This introduction to philosophy will see how far the microscopes of reason and logic can carry us in traditional arguments about the existence and nature of God. To name just a few ways: We treat animals as companions, as food, as objects of wonder in the wild, as resources to be harvested, as testing grounds for science, and as religious sacrifice. What is the relationship between the mind and the body? Along the way, we will need to come to grips with the following surprising fact. After working through these arguments, we will reflect more generally on the proper roles of reason and faith in justifying religious belief. ", Get immediate help for depression or anxiety. We will focus on particular topics, examples of which are the following: normative critique, capitalism, authoritarianism, mass culture, enlightenment and reason, progress, violence, the domination of nature, white supremacy, patriarchy and colonialism. Which characteristics of persons give them moral status? We will examine these (and other questions) in the context of the great philosophical revolution at the beginning of the last century: the linguistic turn and the birth of analytic philosophy. We'll examine these and related questions through historical and contemporary readings. Does morality require that we always subordinate our personal relationships to universal principles? The course will, I hope, provide the students an opportunity and the tools to intellectually examine deeply emotional and contentious issues. In this course we'll examine several influential attempts to provide a rational foundation for morality, along with Nietzsche's wholesale rejection of these efforts. In this tutorial we will read philosophical texts from a range of approaches in professional philosophy since the early 20th Century (Analytic, Pragmatist, Continental or European, and Public). By which methods should we pursue these questions? But perform those exact same steps in a different order--check the stove, say "I didn't leave the stove on", then say "I might've left the stove on"--and something's gone quite wrong. "Don't die," she said. It is, in fact, quite difficult to get through any course of study in the liberal arts without some familiarity with Plato. Topics will include: What can we know through our senses? Each questioned the emancipatory effect of reason and freedom as well as idealist accounts of moral progress in human history. No one can have an adequate understanding of western intellectual history without some familiarity with the Greeks, and we might think that an understanding of our intellectual history can deepen our understanding of our own situation. this course, we will consider the relationship between freedom and social order. Throughout we will aim to fuse a rigorous scientific perspective with more humanistic themes and philosophical inquiry. Other questions are pressing and immediate: Artificial intelligence techniques are used today to help decide whether someone gets a bank loan, is eligible to be released on bail, or in need of particular medical treatment. Some critical theorists within the Frankfurt School tradition draw from upon ideas about the constitution of the subject developed in the early 19th century German philosophy of Hegel. Nevertheless, comparatively few people realize that the views we commonly think of as "Platonic" represent only one strand in Plato's thought. We will read works by three of Socrates' contemporaries: Aristophanes, Xenophon, and especially Plato. After working through these arguments, we will reflect more generally on the proper roles of reason and faith in justifying religious belief. In this tutorial we will exploit this characteristic of biomedical ethics by using a case-based approach to examining core concepts of the field. Much of the moral philosophy produced in Greece and Rome remains as relevant today as when it was written. The first portion of the course will be devoted to considering general theories of justice as well as alternative conceptions of justice specifically within the health care context. This course serves as an introduction to formal methods in the scientific study of language. What form of government best serves the people? Our main goal in this course is to work our way through Aristotle's text which can be extremely daunting, and to reconstruct his central positions and his arguments for these positions. Our aim is to enrich our understanding of the discipline in order to evaluate its value and limitations. falsity of all our beliefs? Furthermore, many of the issues that Aristotle takes up in these books remain of central importance in contemporary philosophy. How do you expect to learn? This tutorial will bring to life the debate between Locke and Leibniz, and enable students to reach their own conclusions about Empiricism vs. Rationalism, Realism vs. Idealism, and related issues. We'll examine these and related questions through historical and contemporary readings. Most of the authors will come from this list, however: Sartre, de Beauvoir, Kafka, Dostoyevsky, Thomas Mann, Camus, Ecco, Kundera, Borges, Charlie Kaufman, Bergman, Tarkovsky, Resnais, Kurosawa, Bunuel, Kubrick, Godard, Visconti and Guillermo del Toro. reason or truth (unless they are our own). Pascal's wager is a different approach: it argues that even though proof of the existence of God is unavailable, you will maximize your expected utility be believing. Morality and Partiality: Loyalty, Friendship, Patriotism. Our readings will include the relevant works of Plato, Sextus Empiricus, Carnap, Quine, Davidson, Goodman, Elgin, Hacking, Krausz, Foot, and Williams, among others. According to Hegel, subjects are both historically and socially constituted; they are formed through their relations with other subjects. We will also read more recent work by Foucault inspired scholars on topics such as the biopolitics of gender, the genealogy of terrorism, the informational person (how we become our data), and neoliberal subjects. Is film today really distinct from a number of new, emerging visual media? Authors will include Plato, Anselm, Aquinas, Pascal, Paley, Hume, Kant, Kierkegaard, and several contemporary philosophers. Firstly, we will try to understand the mental lives of non-human animals. Why then should we spend our time studying people who in addition to having these surprising beliefs have been dead for 2500 years? However, in his philosophically more sophisticated and notoriously difficult later dialogues (such as the Parmenides, Philebus, Sophist and Statesman), Plato engages in radical criticism and revision of his earlier views. Is democratic rule always best? v. t. e. Matt Walsh (born June 18, 1986) [1] is an American right-wing political commentator and author. Unit Notes: Public Health concentrators may use either PHIL 211T Ethics of Public Health or PHIL 213T Biomedical Ethics to fulfill their 3-elective requirement, but they may not use both courses to do so. Cy Walsh was detained under mental health supervision after the Supreme Court found he was mentally incompetent when he stabbed his father to death in July 2015. Are we legitimately bound by a social contract? The abstract philosophical question before us is. The course will place special emphasis on developing students' intellectual skills in close, analytical reading; reconstructing and evaluating claims and reasons that support them; producing original ideas and arguments, orally and in writing; responding to the claims and arguments presented in texts and in class; and writing clear, polished, well-argued papers. We conclude by considering the relation between first and third person studies of the mind, focusing on the concept of the embodied mind as a fruitful bridge between these different traditions. Thus, the concept of person plays a significant role in most branches of philosophy, e.g. Starting from scratch, students will learn the building blocks of current-day linguistic research. And what present practices and ways of thinking and knowing might be questioned using Foucault's tools, genealogy in particular, for resisting unnecessary constraints on freedom and the perpetuation of unnecessary suffering? We will try to determine what is the scope and nature of an adequate theory of emotions, what are the desiderata for such a theory, and what should count as evidence in its favor. Phil Walsh Writer/Producer Los Angeles, California, United States500+ connections Join to connect TW3 Entertainment Williams College Personal Website Report this profile Experience. These affect not only our particular choices but also, more fundamentally, who we are and what we value. Persons are subjects of experiences, have thoughts and feelings, motivation and agency; a person is thought of as continuous over time, and as related to, recognized and respected by other persons. "Phil Walsh was a man of boundless energy and enthusiasm, and his death is a tragic loss. We'll examine these criticisms in depth. As a result, some prominent researchers propose that the existence of consciousness requires a revision of basic physics, while others (seemingly desperately) deny that consciousness exists at all. health and disease, and then apply them to human psychology. [more], Socrates was executed in 399 BCE on the charges of impiety and corruption of the youth of Athens. More importantly, many of the thinkers that we will read in this class are simply excellent philosophers, and it is worthwhile for anyone interested in philosophical problems to read treatments of these problems by excellent philosophers. In this tutorial we will read philosophical texts from a range of approaches in professional philosophy since the early 20th Century (Analytic, Pragmatist, Continental or European, and Public). Some maintain that these issues are solely the provinces of philosophy, using traditional a priori methods. We begin by examining some of the central concepts of Buddhist psychology, its treatment of the mind as a selfless stream of consciousness, its examination of the variety of mental factors and its accounts of the relation between cognition and affects. What are the social and ethical prerequisites--and consequences--of democracy? What makes an individual's life go well? Students who have take PHIL 203 will have a good background for this class, but students who are generally comfortable with formal systems need not have taken PHIL 203. The course will present the essential ideas of relativity theory and quantum theory and explore their implications for philosophy. In this tutorial we will read the contemporary literature on consciousness. Does being virtuous guarantee happiness? Our aim will be to identify and evaluate the strongest version of each argument. We will closely analyze classical arguments by Augustine, Avicenna, Aquinas, Anselm, Maimonides, Descartes, and others. Of particular interest will be the extent to which discourse dynamics are built into the meanings of linguistic expressions vs. the extent to which they're consequences of our rational cognition. demanded by institutions, religious, political and ethnic communities, as well as by the state. The debate never transpired - indeed, Leibniz suppressed his New Essays - because of Locke's death in 1705. Does it advance our thinking and increase our knowledge of the world? Supt Bray said the domestic incident was a tragedy. While he never wrote any philosophical works of his own, Socrates is one of the most influential thinkers in the western tradition. Could we (individually and socially) educate and cultivate them? In pursuing the answers to these questions, we will discuss both classic and contemporary theories from philosophy and linguistics. What is it for a sentence or a proposition to be true? Phil is based out of Greater Seattle Area and works in the Real Estate industry. Does it matter who is offended? 1-3), and selected interviews and course lectures. [2] [3] He is the host of The Matt Walsh Show podcast and is a columnist for The Daily Wire. Students who have take PHIL 203 will have a good background for this class, but students who are generally comfortable with formal systems need not have taken PHIL 203. How can we reconcile this faith with the persistence of domination today? Always asking what practical difference would it make, our authors investigate the central questions and disputes of philosophy, from epistemology and metaphysics to ethics and religion. We will read classic works (such as John Stuart Mill, On Liberty and H. L. A. Hart, The Concept of Law), contemporary articles, and United States Supreme Court cases. Updated July 4, 2015 1.41am first published July 3, 2015 3.55pm. In a philosophy of logic class, we think about what we are doing when we do logic. It will be very helpful, though not absolutely necessary, for you to have some familiarity with logic and some experience in reading philosophy. Is happiness an emotional or mental state or is it a social construct? We'll also work on writing lucid prose that displays precisely the logical structure of arguments, engages in focused critique of these arguments, and forcefully presents arguments of our own. Is that principle of organization justifiable or not? Does freedom require leading (or avoiding) a political life? [more], Intellectually, we are ready skeptics and relativists. The son of Adelaide Crows coach Phil Walsh has been charged with his murder, after the 55-year-old was found dead in his home, South Australian police . What we have here is an example of the sorites paradox. who happens to be a philosopher; nor is it just that philosophical positions are reviewed in the narrative, as in Gaarder's. Black Marxism: Political Theory and Anti-Colonialism, What Philosophy Is: It's Methods, Aims and Values. The first portion of the course will be devoted to considering general theories of justice as well as alternative conceptions of justice specifically within the health care context. What makes an individual's life go well? The seminar will be structured around a close, critically engaged reading of the Confessions (in English translation) and will give attention to its historical context and significance as well as to its philosophical and theological ideas. Our starting and central question will be: and evidence in forming our best beliefs. Further, even where there is agreement as to the proper way of answering epistemological questions, there is a stunning variety of possible answers to each question. Hence, being with others, being dependent on others, is regarded as a key structuring feature of human existence. [more], What ethical standards should guide our individual and societal choices when those choices affect current and future environmental conditions? According to one, there is a single group of students that had their hands extremely full this semester. [more], This course begins with a brief introduction to some of Foucault's early writings but focuses on a close reading of a selection of middle and late texts that have become central to debates about the significance and value of his work such as: Discipline and Punish, The History of Sexuality (vols. We turn first to two of Plato's most famous dialogues,The Apology and,The Republic. Do particular case histories offer good explanations of psychopathology? In this course we will engage ethical questions surrounding the seeming inevitability of AI. . that future is nothing short of an existential threat to human beings. Phil Walsh was a writer and producer, known for Teamo Supremo (2002), Beakman's World (1992) and Recess (1997). Among the questions that we will address: What is justice? Thus, the barber shaves himself if and only if he does not shave himself. [more], We speak as if moral judgments can be true or false, warranted or unwarranted. There will be a series of short response papers in which you provide a careful analysis of particular arguments in our texts. public health policies and activities. What constitutes my knowledge of myself as a person, and does that knowledge differ in any significant respect from my knowledge of physical objects and of other people? Our goal will be to characterize phenomena like those above with logical and mathematical precision. How much inference goes into interpreting what's said? What makes governmental and legal authority legitimate? We will examine a variety of philosophical and scientific theories of emotion, as well as some issues concerning normative aspects of emotions: the role of emotions in a good life, and the concept of emotional maturity. They help us ask: What is freedom? On the sports field? 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