Are there good arguments that God exists (in some sense of 'God')? What is the nature of time? Does only the present exist or are there dinosaurs floating around in the past? All this and more, this summer!

PHIL-UA 80
Philosophy of Mind
MTWR 6–7:35pm
Nick Riggle

This course will introduce students to philosophical issues raised by the mind. In the first part we will build up a rich picture of mental life by investigating philosophically important mental phenomena, including consciousness, self-consciousness, perception, imagination, emotion, and mood. In the second part, we will bring this rich picture of the mind to bear on the "mind-body problem": how, if at all, can we understand how the mind could have a place in a purely physical world? We will critically explore several theories about the relation between the mental and the physical, including (but not limited to) Cartesian dualism, various forms of materialism, and panpsychism.

Second Session

PHIL-UA 01
Central Problems in Philosophy
MTWR 1:30–03:05pm
Erica Shumener

Some questions are tough to answer. Here are some that strike philosophers as especially difficult:

1. When we go about our daily activities—like eating breakfast or studying for an exam—how do we know we are not dreaming?

2. Do people have minds or souls over and above their bodies?

3. Do people have free will? Is there any robust sense in which our actions are free?

4. Which actions count as right or wrong?

In this course, we will survey philosophers’ attempts to answer these questions. One goal will be to think critically and creatively about these issues. Special attention will be placed on learning how to write clear, cogent philosophy papers.

PHIL-UA 5
Minds and Machines
MTWR 6–7:35pm
Martin Glazier

The world as revealed by science is a world of mass and charge, of neurons and synapses. How can we understand our mental life, our thoughts and experiences, as somehow fitting into this scientific world? We'll carefully examine an intriguing answer to this question, which has it that our minds are something like computers. What is the relationship between our physical bodies and our mental life, and is it anything like the relationship between computers and computer programs? Could a computer think? Could a computer be conscious? What, for that matter, is thought? What is consciousness? Readings will be drawn from classic papers in the philosophy of mind.

The course website is: http://mindsandmachines.mglazier.net

PHIL-UA 21
History of Modern Philosophy
MTWR 1:30pm–3:05pm
Daniel Fogal

In 17th and 18th century Europe, revolutionary developments in science, religion, and politics led to the transformation of old philosophical questions, methods, and theories, and to the generation of new ones. To a remarkable extent, these two centuries of philosophical thought are distinctively responsible for many of the questions, methods, and approaches that are central to philosophy today. This course will examine the most important contributions of eight influential and systematic modern philosophers of this period—Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Reid, and Kant—to epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, and ethics.

PHIL-UA 40
Ethics
MTWR 3:30–5:05pm
Chris Prodoehl

This course is an introduction to ethics and the philosophy of agency. We'll assume that ethical theories make suggestions about what it is to be an agent -- a person able to live as those theories recommend -- and we will study both the theories and the conceptions of the agent that they suggest. We'll start by studying three of the most influential works of philosophical ethics: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, and Mill's Utilitarianism. Then, we will examine two additional approaches to ethical theory, characterized by a focus on authenticity and personal autonomy as ethical ideals. Throughout and where appropriate, we will consider topics in moral psychology and the philosophy of action, which will help us with the questions about agency that our ethical studies will raise. These topics will include: practical vs. theoretical reason; values, ideals, and practical identity; and what it is to act for reasons. Readings in the second half will be drawn from both contemporary and classical sources, possibly including Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Sartre.

PHIL-UA 50
Medical Ethics
MTWR 9:30–11:05am
Mark Vandevelde

Should someone with a degenerative disease have the right to end his life? If a healthy donor wants to sell a kidney for cash, should anyone intervene to prevent the sale? How should it be decided who receives medical treatment, when there aren't enough resources to treat everyone? In this course, we'll explore contrasting answers to controversial questions like these. In doing so, we'll see how different philosophers have answered the general question of what we are morally required to do. And we'll ask why controversies like the ones just mentioned are often so intractable. Are they akin to factual disputes, which might in principle be resolved by new discoveries; or is there some special reason to think them irresolvable? In the light of this, should we support the right of doctors and patients to act on ethical views with which we disagree?

PHIL-UA 52
Philosophy of Law
MTWR 11:30–1:05pm
Max Barkhausen

Are there laws that are both legally valid and immoral? Some say yes because laws are validated by our social practice and our practice can result in immoral laws. Others say no because immoral laws are invalid in virtue their moral repugnance. Ought we to abide by the law and, if so, why? When is it OK to break the law? When must we break the law? We will understand and critically evaluate different answers to these questions. Then, we will discuss how they come to bear on the historical case of Adolf Eichmann, who was a central figure in the organization of the Holocaust and who, when brought to trial, pleaded not guilty on the grounds that his actions were in accordance with the law in force at the time. Finally, we shall turn to issues surrounding legal language and its interpretation. Sometimes, there is more than one way to interpret a law, because laws are general or admit of borderline cases. We shall ask: what is the right standard of interpretation? Is there always a relevant standard? Last: does interpretation itself require evaluative judgments?

PHIL-UA 70
Logic
MTWR 6–7:35pm
Jared Warren

An introduction to the basic techniques of sentential and predicate logic. Students learn how to put arguments from ordinary language into symbols, how to construct derivations within a formal system, and how to ascertain validity using truth tables or models.

PHIL-UA 76
Epistemology
MTWR 3:30-5:05
Ang Tong

Philosophical skeptics have questioned whether knowledge is possible, whether any of our beliefs are justified, and even (most radically) whether we ever have any good reasons to believe one thing rather than another. We will examine a variety of skeptical arguments from ancient, modern and contemporary sources, as well as major strategies for resisting those arguments. Along the way, we'll address fundamental questions like "What is knowledge?", "What are good reasons for believing something?", "What sorts of things can we be certain about?", and "When are we required to suspend judgment about a matter?"

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Undergraduate Courses Fall 2012

PHIL-UA 1
Central Problems in Philosophy
T/Th 9:30–10:45
James Pryor

This course is an introduction to the methods of contemporary philosophy, concentrating on the following questions:

The Problem of Other Minds: How can we tell whether animals and future computers have minds, or whether they're instead just mindless automata? How can we tell that other people have minds?

The Mind/Body Problem: What is the relation between your mind and your body? Are they made up of different stuffs? If a computer duplicates the neural structure of your brain, will it have the same thoughts and self-awareness that you have?

Life and Death: What does it mean to die? Why is death bad? Do you have an immortal soul which is able to survive the death of your body?

Personal Identity: What makes you the person you are? Why would a clone of you have to be a different person than you are yourself? If we perfectly recorded all the neural patterns in your brain right now, could we use that recording to "bring you back" after a fatal accident?

You must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Students must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Katrina Przyjemski	Wednesday 9:30-10:45 and 2-3:15
Ian Grubb	Tuesday 3:30-4:45 and Wednesday 12:30-1:45

PHIL-UA 2
Great Works in Philosophy
M/W 3:30-4:45
Jonathan Cottrell

This course introduces students to some of philosophy’s most central and enduring problems, through some of the most important and influential texts in philosophy’s history. Our topics will include: What is the soul, and what is its relation to the body? What does it mean to die, and is dying something we should fear? Do we have free will? Is there a god? Why is there something rather than nothing? Readings will be drawn from the ancient, medieval and modern periods, and will include works by Lucretius, Aquinas and Schopenhauer.

You must sign up for one of the following recitation times: The course has a special focus on training students in philosophical analysis and writing.

You must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Daniel Waxman

Friday 12:30-1:45 and 2:00-3:15

PHIL-UA 3
Ethics and Society
T/TH 4:55-6:10
Melis Erdur

This course consists of two parts. In the first part, we will examine a variety of ethical issues such as abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment and affirmative action, in the light of major ethical theories like utilitarianism and Kantianism. In the second part, we will explore the (legitimate and problematic) ways in which science and religion can inform ethics. There will be several short essays and a final exam.

PHIL-UA 20
History of Ancient Philosophy
M/W 11-12:15
TBA

Prerequisite: one introductory course
This course will focus on Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Their methods and ideas set the agenda for subsequent Western philosophy. We will aim to understand and critically evaluate some of their central arguments about knowledge, reality and human action. We will ask what their views were, why they held them, and whether we should accept them even today.

You must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Bogdan Rabanca	Wednesday 3:30-4.45 and 4:55-6:10
Zee Perry	Thursday 11-12:15 and 12:30-1:45

PHIL-UA 36
Existentialism and Phenomenology
T/TH 11-12:15
John Richardson

Prerequisite: one introductory course

The course will study major texts from the existential and phenomenological movements, beginning with their ‘founders’ Kierkegaard and Husserl, and then examining the fusion of these movements in Heidegger and Sartre, as well as in Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty, and Levinas.

Students must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Martin Glazier	Fridays 11-12:15 and 2-3:15
Chris Prodoehl	Th 12:30–1:45 and F 12:30–1:45

PHIL-UA 45
Political Philosophy
T/Th 11–12:15
Samuel Scheffler

Prerequisite: one introductory course

This course will deal with central questions about the justification of political and social institutions. The primary focus will be on contemporary philosophical thought in the liberal tradition, with special emphasis on the work of John Rawls.

Students must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Emilio Mora

Friday 11:00-12:15 and 12:30-1:45

PHIL-UA 53
Ethics and the Environment
T/Th 2–3:15
TBA

Environmental philosophy is a large subject that involves questions in metaphysics, the philosophy of science, and the history of philosophy, as well as in such normative areas as ethics, aesthetics, and political philosophy. This course is primarily devoted to these normative areas. Beginning with some basic concepts in value theory, the goal is not to arrive at definite solutions to specific environmental problems, but rather to improve students’ ability to think critically, read closely, and argue well about environmental issues. The course also introduces students to some major controversies in environmental philosophy. The ultimate aim is to aid students in arriving at their own rational, clear-minded views about the matters under discussion.

Students must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Chelsea Rosenthal

Monday 12:30-1:45 and 3:30-4:45

PHIL-UA 70–001
Logic
M/W; 11-12:15
Michael Schweiger

An introduction to the basic techniques of sentential and predicate logic. Students learn how to put arguments from ordinary language into symbols, how to construct derivations within a formal system, and how to ascertain validity using truth tables or models.

PHIL-UA 70–002
Logic
M/W; 12:30-1:45
Grace Helton

This course is an introduction to first-order logic (FOL). Topics include: syntax in FOL, truth-functional operators, quantifiers, logical equivalence and consequence, tautological equivalence and consequence, proof by cases, proof by contradiction, formal rules of proof in FOL, and translation between FOL and English.

PHIL-UA 70–003
Logic
T/Th 12:30-1:45
Rohan Prince

An introduction to the basic techniques of sentential and predicate logic. Students learn how to put arguments from ordinary language into symbols, how to construct derivations within a formal system, and how to ascertain validity using truth tables or models.

PHIL-UA 76
Epistemology
T/Th 12:30-1:45
Crispin Wright

Prerequisite: one introductory course

We think we know many things. And even where we think we do not strictly know something—like who was responsible for the Sept 11 attacks? Or: will the Knicks win tonight? —we often think we have justified beliefs, or beliefs that are strongly supported by the evidence This course focuses on the nature of knowledge and justified belief. In reflecting on these notions, we will examine versions of, and responses to Skepticism: that there is very little we can know or have adequate reason to believe.

Students must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Max Barkhausen

Thursday 3:30-4:45 and 4:55-6:10

PHIL-UA 78Metaphysics
M/W 4:55–6:10
Peter Unger

Prerequisite: one introductory course

What is the ultimate nature of the universe, the nature of all concrete reality? Is it physical, or mental, or both, or neither? And, what is our nature: are we physical, or mental, or both, or neither? We’ll be concerned to use our inquiry into these questions to help us with traditionally central philosophical problems, including the problem of free will, the problem of personal identity, and the mind-body problem. While much of the course will treat these topics, some will treat some other topics.

Students must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Erica Shumener

Friday 12:30-1:45 and 2:00-3:15pm

PHIL-UA 85
Philosophy of Language
T/TH 3:30-4:45
Stephen Schiffer

Prerequisite: PHIL-UA 70 and one introductory course

What sort of thing is a natural language such as English or Japanese, and how are languages related to mind and world so as to enable people who speak them to do the things they do with words? Answering these questions requires investigating such central notions as meaning, reference, truth, and communication. Major work on these topics dates only from around 1890 in the writings of the German mathematician, logician and philosopher Gottlob Frege (1848-1925). The course will cover major developments in the philosophy of language from Frege to the present. Among other things, it will look at the relations between philosophy of language and neighboring disciplines of logic, linguistics, and psychology, as well as the ways theories in philosophy of language affect other divisions of philosophy, such as metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. In addition to Frege, other major figures in the philosophy of language whose views will be studied are Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Alfred Tarski, Rudolph Carnap, W. V. O. Quine, P. F. Strawson, Noam Chomsky, H. P. Grice, J. L. Austin, Saul Kripke, Hilary Putnam, Richard Montague, David Kaplan, and David Lewis. All readings will be made available on Blackboard. Grades will be based on a midterm, final, and 15-20 page paper. The questions to be answered on the midterm and final will be selected by lottery at the exams from take-home questions distributed a week before the exams.

Students must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Mark Vandevelde

Friday 12:30-1:45 and 2-3:15

PHIL-UA 101
Topics in History of Philosophy
M/W 2-3:15
Tamsin Shaw

Nietzsche on Art and Value

PHIL-UA 20 or PHIL-UA 21

In this course we will examine Nietzsche’s views about the significance of art in human life. His work raises some striking questions about whether art is necessary to give life meaning, whether it can serve as a substitute for religion, what it’s relation might be to truth, and how we should understand the relationship between moral and aesthetic values. We will mainly be concentrating on primary texts (such as The Birth of Tragedy, Human All-Too-Human, and The Gay Science), though we will also discuss some of the secondary literature. And we will look at some of the artworks (paintings, fiction, music) that Nietzsche admired in order to illuminate and critically assess his views about the role of art in human civilizations.

PHIL-UA 103
Topics in Metaphysics and Epistemology
T/TH 2-3:15
Paul Horwich

Truth

Prerequisite: PHIL-UA 76 or PHIL-UA 78 or PHIL-UA 90

The course will focus on the concept of truth, addressing such central questions as: whether there is such a thing as “absolute” truth; what truth is; why it is worth searching for; and how we can find it. Answers from a variety of intellectual and cultural traditions will be considered. They will be assessed for their adequacy in dealing with a range of domains in which truth is at issue -- including science, morality, religion, and aesthetics.

PHIL-UA 201
Honors Seminar
W 4:30-6:30
Paul Horwich

A seminar taken in fall of senior year. Students begin developing their thesis projects by presentations in the seminar, which is led by a faculty member. Students also begin to meet individually with a separate faculty adviser. See the description of the honors program in the “Program” section.

Back to Previous Page

Undergraduate Courses Fall 2012

PHIL-UA 1
Central Problems in Philosophy
T/Th 9:30–10:45
James Pryor

This course is an introduction to the methods of contemporary philosophy, concentrating on the following questions:

The Problem of Other Minds: How can we tell whether animals and future computers have minds, or whether they're instead just mindless automata? How can we tell that other people have minds?

The Mind/Body Problem: What is the relation between your mind and your body? Are they made up of different stuffs? If a computer duplicates the neural structure of your brain, will it have the same thoughts and self-awareness that you have?

Life and Death: What does it mean to die? Why is death bad? Do you have an immortal soul which is able to survive the death of your body?

Personal Identity: What makes you the person you are? Why would a clone of you have to be a different person than you are yourself? If we perfectly recorded all the neural patterns in your brain right now, could we use that recording to "bring you back" after a fatal accident?

You must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Students must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Katrina Przyjemski	Wednesday 9:30-10:45 and 2-3:15
Ian Grubb	Tuesday 3:30-4:45 and Wednesday 12:30-1:45

PHIL-UA 2
Great Works in Philosophy
M/W 3:30-4:45
Jonathan Cottrell

This course introduces students to some of philosophy’s most central and enduring problems, through some of the most important and influential texts in philosophy’s history. Our topics will include: What is the soul, and what is its relation to the body? What does it mean to die, and is dying something we should fear? Do we have free will? Is there a god? Why is there something rather than nothing? Readings will be drawn from the ancient, medieval and modern periods, and will include works by Lucretius, Aquinas and Schopenhauer.

You must sign up for one of the following recitation times: The course has a special focus on training students in philosophical analysis and writing.

You must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Daniel Waxman

Friday 12:30-1:45 and 2:00-3:15

PHIL-UA 3
Ethics and Society
T/TH 4:55-6:10
Melis Erdur

This course consists of two parts. In the first part, we will examine a variety of ethical issues such as abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment and affirmative action, in the light of major ethical theories like utilitarianism and Kantianism. In the second part, we will explore the (legitimate and problematic) ways in which science and religion can inform ethics. There will be several short essays and a final exam.

PHIL-UA 20
History of Ancient Philosophy
M/W 11-12:15
TBA

Prerequisite: one introductory course
This course will focus on Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Their methods and ideas set the agenda for subsequent Western philosophy. We will aim to understand and critically evaluate some of their central arguments about knowledge, reality and human action. We will ask what their views were, why they held them, and whether we should accept them even today.

You must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Bogdan Rabanca	Wednesday 3:30-4.45 and 4:55-6:10
Zee Perry	Thursday 11-12:15 and 12:30-1:45

PHIL-UA 36
Existentialism and Phenomenology
T/TH 11-12:15
John Richardson

Prerequisite: one introductory course

The course will study major texts from the existential and phenomenological movements, beginning with their ‘founders’ Kierkegaard and Husserl, and then examining the fusion of these movements in Heidegger and Sartre, as well as in Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty, and Levinas.

Students must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Martin Glazier	Fridays 11-12:15 and 2-3:15
Chris Prodoehl	Th 12:30–1:45 and F 12:30–1:45

PHIL-UA 45
Political Philosophy
T/Th 11–12:15
Samuel Scheffler

Prerequisite: one introductory course

This course will deal with central questions about the justification of political and social institutions. The primary focus will be on contemporary philosophical thought in the liberal tradition, with special emphasis on the work of John Rawls.

Students must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Emilio Mora

Friday 11:00-12:15 and 12:30-1:45

PHIL-UA 53
Ethics and the Environment
T/Th 2–3:15
TBA

Environmental philosophy is a large subject that involves questions in metaphysics, the philosophy of science, and the history of philosophy, as well as in such normative areas as ethics, aesthetics, and political philosophy. This course is primarily devoted to these normative areas. Beginning with some basic concepts in value theory, the goal is not to arrive at definite solutions to specific environmental problems, but rather to improve students’ ability to think critically, read closely, and argue well about environmental issues. The course also introduces students to some major controversies in environmental philosophy. The ultimate aim is to aid students in arriving at their own rational, clear-minded views about the matters under discussion.

Students must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Chelsea Rosenthal

Monday 12:30-1:45 and 3:30-4:45

PHIL-UA 70–001
Logic
M/W; 11-12:15
Michael Schweiger

An introduction to the basic techniques of sentential and predicate logic. Students learn how to put arguments from ordinary language into symbols, how to construct derivations within a formal system, and how to ascertain validity using truth tables or models.

PHIL-UA 70–002
Logic
M/W; 12:30-1:45
Grace Helton

This course is an introduction to first-order logic (FOL). Topics include: syntax in FOL, truth-functional operators, quantifiers, logical equivalence and consequence, tautological equivalence and consequence, proof by cases, proof by contradiction, formal rules of proof in FOL, and translation between FOL and English.

PHIL-UA 70–003
Logic
T/Th 12:30-1:45
Rohan Prince

An introduction to the basic techniques of sentential and predicate logic. Students learn how to put arguments from ordinary language into symbols, how to construct derivations within a formal system, and how to ascertain validity using truth tables or models.

PHIL-UA 76
Epistemology
T/Th 12:30-1:45
Crispin Wright

Prerequisite: one introductory course

We think we know many things. And even where we think we do not strictly know something—like who was responsible for the Sept 11 attacks? Or: will the Knicks win tonight? —we often think we have justified beliefs, or beliefs that are strongly supported by the evidence This course focuses on the nature of knowledge and justified belief. In reflecting on these notions, we will examine versions of, and responses to Skepticism: that there is very little we can know or have adequate reason to believe.

Students must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Max Barkhausen

Thursday 3:30-4:45 and 4:55-6:10

PHIL-UA 78Metaphysics
M/W 4:55–6:10
Peter Unger

Prerequisite: one introductory course

What is the ultimate nature of the universe, the nature of all concrete reality? Is it physical, or mental, or both, or neither? And, what is our nature: are we physical, or mental, or both, or neither? We’ll be concerned to use our inquiry into these questions to help us with traditionally central philosophical problems, including the problem of free will, the problem of personal identity, and the mind-body problem. While much of the course will treat these topics, some will treat some other topics.

Students must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Erica Shumener

Friday 12:30-1:45 and 2:00-3:15pm

PHIL-UA 85
Philosophy of Language
T/TH 3:30-4:45
Stephen Schiffer

Prerequisite: PHIL-UA 70 and one introductory course

What sort of thing is a natural language such as English or Japanese, and how are languages related to mind and world so as to enable people who speak them to do the things they do with words? Answering these questions requires investigating such central notions as meaning, reference, truth, and communication. Major work on these topics dates only from around 1890 in the writings of the German mathematician, logician and philosopher Gottlob Frege (1848-1925). The course will cover major developments in the philosophy of language from Frege to the present. Among other things, it will look at the relations between philosophy of language and neighboring disciplines of logic, linguistics, and psychology, as well as the ways theories in philosophy of language affect other divisions of philosophy, such as metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. In addition to Frege, other major figures in the philosophy of language whose views will be studied are Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Alfred Tarski, Rudolph Carnap, W. V. O. Quine, P. F. Strawson, Noam Chomsky, H. P. Grice, J. L. Austin, Saul Kripke, Hilary Putnam, Richard Montague, David Kaplan, and David Lewis. All readings will be made available on Blackboard. Grades will be based on a midterm, final, and 15-20 page paper. The questions to be answered on the midterm and final will be selected by lottery at the exams from take-home questions distributed a week before the exams.

Students must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Mark Vandevelde

Friday 12:30-1:45 and 2-3:15

PHIL-UA 101
Topics in History of Philosophy
M/W 2-3:15
Tamsin Shaw

Nietzsche on Art and Value

PHIL-UA 20 or PHIL-UA 21

In this course we will examine Nietzsche’s views about the significance of art in human life. His work raises some striking questions about whether art is necessary to give life meaning, whether it can serve as a substitute for religion, what it’s relation might be to truth, and how we should understand the relationship between moral and aesthetic values. We will mainly be concentrating on primary texts (such as The Birth of Tragedy, Human All-Too-Human, and The Gay Science), though we will also discuss some of the secondary literature. And we will look at some of the artworks (paintings, fiction, music) that Nietzsche admired in order to illuminate and critically assess his views about the role of art in human civilizations.

PHIL-UA 103
Topics in Metaphysics and Epistemology
T/TH 2-3:15
Paul Horwich

Truth

Prerequisite: PHIL-UA 76 or PHIL-UA 78 or PHIL-UA 90

The course will focus on the concept of truth, addressing such central questions as: whether there is such a thing as “absolute” truth; what truth is; why it is worth searching for; and how we can find it. Answers from a variety of intellectual and cultural traditions will be considered. They will be assessed for their adequacy in dealing with a range of domains in which truth is at issue -- including science, morality, religion, and aesthetics.

PHIL-UA 201
Honors Seminar
W 4:30-6:30
Paul Horwich

A seminar taken in fall of senior year. Students begin developing their thesis projects by presentations in the seminar, which is led by a faculty member. Students also begin to meet individually with a separate faculty adviser. See the description of the honors program in the “Program” section.

Back to Previous Page

Undergraduate Courses Spring 2012

Introductory Courses

PHIL-UA 1
Central Problems in Philosophy
T/TH 3:30-4:45
Katrina Elliott

This course is a general introduction to philosophy that aims to familiarize you with philosophical concepts, arguments, and methodology by addressing a few well-known questions that philosophers attempt to answer:

1. How can we know about things we have not observed?
2. What’s possible? Is free will physically possible? Is time travel metaphysically possible?
3. In virtue of what do objects and persons retain their identity throughout time, if they do? (Spoiler: They do.)
4. Can we prove that God exists? Can we prove that it doesn’t?
5. How much money should you give to charity, and why??

Sign up for one of the following sections:

Zachary Perry: Monday 11:00-12:15 and 12:30-1:45
Erica Shumener: Friday 11:00-12:15 and 12:30-1:45

Group I: History of Philosophy

PHIL-UA 21
History of Modern Philosophy
T/TH 11-12:15
Don Garrett

Prerequisite: one Introductory course
In seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe, revolutionary developments in science, religion, and culture led to the generation of new philosophical questions, methods, and theories--and to the transformation of old ones. To a remarkable extent, these two centuries of philosophical thought are distinctively responsible for many of the questions, methods, and theoretical approaches that still quite recognizably dominate philosophy today. This course will examine the most important contributions of seven influential and systematic modern philosophers of this period--Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant--to the fields of epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, and ethics.

Sign up for one of the following sections:

Daniel Fogal: Friday 8:00-9:15 and 9:30-10:45
Joe Harper: Friday 12:30-1:45 and 2:00-3:15

PHIL-UA 39
Recent Continental Philosophy
T/TH 2-3:15
John Richardson

Prerequisite: one Introductory course

Examines selected works by some of the major figures in German and French philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. Beginning with later Heidegger, the course will go on to treat Gadamer, Habermas, Lacan, Foucault, Derrida, and Deleuze.

Sign up for one of the following sections:

Chris Prodoehl: Thursday 3:30-4:45 and Friday 12:30-1:45
Emilio Mora: Friday 11:00-12:15 and 2:00-3:15

PHIL-UA 101
Topics in History of Philosophy
W 2-4:30
Anthony Kronman

Prerequisite: PHIL-UA 20 or PHIL-UA 21

In an autobiographical essay written two years after the publication of Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche describes the latter book as “in every essential a critique of modernity.” How, in Nietzsche’s view, does the modern age differ from those that preceded it? What is his “critique” of it? In this seminar, we will explore these questions, paying special attention to the ideas of art, nobility, power, truth and morality, as these figure in the remarkable series of books that Nietzsche wrote in the last three years before his mind was closed by madness. Some attention will also be paid to Nietzsche’s unpublished notebooks from this period, and to the question of whether, despite his ferocious attack on what he calls the “prejudices” of “metaphysicians,” Nietzsche was not himself, in the end, a metaphysician too.

Group II: Ethics, Value, and Society

PHIL-UA 40
Ethics
T/Th 9:30–10:45
David Velleman

Prerequisite: one Introductory course

This course covers three great works of moral philosophy: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, and Mill's Utlitarianism. It concludes with a contemporary work that applies moral philosophy to 20th-century history : Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem. Course requirements are: attendance at lectures and a recitation, five short papers and a final exam.

Sign up for one of the following sections:

Melis Erdur: Thursday 12:30-1:45pm and 2:00-3:15pm
Bogdan Rabanca: Friday 11-12:15 and 12:30-1:45

PHIL-UA 41
The Nature of Values
T/TH 2-3:15
Sharon Street

Prerequisite: one Introductory course

The course’s central question will be the nature of value and where to “place” it with respect to our scientific conception of the world. On the one hand, we regard ourselves as capable of recognizing, and being guided in our thought and action by, evaluative truths—truths concerning how there is most reason to live, what there is most reason to believe, what ways of life are good, valuable, morally required, and so on. On the other hand, we regard ourselves as part of the world of cause and effect—as beings whose evaluative states of mind are part of the natural order and subject to scientific study and explanation. It is not obvious how to fit these two understandings of ourselves together, nor even whether they are jointly tenable in the end. Are there objective truths about what is good and bad, moral and immoral? Is it possible to understand evaluative truths such as “happiness is good” on the model of scientific truths such as “water is H2O”? Or is the subject matter of evaluative discourse very different from that of scientific discourse? Do evaluative claims amount to nothing more than sophisticated ways of saying “boo” and “hooray” about the things we happen to like and dislike? The course will survey some of the most prominent contemporary thinking on these questions. Readings will include works by Moore, Ayer, Mackie, Railton, Sturgeon, Nagel, Blackburn, Gibbard, Korsgaard, and others.

Sign up for one of the following sections:

Jared Warren: Friday 12:30-1:45 and 2:00-3:15

PHIL-UA 50
Medical Ethics
M/W 2-3:15
Colin O’Neil

This course will examine ethical issues arising out of medicine and bioethics. We will begin by surveying normative theories such as consequentialism and deontology. We will then explore topics such as informed consent, the right to refuse treatment, paternalism in public health, euthanasia, advance directives, conscientious objection in medicine, animal experimentation, abortion, rights to health care, allocation of scarce medical resources, human subjects research, and drug patents. By the end of the course, students will have learned how to analyze and evaluate philosophical arguments in bioethics.

PHIL-UA 102
Topics in Ethics and Political Philosophy
T/TH 4:55-6:10
Peter Unger

Prerequisite: PHIL-UA 40, PHIL-UA 41, or PHIL-UA 45

Even as compared to what he or she can do, almost all well-to-do people do little, or nothing, over the course of their lifetime, to prevent the early deaths and great suffering of people in the poorest parts of the world. Is it wrong for a well-to-do person to behave like this - perhaps about as horribly wrong as committing negligent homicide, as with fatal drunken driving? The course will center on this question, though it will also involve us in many other moral questions. In about equal measure, this will be a course in both normative ethics and in applied ethics. (By contrast, little will be said about metaethics and, most likely, not much about political philosophy, either.)

Group III: Metaphysics, Epistemology, Mind, Language, and Logic

PHIL-UA 70-001
Logic
MW 11-12:15
Daniela Dover

PHIL-UA 70-002
Logic
M/W 12:30-1:45
Grace Helton

PHIL-UA 70-003
Logic
T/TH 11-12:15
Michael Schweiger

Introduces the techniques, results, and philosophical import of 20th century formal logic. Principal concepts include those of sentence, set, interpretation, validity, consistency, consequence, tautology, derivation, and completeness. This course satisfies the logic requirement for NYU Philosophy majors.

PHIL-UA 73
Set Theory
T/TH 12:30-1:45
Kit Fine

Prerequisite: PHIL-UA 70

The course will cover the basics of set theory. The required text is ‘Introduction to Set Theory’ by Jech and Hrbacek (3rd edition), Chapman and Hall (available from NYU bookstore). We will more or less go though the chapters of the book in order. Among the topics to be covered are: the axioms of set theory; Boolean operations on sets; set-theoretic representation of relations, functions and orderings; the natural numbers; theory of transfinite cardinal and ordinal numbers; the axiom of choice and its equivalents; and the foundations of analysis. If time permits we may also consider some more advanced topics, such as large cardinals or the independence results.

The emphasis will be on the technical material, although there will also be some philosophical discussion. Students will be required to do exercises each week. Roughly half of these assignments will be handed in and graded. Each week there will be a review section run by the TA, Olla Solomyak. There will be a mid-term exam and a final exam. The two exams will count for 20% and 30% of the final grade, respectively, the assignment for 50%.



The course will start from scratch; no background in mathematics or logic is strictly required. However, a background in logic will be helpful; and a certain degree of technical sophistication will be essential.

Sign up for one of the following sections:

Olla Solomyak: Thursday 4:55-6:10 and Friday 11-12:15

PHIL-UA 76
Epistemology
M/W 3:30-4:45
Tim Maudlin

Prerequisite: one Introductory course

This class will focus on skepticism and responses to skeptical arguments through the history of philosophy. We will discuss general skeptical arguments and particular difficulties about our knowledge of the external world and our use of induction. From the ancient period, will we read parts of Sextus Empiricus’ Outlines of Pyrrhonism and Plato’s Meno. From the early modern period we will read Descartes’ Meditations and parts of Hume’s A Treatise on Human Nature. From the 20th century we will read Moore’s “Proof of an External World”, Wittgenstein’s On Certainty and parts of Goodman’s Fact, Fiction and Forecast.

Sign up for one of the following sections:

Jeremy Dolan: Thursday 11-12:15 and 12:30-1:45

PHIL-UA 80
Philosophy of Mind
MW 4:55-6:10
Thomas Nagel

Prerequisite: one Introductory course

The course will concentrate on the recent history of debate over the mind-body problem in the analytic literature. The problem is this: How are mental phenomena such as feeling, perception, thought, and desire related to the physical world, especially to brains and behavior? Can mental phenomena be identified with physical phenomena, or analyzed in physical terms, or does their existence imply that there is more to reality than can be accounted for by the physical sciences?

Sign up for one of the following sections:

Mark Vandevelde: Monday 12:30-1:45 and 2-3:15
Yu Go: Friday 12:30-1:45 and 2-3:15

PHIL-UA 85
Philosophy of Language
M/W 11-12:15
Crispin Wright

Prerequisite: one Introductory course

This course will concentrate on a small number of central questions in recent and contemporary philosophy of language. Some familiarity with elementary formal logic may be helpful. Topics to be covered include skepticism about meaning, with special reference to writings of Quine and Kripke; the nature of knowledge of a language, with special reference to the work of Davidson and Dummett; and the competing paradigms of singular reference deriving from Frege and from Kripke. Grades will be awarded on the basis of two mid-term papers, and a take-home final exam.

Sign up for one of the following sections:

Max Barkhausen: Thursday 9:30-10:45 and 11:00-12:15

PHIL-UA 90
Philosophy of Science
M/W 9:30-10:45
Michael Strevens

Prerequisite: one Introductory course

What is science? How does it work? When it works, what kind of knowledge does it provide? Is there a scientific method? What is a scientific theory? How do experiments provide evidence for theories? What is the nature of scientific explanation? How does the social organization of science contribute, if at all, to its success?

PHIL-UA 104
Topics in Mind and Language
M/W 12:30-1:45
James Stazicker

Prerequisite: PHIL-UA 70 and PHIL-UA 80, PHIL-UA 81, or PHIL-UA 85

We will pursue some questions in the philosophy of perception. First we will ask in what sense, if any, perceptual experience is immediate awareness of the world. We will assess the traditional Argument from Illusion, and various responses to it. Then we will ask what distinguishes the different sensory modalities from one another, and explore some structural differences between experiences of space in vision, touch and hearing. We will assess a related question which William Molyneux famously asked Locke: Would a man born blind, who has learned to discriminate a cube from a sphere by touch, and then becomes able to see, be able to discriminate them by sight? Finally we will ask in what way, if any, perceptual experience is a distinctive source of knowledge. Here we will engage with empirical evidence that perception is cognitively penetrated – that what we perceive depends on what we believe.

Honors Courses

PHIL-UA 200
Junior Honors Proseminar
W 2-4
Stephen Schiffer

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Undergraduate Courses Fall 2011

Introductory Courses

PHIL-UA 4
Life and Death
T/Th 9:30–10:45
David Velleman

We will study metaphysical and ethical questions about the limits and value of human life. When does a person begin to exist (e.g., at conception, or at birth)? When does a person cease to exist (e.g., in dementia, or at brain-death)? Is a person harmed by ceasing to exist (i.e., by dying)? Is a person benefitted by being brought into existence (i.e., by being born)? Do we have special obligations toward people whom we ourselves bring into existence (our children) or toward those who brought us into existence (our parents)? Do we have any obligations to future generations? Answering these questions will require us to explore topics such as personal identity, the nature of well-being, and the grounds of moral obligation. Readings will be drawn from contemporary philosophers, including: Thomas Nagel, Bernard Williams, and Derek Parfit. Students will be required to write four short papers and a final exam.

Students must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Max Barkhausen	Th 3:30–4:45 Th 4:55–6:10
Olla Solomyak	F 11–12:15 F 2–3:15

PHIL-UA 5Minds and Machines
T/Th 3:30–4:45
Ned Block

This course examines the conflict between computational and biological approaches to the mind. Is Watson a thinker? Could any non-biological computer be a thinker? Could any computer be conscious? Searle’s “Chinese Room” argument against Strong Artificial Intelligence, the Turing Test, the Blockhead, functionalist views of intelligence and consciousness, the inverted spectrum hypothesis, mental imagery as a problem for computationalist views. Registration in this course is by permission of the instructor.

Students must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Grace Helton

W 12:30–1:45 W 2–3:15

Group I: History of Philosophy

PHIL-UA 20History of Ancient Philosophy
MW 12:30–1:45
James Stazicker

Prerequisite: one Introductory course

This course will focus on Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Their methods and ideas set the agenda for subsequent Western philosophy. We will aim to understand and critically evaluate some of their central arguments about knowledge, reality and human action. We will ask what their views were, why they held them, and whether we should accept them even today.

Students must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Martin Glazier	Th 2–3:15 Th 4:55–6:10
Nick Riggle	F 12:30–1:45 F 2–3:15

PHIL-UA 30Kant
T/Th 11–12:15
Rolf-Peter Horstmann

Prerequisite: one Introductory course

Kant’s philosophy has been one of the most influential positions in the history of western thought. Traces of its influence can be discovered in almost all areas and disciplines of contemporary philosophy, especially in metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. The best known (and most important) documents of Kant’s philosophical views are his three Critiques, i.e. the Critique of Pure Reason (1781/87) dealing with topics in epistemology and metaphysics, the Critique of Practical Reason (1788) focusing on topics in ethics and morality, and the Critique of Judgment (1790) treating questions concerning aesthetics and biology. The course will concentrate on the Critique of Pure Reason and discuss in detail Kant’s conception of knowledge and experience, his criticism of traditional metaphysics and the resulting project of a system of transcendental philosophy.

Students must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Chris Prodoehl

Th 12:30–1:45 F 12:30–1:45

Group II: Ethics, Value, and Society

PHIL-UA 45
Political Philosophy
MW 11–12:15
Samuel Scheffler

Prerequisite: one Introductory course

This course will deal with central questions about the justification of political and social institutions. The primary focus will be on contemporary philosophical thought in the liberal tradition, with special emphasis on the work of John Rawls.

Students must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Philippe Lusson	F 11–12:15 F 12:30–1:45
Mark Vandevelde	Th 9:30–10:45 Th 11–12:15

PHIL-UA 53Ethics and the Environment
T/Th 2–3:15
Benjamin Sachs

When human activity leads to global warming and depletion of natural resources, who, if anyone, is obligated to fix the problem? We will systematically search for an answer to that question. We will investigate whether there are any national, individual, or corporate obligations with respect to the environment. Along the way we will try to figure out who these obligations would be owed to and what their content would be—that is, just how healthy of an environment are we obligated to strive for?

Students must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Emilio Mora

F 11–12:15 F 12:30–1:45

Group III: Metaphysics, Epistemology, Mind, Language, and Logic

PHIL-UA 70–001
Logic
MW 4:55–6:10
Michael Schweiger

PHIL-UA 70–002
Logic
T/Th 4:55–6:10
Melis Erdur

PHIL-UA 70–003
Logic
T/Th 3:30–4:45
Melis Erdur

This course introduces the techniques, results, and philosophical import of 20^th century formal logic. Principal concepts include those of sentence, set, interpretation, validity, consistency, consequence, tautology, derivation, and completeness. This course satisfies the logic requirement for NYU Philosophy majors.

PHIL-UA 78Metaphysics
T/Th 4:55–6:10
Peter Unger

Prerequisite: one Introductory course

What is the ultimate nature of the universe, the nature of all concrete reality? Is it physical, or mental, or both, or neither? And, what is our nature: are we physical, or mental, or both, or neither? We’ll be concerned to use our inquiry into these questions to help us with traditionally central philosophical problems, including the problem of free will, the problem of personal identity, and the mind-body problem. While much of the course will treat these topics, some will treat some other topics.

Students must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Yu Guo

F 11–12:15 F 2–3:15

PHIL-UA 91
Philosophy of Biology
T/Th 12:30–1:45
Laura Franklin-Hall

Prerequisite: one Introductory course

We’ll consider a variety of topics at the intersection of biology and philosophy. Questions include: (1) How are living things different from non-living things? (What makes you a whole organism rather than simply a collection of cells? Is the entire planet a living thing? Could a computer program be alive?) (2) How is biology separate from, but connected to, other sciences? (Are there autonomous biological laws? Are there emergent biological properties? Can biology be “reduced to’ chemistry or physics?) (3) How contingent is biological evolution? (Is evolution “progressive”? Should we count our lucky stars, or were humans pretty much inevitable?) (4) Can biological evolution explain human behavior? (Are we “programmed” by evolution to do certain things? How important is culture in explaining behavior, and can it too evolve?)

Students must sign up for one of the following recitation times:

Zachary Perry

F 11:00–12:15 M 11:00–12:15

PHIL-UA 93Philosophical Applications of Cognitive Science
MW 9:30–10:45
Michael Strevens

Prerequisite: one Introductory course

We will discuss the relevance of recent discoveries about the mind to philosophical questions about metaphysics, logic, and ethics. Most of the class concerns metaphysics. The questions include: What is causation? Is there a right way to “carve up” the world into categories? Why do we see the world as consisting of objects in places? Are the rules of logic objective or just the way we happen to think? Is there such a thing as objective right and wrong?

PHIL-UA 101Topics in History of Philosophy
MW 2–3:15
Ralf Bader

Prerequisite: PHIL-UA 20 or PHIL-UA 21

This course is a comprehensive examination of Rudolf Carnap’s masterpiece The Logical Structure of the World (Der logische Aufbau der Welt, 1928). This book is often hailed as the pinnacle of the logical empiricism propounded by the Vienna Circle and as one of the key founding documents of analytic philosophy. Carnap’s project in this book consists in providing a rational reconstruction of all of human knowledge, tracing all concepts back to a small number of basic elements, thereby vindicating the unity of science. We will be focusing on Carnap’s appeal to a structuralist understanding of science in explaining how objective knowledge is possible in spite of the fact that all knowledge has its origin in subjective experiences, as well as on his attempt to use the tools of modern logic to provide a synthesis of traditional empiricism and rationalism, leading to a wide-reaching critique of metaphysics. Apart from being intrinsically rewarding, engaging with this important text provides a helpful vantage point from which to understand the origin and subsequent development of analytic philosophy, whilst also being of direct contemporary relevance in light of a number of recent attempts to resurrect Aufbau-style projects in contemporary philosophy.

PHIL-UA 103
Topics in Metaphysics and Epistemology
MW 3:30–4:45
Katrina Elliott

Prerequisite: PHIL-UA 76 or PHIL-UA 78 or PHIL-UA 90

Arguably, one of the tasks of science is to state the natural laws. What is a law of nature? It seems to be a law that all uranium spheres are less than a mile in diameter, but it is surely not a law that all gold spheres are less than a mile in diameter. But why should the former, and not the latter, count as a law of nature? After all, both are contingently true universal generalizations that contain only non-local predicates. We will discuss and assess some of the most philosophically important answers to that question. In so doing, we will cover related topics in the philosophy of science with a special focus on scientific explanation. Readings will be taken from Readings on Laws of Nature, ed. J. Carroll (Pittsburgh University Press 2004), and supplemented with further material.

PHIL-UA 201
Honors Seminar
Tuesday 4–6
Laura Franklin-Hall

Permission of the department required to enroll.

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Undergraduate Courses Summer 2011

First Session

PHIL-UA 17
Life and Death
MTWR 1:30–3:05pm
Joe Harper

This course will be divided into two broad sections, the first concerning the metaphysics of life and death, and the second concerning some normative and applied ethical issues surrounding life and death. As for the metaphysics, we’ll begin by exploring what exactly life and death might be. What does it take to be alive? What does it take for a person to persist through time? Is some sort of afterlife possible? If so, what might that consist in? Turning to the ethical issues, we’ll ask about what matters in survival, what makes someone’s life go best, and whether there is an appropriate attitude to hold toward the inevitable prospect of death. Would immortality be desirable? Finally, we’ll turn to certain real world issues. Is euthanasia ever permissible? How about capital punishment? What sort of duties to we owe to the living? The dead? The Unborn? To non-human life?

Readings will be drawn from the following texts, possibly along with supplementary readings to be downloaded from the internet:

John Perry, A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality
John Martin Fischer (ed.), The Metaphysics of Death,
Andrew Cohen and Christopher Heath Wellman (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics

PHIL-UA 20
History of Ancient Philosophy
MTWR 6–7:35pm
Johnny Cottrell

Examination of the major figures and movements in Greek Philosophy, especially Plato and Aristotle.

PHIL-UA 60001
Aesthetics
MTWR 11:30am–1:05pm
Nick Riggle

Introduces problems raised by the nature of art, artworks, and aesthetic judgment. Topics include the expressive and representational properties of artworks, aesthetic attention, and appreciation; and the creation, interpretation, and criticism of artworks. Readings from classical and contemporary sources.

PHIL-UA 70-001
Logic
MTWR 1:30–3:05pm
Martin Glazier

The fundamental question of logic is: what differentiates good reasoning from bad? A closely related question is: how can we ensure our reasoning is good? In this course, we'll develop a set of tools to help answer these questions. Our toolkit will consist of two formal languages, sentential logic and predicate logic. We'll learn how to formally translate sentences of English, to construct rigorous arguments, and to assess the validity of formal reasoning. Through our study of these languages, we'll come to appreciate the subtlety and ambiguity--even unclarity--of our own language, and we'll get an up- close look at the relationship between language and reality.

The course website is: http://logic.mglazier.net/

Second Session

PHIL-UA 01
Introduction to Philosophy
MTWR 1:30–03:05pm
Olla Solomyak

This course will serve as an introduction to some of the central questions of philosophy -- questions such as: What makes an action morally right or wrong? Is there a God? What is the relationship between the mind and the body? How can we attain knowledge of the world beyond our own minds? Do we have free-will, or are our actions pre-determined? What is the Good life? We will examine both classical and contemporary philosophers' perspectives on these issues, with a focus on developing the tools required to construct and analyze philosophical arguments, and to think clearly and creatively about philosophical questions.

PHIL-UA 15
Minds and Machines
MTWR 6–7:35pm
Eli Alshanetsky

An intensive introduction to the discipline of philosophy, by way of study of conceptual issues in cognitive science, focusing on the conflict between computational and biological approaches to the mind. Topics covered include whether a machine could think, the reduction of the mind to the brain, connectionism and neural nets, mental representation, and whether consciousness can be explained materialistically.

PHIL-UA 21
History of Modern Philosophy
MTWR 1:30pm–3:05pm
Bogdan Rabanca

Examination of the major figures and movements in philosophy in Europe from the 17th to the early 19th century, including some of the works of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant.

PHIL-UA 40
Ethics
MTWR 3:30–5:05pm
Melis Erdur

This course is an introduction to philosophical ethics. We will primarily study the three major traditional approaches to ethical theory, namely, consequentialism, virtue ethics, and deontology, reading classical works that are most representative of these views (works of Mill, Aristotle, and Kant, respectively). Then, we will turn to Levinas’ works for a more contemporary take on ethics, which is radically different from the former three.

PHIL-UA 50
Medical Ethics
MTWR 9:30–11:05am
Michael Schweiger

Examines moral issues in medical practice and research. Topics include euthanasia and quality of life; deception, hope, and paternalism; malpractice and unpredictability; patient rights, virtues, and vices; animal, fetal, and clinical research; criteria for rationing medical care; ethical principles, professional codes, and case analysis (for example, Quinlan, Willowbrook, Baby Jane Doe).

PHIL-UA 52
Philosophy of Law
MTWR 11:30–1:05pm
Daniela Dover

Examines the nature of law, its relations to morality, and its limits. Topics: positivism and natural law theory, theories of criminal justice and punishment; concepts of liberty, responsibility, and rights. Considers the views of such thinkers as Austin, Bentham, Dworkin, Fuller, Hart, Rawls, and others.

PHIL-UA 70-002
Logic
MTWR 6–7:35pm
Jared Warren

An introduction to the basic techniques of sentential and predicate logic. Students learn how to put arguments from ordinary language into symbols, how to construct derivations within a formal system, and how to ascertain validity using truth tables or models.

PHIL-UA 76
Belief, Truth, and Knowledge
MTWR 3:30–5:05pm
Daniel Fogal

This course will be a survey of central issues in epistemology. We will begin with some seemingly mundane observations about the nature of inquiry—namely, that in seeking answers to questions (e.g. How should I spend my summer? Who’s going to win the World Series? What’s the square root of 49?), we often take ourselves to know the answers, or have rational opinions, or have good evidence for our beliefs. These observations raise important questions, such as: What is it to know something? What is required to be rational? What is it to have good evidence, or reasons? And these questions lead to others, such as: Is it possible for two people with the same information to reasonably disagree? Can we really know things about the world around us, beyond how it appears? Is there anything we can be certain about, and if so, how? This course will address these questions (among others) and examine various answers to them.

PHIL-UA 80
Philosophy of Mind
MTWR 11:30–1:05pm
Grace Helton

This will be an introductory course in the philosophy of mind. What is it to have conscious experience, to be self-aware, or to have thoughts about and perceptions of the world around us? Do our mental lives have any causal impact on the physical world? Are there different kinds of consciousness? We will investigate whether these questions can be answered and explained in terms of the physical and computational architecture of our brains, or if we must say that there are irreducibly mental properties, mental states or souls. We will consider dualism, idealism, and materialism; inverted spectrum scenarios, zombie worlds, the “Mary” argument, mental causation, etc.

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Undergraduate Courses Spring 2011

Intensive Introductory Courses

V83.0010Central Problems in Philosophy
MW 11–12:15
Jim Pryor

This course is an introduction to the methods of contemporary philosophy, concentrating on the following questions:

1. The Problem of Other Minds: How can we tell whether animals and future computers have minds, or whether they’re instead just mindless automata? How can we tell that other people have minds?
2. The Mind/Body Problem: What is the relation between your mind and your body? Are they made up of different stuffs? If a computer duplicates the neural structure of your brain, will it have the same thoughts and self-awareness that you have?
3. Life and Death: What does it mean to die? Why is death bad? Do you have an immortal soul which is able to survive the death of your body?
4. Personal Identity: What makes you the person you are? Why would a clone of you have to be a different person than you are yourself? If we perfectly recorded all the neural patterns in your brain right now, could we use that recording to “bring you back” after a fatal accident?

Sign up for one of the following sections:

V83.0010–001 Thursday 11–12:15 V83.0010–002 Friday 12:30–1:45 V83.0010–003 Friday 11–12:15 V83.0010–004 Friday 2–3:15

V83.0015
Minds and Machines
T/Th 9:30–10:45
William Starr

Throughout history, metaphors drawn from technology of the time have been proposed to understand how the mind works. While Locke described the newborn’s mind as a blank slate, Freud compared the mind to hydraulic and electro-magnetic systems. In recent decades, many have followed Alan Turing’s proposal to think of the mind as a kind of computer. Indeed, this idea is often said to be one of the foundational assumptions of cognitive science. What do cognitive scientists mean when they claim that the mind is a computer? What is a computer? Could a computer have a mind or be conscious? More recently, some have claimed the mind is more like a massive network of associations, like Google’s database. Indeed, a few have even speculated that your brain and Google work in the same basic way. The purpose of this course is to grapple with these and related questions.

Sign up for one of the following sections:

V83.0015–001 Monday 3:30–4:45 V83.0015–002 Monday 4:55–6:10

Group I: History of Philosophy

V83.0021–001
History of Modern Philosophy
T/Th 11–12:15
Elliot Paul

This course is an introduction to the some of the most influential European philosophers of the 17^th and 18^th centuries: Descartes, Elizabeth, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Reid, and Kant. We will consider and critically examine the responses these thinkers gave to various questions in metaphysics and epistemology, including the following: What is the relationship between reality and our perception of reality? What is the nature of the mind and how is it related to the body? What is the nature of physical reality? Do we have free will? Which of our beliefs, if any, do we have good reason to maintain in the face of various skeptical challenges?

Sign up for one of the following sections:

V83.0021–002 Thursday 12:30–1:45 V83.0021–003 Thursday 2–3:15 V83.0021–004 Friday 11–12:15 V83.0021–005 Friday 12:30–1:45

V83.0101
Topics in History of Philosophy
MW 4:55–6:10
Japa Pallikkathayil

Prerequisite: Two courses in Philosophy, at least one in history of Philosophy

This course examines the social contract tradition in political philosophy. Views in this tradition begin by considering the kinds of problems we would face in the absence of coercive political institutions, i.e. in a ‘state of nature’. In light of these purported problems, these views then employ some conception of a contract in the attempt to justify the state's use of coercion. Readings will be drawn primarily from Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Kant. We will focus on both understanding and critically evaluating the different ways in which these philosophers conceive of the state of nature and the contract that establishes the state.

Group II: Ethics, Value, and Society

V83.0040
Ethics
T/Th 9:30–10:45
David Velleman

This course covers three great works of moral philosophy: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, and Mill's Utlitarianism. It concludes with a contemporary work that applies moral philosophy to 20th-century history : Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem. Course requirements are: attendance at lectures and a recitation, five short papers and a final exam.

Sign up for one of the following sections:

V83.0040–002 Monday 9:30–10:45 V83.0040–003 Monday 4:55–6:10 V83.0040–004 Thursday 11–12:15 V83.0040–005 Thursday 12:30–1:45

V83.0042
Applied Ethics
MW 11–12:15
Japa Pallikkithayil

This course will explore contemporary debates regarding contentious ethical issues. The course has two aims: (1) to identify the moral theories and concepts shaping these debates, and (2) to use these debates to refine and evaluate these theories and concepts. Topics may be drawn from areas like environmental ethics, business ethics, and medical ethics.

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V83.0045–002 Thursday 9:30–10:45 V83.0045–003 Thursday 11–12:15

V83.0050
Medical Ethics
T/Th 2–3:15
Matthew Liao

This course will examine ethical issues arising out of medicine and bioethics. We will begin by surveying normative theories such as consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics. We will then explore topics such as informed consent, confidentiality, brain death and persistent vegetative state, euthanasia, abortion, embryonic stem cell research, genetic testing and genetic engineering, and allocation of scarce medical resources and social health care policy. By the end of the course, students will learn how to analyze important, philosophical arguments in bioethics.

Sign up for one of the following sections:

V83.0050–002 Friday 9:30–10:45 V83.0050–003 Friday 12:30–1:45

V83.0051The Idea of Law in the West
T/Th 2–3:15
Anthony Kronman

The most basic question one can ask about the law concerns the nature and source of its authority. Why am I bound by the law’s commands? Many other questions flow from this one. What, for example, is the relation between legal and political authority? Between law and morals? Between law and the order of the natural world? Very broadly speaking, in the long history of philosophical and theological reflection on this subject in the West, two different answers have been given to the question of law’s authority. One grounds the authority of law in reason and the natural order of the world that reason discloses to us. The other grounds the authority of law in will, to begin with the will of God, and then later the will of human agents.The Western tradition of legal philosophy may be described, in the broadest terms, as an encounter between these two conceptions of law, the rationalist and the voluntarist. The aim of my course is to help students recover this background and to grasp the intimate connection of this disagreement about the authority of law to a deeper disagreement about the nature of divinity itself—one defined by the fault line that Tertullian marked centuries ago when he asked, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” The course will not only prepare the students for a richer and more satisfying engagement with issues of contemporary moral and legal philosophy, but acquaint them with a central, organizing motif of Western thought in general.

V83.0102
Topics in Ethics and Political Philosophy
T/Th 4:55–6:10
Peter Unger

Prerequisite: Two courses in Philosophy, including either V83.0040, V83.0041, V83.0045, or V83.0052.

Even as compared to what he or she can do, almost all well-to-do people do little, or nothing, over the course of their lifetime, to prevent the early deaths and great suffering of people in the poorest parts of the world. Is it wrong for a well-to-do person to behave like this—perhaps about as horribly wrong as committing negligent homicide, as with fatal drunken driving? The course will center on this question, though it will also involve us in many other moral questions. In about equal measure, this will be a course in both normative ethics and in applied ethics. (By contrast, little will be said about metaethics and, most likely, not much about political philosophy, either.)

Group III: Metaphysics, Epistemology, Mind, Language, and Logic

V83.0070–001
Logic
MW 9:30–10:45
Jonathan Simon

Logic is the science of reasoning correctly. It is a set of tools that will help you clarify and disambiguate what you want to say, help you evaluate pieces of reasoning, and get you comfortable with the standard of rigor operative in mathematics, philosophy, computer science and other precise theoretical endeavors. As we learn how to use the tools in this toolkit, we will consider deeper philosophical questions raised along the way, questions like: What is it for one proposition to be a logical consequence of other propositions—for it to be impossible for the one to be false if the others are true? And what is it for some things that you have thought, written or said to be proofs of other things that you have thought, written or said? And what is it to give a formal theory of some domain, like number theory or geometry? Finally, time and interest permitting, we will use our logical tools as a standpoint from which to look into the great valley of questions about logic itself: what is the relationship between truth and proof, or between understandability, and logical definability?

V83.0070–002
Logic
T/Th 4:55–6:10
Melis Erdur

V83.0070–003Logic
MW 11–12:15
Jeff Sebo

Introduces the techniques, results, and philosophical import of 20th century formal logic. Principal concepts include those of sentence, set, interpretation, validity, consistency, consequence, tautology, derivation, and completeness. This course satisfies the logic requirement for NYU Philosophy majors.

V83.0072
Advanced Logic
T/Th 12:30–1:45
Rachael Briggs

This course serves as an introduction to the non-classical extensions and alternatives to classical logic, and the philosophical debates surrounding them. Topics include modal logic (the logic of possibility and necessity), conditional logics (connected to debates about causation), many-valued logics (in which propositions can be both true and false, or neither true nor false), intuitionistic logic (closely related to provability in mathematics), and relevance logic (whose proposed applications include a superior theory of argumentative reasoning and theories of truthmaking). Our textbook will be the second edition of Graham Priest's "An Introduction to Non-Classical Logic".

Sign up for one of the following sections:

V83.0072–002 Friday 12:30–1:45 V83.0072–003 Friday 3:30–4:45

V83.0076Epistemology
MW 2–3:15
Colin Marshall

This course will be about what, if anything, makes a belief good (in a broad sense of “good”). We’ll address this issue on both a general level and a more specific level. On the general level, we’ll look these questions: Are all beliefs equally legitimate, or are there standards that make some better than others? What’s the difference between merely believing something and knowing it, and is there anything we really know? On the more specific level, we'll look the following questions: Should you change your beliefs when you find out that well-informed people disagree with you, and if so, how? Do you know that the external world exists, and if so, do you need to be able to show you're not dreaming? Time permitting, we may also discuss self-knowledge, perceptual knowledge and radical relativism.

Sign up for one of the following sections:

V83.0076–002 Thursday 12:30–1:45 V83.0076–003 Thursday 2–3:15

V83.0080
Philosophy of Mind
MW 3:30–4:45
Thomas Nagel

The course will concentrate on the recent history of debate over the mind-body problem in the analytic literature. The problem is this: How are mental phenomena such as feeling, perception, thought, and desire related to the physical world, especially to brains and behavior? Can mental phenomena be identified with physical phenomena, or analyzed in physical terms, or does their existence imply that there is more to reality than can be accounted for by the physical sciences?

Sign up for one of the following sections:

V83.0080–002 Thursday 9:30–10:45 V83.0080–003 Thursday 11–12:15 V83.0080–004 Friday 12:30–1:45 V83.0080–005 Friday 2–3:15

V83.0085Philosophy of Language
T/Th 11–12:15
Ted Sider

“No politician from Belgium has ever worn exactly 2,001,576 hats.” You have never seen that sentence before, yet you understood it. How? Presumably: you know (i) what its words mean, and (ii) how the word-meanings combine to generate the meaning of the whole sentence. But what exactly is involved in (i) and (ii)? What kinds of things do words mean? How do words get their meanings? And how exactly do word-meanings determine sentence-meanings? We will study classic articles by Frege, Russell, Kripke, Putnam, Quine, Davidson, Lewis, Grice and others, on such topics as semantic compositionality, descriptions, quantifiers, proper names, natural kind terms, propositional attitudes, conversational implicature, logical positivism, analyticity, truth and meaning, meaning and use, and the indeterminacy of translation.

Sign up for one of the following sections:

V83.0085–002 Tuesday 2–3:15 V83.0085–003 Tuesday 3:30–4:45

V83.0103
Topics in Metaphysics and Epistemology
T/Th 2–3:15
Kit Fine

Prerequisite: Two courses in Philosophy, including either V83.0076 or V83.0078.

Metaphysics is the philosophical inquiry into the general nature of reality. We shall attempt to deal with some questions within metaphysics—such as the nature of cause and the existence of universals; and we shall also attempt to deal with some questions about metaphysics—such as the distinction between appearance and reality, and the nature of reduction. Readings will be taken from Metaphysics: An Anthology, eds. J. Kim and E. Sosa (Blackwell, 1999) and may be supplemented with other material. Students will be expected to make a short class presentation and to hand in both a mid-term paper and a final paper.

V36.0450–003/V83.0157
Topics in Environmental Values and Society
T/Th 2–3:15
Ben Sachs

What problems are caused by population expansion? Is there any way to avert these problems without trampling over people’s rights? This is the topic for the course. We’ll begin by familiarizing ourselves with the debates among demographers and economists over the causes and consequences of population expansion. Next we will explore what a morally acceptable goal for a population policy would look like, before turning to the question of who would be wronged if we fail to achieve that goal. The rest of the course will consist in trying to determine how our goal might be achieved. We will try to determine, first, whether there are individual obligations to contribute to this goal by modifying one’s reproductive activity. Finally, we will ask whether and how the state may permissibly use its power to suppress population expansion.

Honors Courses

V83.0200–001
Junior Honors Pro-Seminar
T 4:00–6:00
Beatrice Longuenesse

V83.0202
Senior Honors Research

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Program of Study (CAS Bulletin)

MAJOR

(These new requirements will apply to students entering NYU in Fall 2010 and after.)

A major in philosophy requires ten 4-point courses in the department. These ten courses must include the following:

• One and only one Introductory course (PHIL-UA 1 or PHIL-UA 2 or PHIL-UA 3 or PHIL-UA 4 or PHIL-UA 5)

• Logic (PHIL-UA 70)

• History of Ancient Philosophy (PHIL-UA 20)

• History of Modern Philosophy (PHIL-UA 21)

• Ethics (PHIL-UA 40) or Nature of Values (PHIL-UA 41) or Political Philosophy (PHIL-UA 45)

• Epistemology (PHIL-UA 76) or Metaphysics (PHIL-UA 78) or Philosophy of Science (PHIL-UA 90)

• Philosophy of Mind (PHIL-UA 80), or Consciousness (PHIL-UA 81) or Philosophy of Language (PHIL-UA 85)

• One Topics course (PHIL-UA 101 or PHIL-UA 102 or PHIL-UA 103 or PHIL-UA 104)

The remaining two courses (electives) can come from any of the philosophy offerings, except the Introductory courses. No credit toward the major is awarded for a course with a grade lower than C.

All students should begin with one of the Introductory courses, one of which is a prerequisite for all of the other courses required for the major, except Logic. It is recommended that those considering a major also take Logic as soon as possible.

JOINT MAJOR IN LANGUAGE AND MIND

This major, intended as an introduction to cognitive science, is administered by the Departments of Linguistics, Philosophy, and Psychology. Ten courses are required (four in linguistics, one in philosophy, four in psychology, and one additional course). The linguistics component consists of these four courses:

1. Language and Mind (LING-UA 28)
2. Two more courses, chosen from the following:
   
   • Introduction to Semantics (LING-UA 4)
   • Phonological Analysis (LING-UA 12)
   • Grammatical Analysis (LING-UA 13)
3. One course, chosen from the following:
   
   • Introduction to Semantics (LING-UA 4)
   • Psycholinguistics (LING-UA 5)
   • Sound and Language (LING-UA 11)
   • Computational Principles of Sentence Construction (LING-UA 24)
   • Form, Meaning, and the Mind (LING-UA 31)
   • Propositional Attitudes (LING-UA 35)
   • Neural Bases of Language (LING-UA 43 or PSYCH-UA 300)
   • Linguistics as Cognitive Science (LING-UA 48)
   • Learning to Speak (LING-UA 54)
   • Introduction to Morphology at an Advanced Level (LING-UA 55)

The philosophy component is a choice of one of the following three courses: Minds and Machines (PHIL-UA 5), Philosophy of Language (PHIL-UA 85), or Logic (PHIL-UA 70).

The required psychology component consists of four courses:

1. Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences (PSYCH-UA 10)
2. Cognition (PSYCH-UA 29)
3. One course chosen from The Psychology of Language (PSYCH-UA 56), Neural Bases of Language (PSYCH-UA 300), and Speech: A Window into the Developing Mind (PSYCH-UA 300)
4. One course chosen from Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience (PSYCH-UA 25), Perception (PSYCH-UA 22), Laboratory in Perception (PSYCH-UA 44), Laboratory in Human Cognition (PSYCH-UA 46), The Psychology of Language (PSYCH-UA 56), or Neural Bases of Language (PSYCH-UA 300)

The tenth course will be one of the above-listed courses that has not already been chosen to satisfy the departmental components. Joint majors should consult with the respective directors of undergraduate studies of the departments involved.

MINOR

(These new requirements will apply to students entering NYU in Fall 2010 and after.)

A minor in philosophy requires four 4-point courses in the department. These four courses must include one (and only one) Introductory course (PHIL-UA 1-5), and one course from each of the three groups of courses. No credit toward the minor is awarded for a course with a grade lower than C.

INDEPENDENT STUDY

A student may sign up for an independent study course if he or she obtains the consent of a faculty member who approves the study project and agrees to serve as adviser. The student must also obtain the approval of either the department chair or the director of undergraduate studies. The student may take no more than one such course in any given semester and no more than two such courses in total, unless granted special permission by either the department chair or the director of undergraduate studies.

HONORS PROGRAM

Honors in philosophy will be awarded to majors who (1) have an overall GPA of 3.65 and an average in philosophy courses of 3.65 and (2) successfully complete the honors program. This program consists of the following three courses. (Note: of these courses, only the first two may be counted toward the ten courses required for the major.)

The Junior Honors Proseminar (PHIL-UA 200) should be taken in the spring semester of junior year. This course will play the dual roles of introducing students to core readings in some of the main areas of current philosophy and of giving them an intensive training in writing philosophy. Admission to this course usually requires a GPA, both overall and in philosophy courses, of at least 3.65, as well as the permission of the director of undergraduate studies. The department will try to make alternative arrangements for students who wish to participate in the honors program but who will be studying abroad in this semester of their junior year.

Next, the Senior Honors Seminar (PHIL-UA 201) should be taken in the fall semester of senior year. Here, students begin to develop their thesis projects, meeting weekly as a group under the direction of a faculty member and presenting and discussing their thesis arguments. Students will also select, and begin to meet separately with, their individual thesis advisers—faculty who work in the areas of students’ thesis projects. Entry to this seminar depends on satisfactory completion of the Junior Honors Proseminar—or on the special approval of the director of undergraduate studies. It also usually requires a GPA of at least 3.65.

Finally, Senior Honors Research (PHIL-UA 202) should be taken in the spring semester of senior year. The seminar no longer meets, but each student continues to meet separately with his or her individual thesis adviser, producing and discussing a series of rough drafts of the thesis. The final version must be submitted by a deadline to be determined, in April. It must be approved by the thesis adviser, as well as by a second faculty reader, for honors to be awarded. The student must also finish with a GPA of at least 3.65—and here no exceptions will be made. In addition, the thesis advisers will meet after the decisions by the readers have been made and award some students highest or high honors, based on thesis quality and other factors (including GPA in philosophy courses).

COURSE PREREQUISITES

The department treats its course prerequisites seriously. Students not satisfying a course’s prerequisites are strongly advised to seek the permission of the instructor beforehand.

 

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