Graduate Course Descriptions
Fall 2008
PHIL 6198 (Class #27178)
Room: TBA
Meeting Time: 13:00-14:30 TTH
Pro-Seminar in Cognitive Science
PHIL 6395 (Class #32415)
Room: 512 - AH
Meeting Time: 14:30 - 17:30 M
Sidgwickian Ethics
PHIL 6395 (Class #32434)
Room: 512 - AH
Meeting Time: 14:30-17:30 T
Free Will and Moral Responsibility
Do we have the kind of free will that could make us morally responsible for our behavior? This course explores some traditional and contemporary responses to this question. First, we’ll review the philosophical landscape and in particular, the debate over whether free will is compatible with the truth of determinism (or a scientifically informed version of indeterminism). Next, we’ll consider the ethical and practical everyday implications of the various positions in the debate, including those that deny free will. Finally, we’ll examine recent work in the sciences regarding (1) the origins of our beliefs and attitudes about freedom and responsibility, and (2) the extent to which these beliefs and attitudes vary across cultures. We will try to understand how this empirical research bears on the philosophical positions discussed in the first two parts of the course.
PHIL 6396 (Class #32515)
Room: 512 - AH
Meeting Time: 14:30 - 17:30 TH
The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence (1714-1716)
An intensive examination of the famous correspondence between the German philosopher, G. W. Leibniz, and the English philosopher and Newtonian apologist, Samuel Clarke. This correspondence arose from the bitter priority dispute between Leibniz and Newton over the discovery of the calculus, but it addressed issues in metaphysics, science, and theology, with Clarke acting as Newton's surrogate. Among the topics to be discussed are the nature of space and time, miracles and nature, the relation between God and the world, the nature of the soul and free will, matter and force.
Required Texts:
- The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, edited by H. G. Alexander. Manchester University Press, 1998.
- Isaac Newton: Philosophical Writings, edited by Andrew Janiak. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Recommended Texts:
- The Cambridge Companion to Leibniz, edited by Nicholas Jolley. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
- The Cambridge Companion to Newton, edited by I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.