| PHIL 5000F: Special Topic in Philosophy Fall 2011 Time: Tuesdays, 2:30 – 5:30 Instructor: Dr. Geraldine Finn Topic: The Voice of Philosophy – the Philosophy of Voice This course will explore the metaphysical and political implications of the silencing of the sonorous voice in western philosophy and its systematic reduction of language and thought to an essentially disembodied and devocalized logos. The course will be run as a seminar with individual students assuming responsibility for introducing the weekly readings and any other (sonorous) material that may be relevant to it. The required texts will be drawn from contemporary thinkers in continental philosophy and will include For More Than One Voice. Toward a Philosophy of Vocal Expression by Adriana Cavarero (Stanford University Press, 2005) plus at least two or three other book-length studies of the voice of/in philosophy that will be announced later. |
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PHIL 5000B: Special Topic in Philosophy Public and private organizations have many ethics issues in common. Most of these issues result from underlying assumptions about people. These assumptions are manifest in organizational structure, culture, and management practices. Private sector operations, through their economic, environmental, political, social, and technological impact raise a broader set of ethical issues. We will examine a range of ethical issues in the public and private sectors beginning from within organizations to issues between organizations to issues arising from organizational operations. This course will make use of literature from a broad range of areas including psychology, organizational behavior, social psychology, business ethics, and philosophical ethics. |
| PHIL 5200G: Topics in Philosophy of Mind or Philosophy of Language Fall 2011 Time: Wednesdays, 6:00 – 9:00 Instructor: Dr. Eros Corazza Topic: Situated Cognition In everyday life we’re constantly processing and using information we encounter and/or we have stored in our surroundings. There are three main ways to approach this basic fact: (i) cognition depends not just on the brain but also on the body (the embodied mind); (ii) cognitive activities constantly exploit structure in the natural and social world (the embedded mind); (iii) the boundaries of cognition expand beyond an organism body (the extended mind). In this seminar we’ll investigate and discuss some central aspects of these three approaches. |
| PHIL5600F: Topics in the History of Philosophy Fall 2011 Time: Thursdays, 11:30 – 2:30 Instructor: Dr. Annie Larivée Topic: Aristotle on the Care of the Soul Thanks to Pierre Hadot, Michel Foucault, and Martha Nussbaum we are now used to seeing ancient philosophy as an art of caring for the soul, a form of therapy for the passions. According to these interpreters, ancient philosophy has a practical goal: it aims to transform, not just inform its practitioner. Indeed, the question of the care of the self (more specifically care of the soul, psyché) is a recurrent theme not only in Platonic dialogues but in the schools of the Hellenistic period and the Roman Empire as well (especially Epicureanism and Stoicism). These schools frequently compared philosophy to medicine –philosophy would be medicine for the soul. But what of Aristotle? Is the Stagirite not an exception in ancient philosophy in this regard? Is it not the case that his vision of philosophy is closer to our idea of science (inherited form him) as a purely theoretical activity of research? And is it not the case that, in this regard, contemporary philosophy (as a mostly disengaged and abstract activity) is Aristotle’s legacy? In this seminar we will read various texts by Aristotle (including but not limited to those concerning practical philosophy) in order to see just to what point this view of Aristotle is justified –or not. In our inquiry we will pay special attention to the care of the soul, a prevalent theme in Aristotle’s political and ethical writings. The aim of this seminar is twofold: 1) to initiate students into research in ancient philosophy and 2) to provide them the opportunity to discover several works in the Aristotelian corpus with which they are probably not familiar (the Politics, De Anima, or the Rhetoric, for example) and to deepen their knowledge of already familiar works through a rigorous, communal reading. |
| PHIL 5000W: Special Topic in Philosophy Winter 2012 Time: Wednesdays, 2:30 – 5:30 Instructor: Dr. Vida Panitch Topic: Global Bioethics Addressing the various moral harms associated with international clinical research, commercial surrogacy, and organ trafficking, and asking whether (or under what kinds of conditions) these practices can be said to violate human rights and the demands of global distributive justice. |
| PHIL 5250W: Topics in Logic, Epistemology, Metaphysics or Philosophy of Science Winter 2012 Time: Thursdays, 11:30 – 2:30 Instructor: Dr. Gabriele Contessa Topic: Powers What determines the identity of properties? According to an increasingly popular answer, properties are powers – their identity is (at least in part) determined by the dispositions they confer on the objects that instantiate them. So, for example, it is part and parcel of what it is for an object to be charged that it repels object with the same charge and attracts objects with opposite charge. In this seminar, we will examine how the view that properties are powers has been recently developed and defended by different authors. |
| PHIL 5350X: Topics in Ethics or Political Philosophy Winter 2012 Time: Thursdays, 6:00 – 9:00 Instructor: Dr. Wendy Donner Topic: John Stuart Mill In this seminar we will explore John Stuart Mill’s moral and political philosophy, with emphasis on recent scholarship. We will begin by examining the elements of his utilitarian moral philosophy, including his theory of value and the structure of the Art of Life (Morality, Justice, Virtue and Aesthetics). We will then go on to consider other topics including liberty, democratic education, liberalism and democracy, liberal feminism and environmental philosophy. The goal throughout will be to examine Mill’s major writings such as Utilitarianism, On Liberty, Representative Government and The Subjection of Women in the light of recent commentary and scholarship. |
| PHIL 5600W: Topics in the History of Philosophy Winter 2012 Time: Tuesdays, 11:30 – 2:30 Instructor: Dr. Melissa Frankel Topic: God in Early Modern Philosophy Discussions of the existence and nature of God play a central role in early modern philosophy. In this course we’ll consider some of the ways in which God figures in the philosophical arguments of the 17th and 18th centuries. We will be consulting primary texts from philosophers including Descartes, Malebranche, Spinoza, Berkeley, and Leibniz, and looking at such diverse topics as proofs of the existence of God, God and the possibility of human free will, God and the problem of evil, God’s role in perception, God’s causal role, and God and the laws of nature. |
| PHIL 5850: Graduate Proseminar Fall 2011 Time: Mondays, 11:30 – 2:30 Instructors: Dr. Heidi Maibom and Dr. Gordon DavisThis is mandatory for first year MA students. |
| PHIL 5900: Graduate Research Seminar Winter 2012 Time: Mondays, 11:30 – 2:30 Instructor: Dr. David Matheson This is mandatory for first year MA students. |