The information below is taken from the printed catalog the college produces each year. For more up to date information, including links to course websites, faculty homepages, reserve readings, and more, use the 'courses' or semester specific link to your left.

01. Doing the Right Thing. A primary objective of this course is to develop analytic tools for making thoughtful moral decisions in our own lives and for evaluating policies and decisions made by others. Equally, this course offers students the opportunity to become effective and eloquent writers. This year we will focus on some of the moral problems raised by the practices of international aid, abortion, euthanasia, affirmative action, speaking, eating, and having a life.

Admission by consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Second semester. Professor Gentzler.

11. Introduction to Philosophy. An examination of basic issues, problems, and arguments in philosophy, e.g., proofs for the existence of God, the nature of morality, free will and determinism, the relationship between the mind and the body, knowledge and the problem of skepticism. Discussions will take place in the context of readings from classical and contemporary philosophers.

Limited to 25 students. One section will be taught each semester. First semester: Professor Shah. Second semester: Professor Kearns.

13. Logic. "All philosophers are wise and Socrates is a philosopher; therefore, Socrates is wise." Our topic is this therefore. We shall expose the hidden structure of everyday statements on which the correctness of our reasoning turns. To aid us, we shall develop a logical language that makes this underlying structure more perspicuous. We shall also examine fundamental concepts of logic and use them to explore the logical properties of statements and the logical relations between them. This is a first course in formal logic, the study of correct reasoning; no previous philosophical, mathematical, or logical training needed.

First semester. Professor George.

17. Ancient Philosophy. An examination of the origins of Western philosophical thought in Ancient Greece. We will consider the views of the Milesians, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Protagoras, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Particular attention will be paid to questions about the nature, sources, and limits of human knowledge; about the merits of relativism, subjectivism, and objectivism in science and ethics; about the nature of, and relationship between, obligations to others and self-interest; and about the connection between the body and the mind.

Limited to 30 students. First semester. Visiting Professor Matthews.

18. Early Modern Philosophy. A survey of European philosophy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with emphasis on Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. Reading and discussion of selected works of the period.

Limited to 50 students; preference to Amherst College students. Second semester. Professor TBA.

20. Paradoxes. A paradox arises when unimpeachable reasoning leads from innocuous assumptions to an outrageous conclusion. A paradox brings us up short. Where did we go wrong? Were our assumptions less innocent than we supposed? Was our reasoning subtly fallacious after all? Must we alter our view of the world to make room for the formerly unacceptable conclusion? Or must we acknowledge an irresolvable conflict within reason itself? Paradoxes are not puzzles, but, at their best, goads to greater clarity and deeper thought. We shall explore a spree of philosophical topics (including time, motion, the past, the future, causation, infinity, truth, belief, the will, action, faith) via reflection on a range of paradoxes, ancient and modern, authentic and counterfeit.

Limited to 25 students. Preference will be given to those who have not already had a course in Philosophy. Omitted 2007-08. Professor George.

21. Moral Problems. Moral philosophers, economists, political scientists, and psychologists all make use of the closely related concepts of well-being, welfare, utility, prudential value, and quality of life. Indeed, we all want what is good for us. But what does it mean to say that something is good for us? That we like it? That we want it? That it develops our essential capacities as human beings? Can we measure and compare different levels of well-being? What makes a life well lived? Are well-lived lives those that give us well-being? Or do other factors contribute to the quality of a life? What roles should the concepts of well-being and well-lived lives play in moral and political philosophy?

Limited to 30 students. Omitted 2007-08. Visiting Professor Smith.

22. Contemporary Moral Problems. In the United States today citizens disagree fiercely about torture, gay marriage, abortion, the role of religion in science and politics, the demands of patriotism, etc. Can we find common ground in shared ethical principles that will allow us to engage in rational debates about these issues rather than in disrespectful shouting matches? This will be our guiding question as we investigate many of the contemporary moral issues that divide us.

Limited to 25 students. First semester. Professor Shah.

23. Health Care Ethics. U.S. citizens are currently faced with many important decisions about health care policy. Who should have access to health care and to which services? Should physician-assisted suicide be legalized? Should AIDS be treated differently from other sorts of communicable diseases? Should abortion remain legal? These issues, in turn, raise basic philosophical questions. What is the nature of rights? Do we, for example, have a basic right to health care, to privacy, to decide the course of our treatment, or to authority about the timing and manner of our deaths? Do fetuses have a right to life? These issues, in turn, raise questions about the relative weight and nature of various goods--e.g., life, pain relief, health, privacy, autonomy, and relationships--and questions about the justice of various distributions of these goods between different individuals when their interests are in conflict. Finally, our attempts to answer these questions will raise basic questions about the nature of rationality. Is it possible to reach rational decisions about ethical matters, or is ethics merely subjective?

Limited to 25 students; preference given to students with sophomore standing or above. Second semester. Professor Gentzler.

27. Issues in Aesthetics. A critical examination of selected theories of the nature of art, expression, creativity, artistic truth, aesthetic experience, interpretation and criticism. Special emphasis is placed on the thought of modern philosophers and critics.

Limited to 30 students. Omitted 2007-08. Visiting Professor Smith.

28. Choice, Chance and Conflict. Life is a risky and competitive business. As individuals, we constantly confront choices involving chancy and uncertain outcomes. And our institutional decisions--in government and business, for example—are often complicated by the competing interests of the individuals involved. Are there any general, rational procedures for making individual and institutional choices that involve chance and conflict?

Positive proposals have been developed within decision theory, game theory and social choice theory. This course will provide an introduction to these theories and their philosophical foundations. Topics include the following: different conceptions of probability and utility; proposed rules for rational decision making under ignorance and risk; recent accounts of the way we actually assess prospects and make decisions; the source of altruism and fairness; "tragedies of the commons"; voting procedures and other methods of determining a just group policy.

First semester. Professor Moore.

29. The Problem of Evil. (Also Religion 51.) See Religion 51.

Limited to 25 students. Omitted 2007-08. Professor Dole.

30. Irrationality. What is irrationality? Our familiar distinction between the realms of the rational and nonrational only heightens the mystery. Somehow irrationality partakes of rationality (as Hobbes observed, only man has “the privilege of absurdity”), yet stands radically opposed to it. How much sense can be made of the sense we don’t make? Strictly speaking, can one engage in “willing irrationality” (e.g., action against one’s own best judgment, or self-deception), “sub-intentional” action or unconscious strategizing? Does an unnoticed irrationality lurk behind the edifice of our day-to-day patterns of reasoning? How might we analyze inspiration, creativity and spontaneity? Our principal readings will be by contemporary authors, including Davidson, Pears, Elster, Gardner, Tversky and Kahneman, Fingerette, Mele, Lear, M. Cavell, O’Shaughnessy and Johnston, although we will sample freely from traditional sources such as Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, Poe, Dostoevski, Sartre and Camus.

Requisite: One course in Philosophy or consent of the instructor. Limited to 30 students. Omitted 2007-08. Visiting Professor Smith.

31. Philosophy of Action. Wittgenstein asked: “What is left over if I subtract the fact that my arm goes up from the fact that I raise my arm?” This important question lies at the intersection of ethics and the philosophy of mind. We will not get far with questions about how to act—questions of ethics, in the broadest sense—until we know more about what action is. We are thus led to connect practical questions with issues in the theory of agency. Related topics include: free will, the nature of intention, the structure of practical reasoning. We will study classic papers on these topics by twentieth-century philosophers.

Requisite: One course in Philosophy or consent of the instructor. Limited to 25 students. Omitted 2007-08. Professor Shah.

32. Metaphysics. Metaphysics concerns itself with basic and fundamental questions about the nature of reality. At its most general, metaphysics asks how we should distinguish appearance from reality, how we should understand existence, and what general features are had by reality and by the entities that exist as part of it. We will examine these questions, as well as other central issues in metaphysics. Additional topics may include: causation, change, identity, substances and properties, space and time, abstract objects like numbers and propositions, possibility and necessity, events, essences, time travel and freedom of the will. Readings will be drawn primarily from contemporary sources.

Requisite: One course in Philosophy or consent of the instructor. Second semester. Professor Vogel.

33. Philosophy of Mind. An introduction to philosophical problems concerning the nature of the mind. Central to the course will be the mind-body problem. Here we will be concerned with the question of whether there is a mind (or soul or self) that is distinct from the body, and the question of how thought, feelings, sensations, and so on, are related to states of the brain and body. In connection with this, we will consider, among other things, the nature of consciousness, mental representation, and persons.

Requisite: One course in Philosophy. Omitted 2007-08. Professor Moore.

34. Normative Ethics. We will be concerned to see whether there is anything to be said in a principled way about right and wrong. The core of the course will be an examination of three central traditions in ethical philosophy in the West, typified by Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, and John Stuart Mill. We will also look at contemporary discussions of the relation between the demands of morality and those personal obligations that spring from friendships, as well as recent views about the nature of personal welfare.

Requisite: One course in Philosophy or consent of the instructor. Limited to 25 students. Second semester. Professor Shah.

35. Theory of Knowledge. A consideration of some basic questions about the nature and scope of our knowledge. What is knowledge? Does knowledge have a structure? What is perception? Can we really know anything at all about the world?

Requisite: One course in Philosophy or consent of the instructor. Omitted 2007-08. Professor Vogel.

36. Philosophy of Language. “Caesar was stabbed.” With those words, I can make a claim about someone who lived in the distant past. How is that possible? How do our words succeed in picking out particular portions of reality, even ones with which we have had no contact? How does language enable us to convey thoughts about everything from Amherst College, to the hopes of a friend, to the stars beyond our galaxy? What are the thoughts, or the meanings, that our words carry? And whatever they turn out to be, how do they come to be associated with our words: through some mental activity on our part, or instead through our use of language? We will explore these and other philosophical questions about language through a reading of seminal works by 20th-century thinkers.

Requisite: One course in Philosophy. Omitted 2007-08. Professor George.

37. Philosophy of Science. The practice of science and its fruits have dominated the lives of human beings for centuries. But what is science? How does it differ, if at all, from common sense, or religion, or philosophy? One hears that scientists follow the “scientific method,” but what is that? It is said to be based on observation, but what is it to observe something? And how can our observations justify claims about what we do not, or even cannot, observe? The claims of science are often said to describe “laws of nature,” but what are such laws? These claims are said to form “theories,” but what is a theory? And if science issues in theories, what is their point, that is, what is the goal of science? To predict? To explain? What is it to explain something, anyway? And do all sciences explain in the same way; for instance, does physics explain in the way that psychology does? Science is often treated as the paragon of rationality and objectivity. But what is it to be rational or objective? To what degree does, or can, science really approach such ideals? Are there any values explicit or implicit in the practice of science? If so, do they threaten science’s alleged objectivity, and do they conflict with other values one might hold?

Requisite: One course in Philosophy or consent of the instructor. First semester. Professor George.

38. What Is Morality About? When we assert that murder is wrong, what are we saying? Are we describing some aspect of a moral realm that exists independently of what humans think and do? If so, how do we gain access to this realm (do we have moral antennae or ethical telescopes?), and what is the relation between truths in this realm and those in the ordinary world of mental and physical entities? On the other hand, if we are not talking about independent moral facts when we call an action wrong, what are we doing? Are we saying anything meaningful at all, or are we merely expressing emotions?

Requisite: One course in Philosophy or consent of the instructor. Limited to 25 students. Omitted 2007-08. Professor Shah.

39. Philosophy of Law. This course will explore a variety of basic issues regarding the nature of law and legal obligation. How is law similar to, and how does it differ from, other kinds of regulative regimes (e.g., etiquette, games, or morality)? How is legal obligation related to moral obligation and to force? In what ways, if at all, is law an affair of rules? What are rules and how do they differ from principles, policies or other kinds of standards? Is judicial discretion compatible with the rule of law? Does the rule of law require a particular kind of economic system? What are the limits of law? Should law attempt to improve people or merely keep them from harming one another? What is judicial activism, and is it bad? Readings will include some Supreme Court cases as well as a variety of classical and contemporary sources, e.g., Aquinas, Mill, Fuller, Finnis, Hart, Posner, Dworkin, Hayek and Raz.

Requisite: One course in Philosophy or consent of the instructor. Limited to 25 students. Omitted 2007-08. Professor Kearns.

40. Plato. Alfred North Whitehead famously claimed that the whole of Western Philosophy was “a series of footnotes to Plato.” No doubt this comment is an exaggeration. It is nonetheless true that the questions that Plato asked and the method that he used to answer these questions define Philosophy as we know it. In this course, we will examine the major dialogues of Plato’s early and middle period.

Requisite: One course in Philosophy or consent of the instructor. Limited to 25 students. First semester. Professor Gentzler.

41. Nietzsche. A careful reading of Beyond Good and Evil, The Gay Science, On The Genealogy of Morals, Ecce Homo, selections from The Will to Power, and finally Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

Requisite: Philosophy 17 or 18. Not open to first-year students. Limited to 25 students. Omitted 2007-08. Visiting Professor Smith.

42. Aristotle’s Political Philosophy: The Nicomachean Ethics and Politics. According to many contemporary political philosophers, the state should remain neutral between competing conceptions of the good life. If Mary wants to be an ascetic devoting her life to the worship of Minerva and Bob wants to commit his life to drinking beer and collecting beer caps, it is, in Billie Holiday’s words, “nobody’s business if [they] do.” It is certainly not the state’s business. In contrast, Aristotle announces at the beginning of his Nicomachean Ethics that the human good is the primary object of the science of politics. The Ethics is devoted to discovering its nature, the Politics to delineating the social conditions under which humans are most likely to achieve this good. The best state, according to Aristotle, is the one that realizes these conditions.

In this course, we will explore the presuppositions behind this fundamental difference between Aristotelian and many modern conceptions of the proper role of the state. Is Aristotle right to suggest that the human good is the primary object of political inquiry? Is he right to conclude that the good life is a virtuous life? What role should the state play in the promotion of a good and virtuous life for its citizens? Should the state be neutral between competing conceptions of the good life and virtue? Is it even possible for the state to remain neutral? In any case, in what sort of state are humans most likely to flourish?

We will take Hobbes’ Leviathan as our point of departure and explore certain fundamental assumptions about human nature and human possibility that underlie many modern conceptions of the state. We will then turn to a detailed examination of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Politics, and examine the metaphysical, epistemological, and moral bases for Aristotle’s alternative political view.

Requisite: One course in Philosophy. Limited to 25 students. Omitted 2007-08. Professor Gentzler.

44. Kant. An examination of the central metaphysical and epistemological doctrines of the Critique of Pure Reason, including both the historical significance of Kant’s work and its implications for contemporary philosophy.

Requisite: Philosophy 18 or consent of the instructor. Omitted 2007-08. Professor Vogel.

45. Command and Consent: The Social Contract Tradition. The state exercises authority over its citizens: if you fail to obey its dictates, you will be punished. Does this authority not conflict with human freedom and autonomy? If it does, can political authority be morally justified? We will focus on this central question in political philosophy, with particular attention to the idea that this authority is justifiable because we have in some fashion given our consent to it. Readings will include works by Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and (most extensively) John Rawls.

Requisite: One course in Philosophy or consent of the instructor. Omitted 2007-08. Professor George.

46. What Would Kant Do? Are there objectively correct moral principles that can tell us whether an action is right or wrong? Is it rational to do the right thing if it conflicts with my interests? Do I have duties to myself, such as the duty not to commit suicide? Is it always wrong to lie? Is the human will free? Is religious belief rationally defensible? Immanuel Kant, thought by many to be the greatest philosopher of the modern era, had profound answers to all these important questions. We will investigate their plausibility.

Requisite: One course in Philosophy or consent of the instructor. Second semester. Professor Shah.

50. Philosophy of Mathematics. Mathematics is often thought to be the paragon of clarity and certainty. However, vexing problems arise almost immediately upon asking such seemingly straightforward questions as: “What is the number 1?” “Why can proofs be trusted?” “What is infinity?” “What is mathematics about?” During the first decades of the twentieth century, philosophers and mathematicians mounted a sustained effort to clarify the nature of mathematics. The result was three original and finely articulated programs that seek to view mathematics in the proper light: logicism, intuitionism, and finitism. The mathematical and philosophical work in these areas complement one another and indeed are, to an important extent, intertwined. For this reason, our exploration of these philosophies of mathematics will examine both the philosophical vision that animated them and the mathematical work that gave them content. In discussing logicism, we will focus primarily on the writings of Gottlob Frege. Some indication of how the goal of logicism—the reduction of mathematics to logic—was imagined to be achievable will also be given: introduction to the concepts and axioms of set theory, the set-theoretic definition of “natural number,” the Peano axioms and their derivation in set theory, reduction of the concepts of analysis to those in set theory, etc. Some of the set-theoretic paradoxes will be discussed as well as philosophical and mathematical responses to them. In the section on intuitionism, we will read papers by L.E.J. Brouwer and Michael Dummett, who argue that doing mathematics is more an act of creation than of discovery. This will proceed in tandem with an introduction to intuitionistic logic, which stands in contrast to the more commonly used classical logic. Finally, we will discuss finitism, as articulated in the writings of David Hilbert, who sought to reconcile logicism and intuitionism. Students will then be taken carefully through Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems and their proofs. The course will conclude with an examination of the impact of Gödel’s work on Hilbert’s attempted reconciliation, as well as on more general philosophical questions about mathematics and mind.

Requisite: Philosophy 13 or Mathematics 34 or consent of the instructors. Omitted 2007-08. Professors George and Velleman.

51. Freedom and Responsibility. Are we free? An absence of external constraint seems to be necessary for freedom, but is it enough? Can obsessions, addictions, or certain types of ignorance threaten our freedom? Some philosophers have argued that if actions are causally determined, then freedom is impossible. Others have argued that freedom does not depend on the truth or falsity of causal determinism. Is freedom compatible with determinism? Are there different kinds of freedom? Are all kinds of freedom equally worthwhile? Must we act freely in order to be responsible for our actions? Is freedom of action sufficient for responsibility? Are the social institutions of reward and punishment dependent for their justification upon the existence of responsible, free agents? In what sort of society are humans most likely to get the sort(s) of freedom most worth wanting? We will attempt to determine the nature of persons, action, freedom, and responsibility in an effort to answer these questions.

Requisite: One course in Philosophy. Limited to 25 students. Omitted 2007-08. Professor Gentzler.

60. Seminar: Reason, Experience and Reflection. We have various ways of knowing: reason, perception, and introspection. When we perceive, things around us seem to be directly present to our minds. Is this picture compatible with the fact that perception involves a complicated causal process? And if perception is the immediate grasp of objects in the world, how can we be subject to illusion and hallucination? We say that seeing is believing. Is it really? Or, if not, what is the relation between perception and belief? Can the contents of perceptual experience be captured completely by conceptual thought?

Reason is the source of our knowledge of logic and mathematics. But what is reason, and how does it work? Is it something like perception? Do we somehow “see” that there is no greatest number, or that the conclusion of a proof follows from its premises? Is reason subject to illusion and error? How could we ever tell? What do reason and understanding language have to do with each other?

Finally, we have some way of knowing what we’re thinking and feeling, which can be called introspection or reflection. Should we think of introspection as some sort of inward perception? What else could it be? What is the relation between having an experience and knowing that you have that experience? To what extent do we know our own minds better than anyone else can?

These questions are the subject of great interest and intense controversy in contemporary philosophy. We will try to get clear about them by reading some of the best work in field, from authors such as Grice, McDowell, Quine, BonJour, Peacocke, Burge, and Shoemaker.

Requisite: Two courses in Philosophy or consent of the instructor. Limited to 15 students. Omitted 2007-08. Professor Vogel.

65. Seminar: Consciousness. Many scientists and philosophers regard the mind as entirely physical: according to “materialism,” our mental states, events and processes are nothing more than complex arrangements of the fundamental, natural properties and processes that are to be found in the inanimate portions of reality. The deepest philosophical worry for this view has been to provide an adequate understanding of human consciousness. How, asks the anti-materialist, can the “raw feel” of an intense toothache, the taste of a good Merlot, the rich experiential quality of viewing a desert sunset, or the inner life of a bat be fully understood as nothing more than a complex arrangement of neurons, or ultimately, of micro-physical particles? Isn’t there some aspect of consciousness that will elude any materialist analysis?

This seminar will focus, at the outset, on recent materialist attempts to meet consciousness-based objections of this type. This will lead us to consider recent attempts to understand consciousness in terms of higher-order thought (i.e., thoughts about our thoughts), and, more generally, to regard the phenomenal, qualitative features of conscious experience as thoroughly representational. Along the way, we will consider, among other things, whether we should distinguish different notions of consciousness, whether there is a “unity” of conscious experience, and whether we should regard introspection as a perceptual faculty like vision?

Requisite: Two courses in Philosophy or consent of the instructor. Limited to 15 students. Second semester. Professor Moore.

67. Seminar: Philosophy of Music. Music is sometimes described as a language, but what, if anything, does Charlie Parker’s “Ah-Leu-Cha” say to us? If music isn’t representational, then how should we understand its connection to the various emotions that it can express and invoke? (Or maybe these aren’t genuine emotions: Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings is widely described as sad, but what exactly are we—or is it—sad about? And why would we choose to listen to Mozart’s Requiem if it genuinely terrified us?) Perhaps our musical descriptions and experiences are metaphorical in some way—but how, and why?

What exactly is a musical work anyway? Where, when and how do “Summertime,” or “Stairway to Heaven,” or “Shake Ya Tailfeather” exist? And what makes for a performance of one or the other (or of no work at all)?

What, if anything, guides a proper “listening” or understanding of a musical work? Does it require knowledge of relevant musical and cultural conventions, or of the composition’s historical context, or even of the composer’s intentions and guiding aesthetic philosophy? (Think of gamelan music; think of the Sgt. Pepper’s album; think of John Cage.)

What determines whether a work, or a performance of it, is good? What role is played by beauty, grace, intensity and so on? And how objective are these aesthetic properties? Finally, why do we sometimes find music to be not just enjoyable, but intensely moving and even profound?

Requisite: Two courses in Philosophy or consent of the instructor. Limited to 15 students. Omitted 2007-08. Professor Moore.

68. Seminar: Miracles. Many believe that Jesus Christ died through crucifixion and that several days later he was alive again. Let us assume that this happened. Many call this a miracle. (And many believe that miracles such as this provide grounds for the correctness of their religion.) But what makes it a miracle? That we do not know how to explain it? But there are many events we cannot now explain, and they are not all miracles. Is it that Jesus’ resurrection fails to agree with the laws of nature? But then it seems that they are not the correct laws of nature after all. Can we understand what makes an event a miracle in such a way that miracles are possible and still miraculous? If we can arrive at such an understanding, then we must ask whether it would ever be rational to believe that a miracle has occurred? Quite a few people claimed they saw Jesus alive after his death. Does such testimony make it rational to believe that Jesus returned from the dead? Or would it not be more reasonable to conclude that the witnesses were mistaken? Could any evidence, however reliable and abundant, ever make it rational to believe that an event took place whose occurrence would be a miracle? In order to pursue these questions, we shall have to examine more carefully such notions as law of nature, testimony, evidence, and rationality. We shall do so through discussion of a range of classical and contemporary philosophical texts.

Requisite: Two courses in Philosophy or consent of the instructor. Limited to 15 students. Omitted 2007-08. Professor George.

69. Seminar: Well-Being and Well-Lived Lives. Moral philosophers, economists, political scientists, and psychologists all make use of the closely related concepts of well-being, welfare, utility, prudential value, and quality of life. Indeed, we all want what is good for us. But what does it mean to say that something is good for us? That we like it? That we want it? That it develops our essential capacities as human beings? Can we measure and compare different levels of well-being? What makes a life well lived? Are well-lived lives those that give us well-being? Or do other factors contribute to the quality of a life? What roles should the concepts of well-being and well-lived lives play in moral and political philosophy?

Requisite: Two courses in Philosophy. Limited to 15 students. First semester. Professor Gentzler.

77. Senior Departmental Honors. Required of candidates for Honors in Philosophy. Directed research culminating in a substantial essay on a topic chosen by the student and approved by the Department.

Open to seniors with consent of the Department. First semester. The Department.

78. Departmental Honors Course. Required of candidates for Honors in Philosophy. The continuation of Philosophy 77. In special cases, subject to approval of the Department, a double course.

Open to seniors with consent of the Department. Second semester. The Department.

97, 98. Special Topics. Independent Reading Course. Reading in an area selected by the student and approved in advance by a member of the Department.

Admission with consent of the instructor. First and second semesters.

Related Courses

Natural Philosophy: The Conceptual Puzzles of the Quantum World. See Colloquium 20.

Omitted 2007-08.

The Image of Law in Social and Political Thought. See Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought 02.

Second semester. Professor Kearns.

Artificial Intelligence. See Computer Science 24.

First semester. Professor Rager.

Modern Classics in Political Philosophy. See Political Science 28.

First semester. Professor Mehta.

The Political Thought of Kant, Hegel and Marx. See Political Science 40.

Omitted 2007-08. Professor Mehta.

Ancient Political Philosophy. See Political Science 49.

Second semester. Professor Mehta.

Topics in Contemporary Political Philosophy. See Political Science 83.

Second semester. Professor Mehta.

Christianity, Philosophy and History in the 19th Century. See Religion 49.

Omitted 2007-08. Professor Dole.

Tags:  Philosophy  courses