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Fall 2003
This information effective for Fall 2003. Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.
Philosophy
[PHIL-011] [PHIL-026] [PHIL-080S] [PHIL-091] [PHIL-108] [PHIL-121] [PHIL-135] [PHIL-145/245] [PHIL-154] [PHIL-171] [PHIL-190D] [PHIL-190Y] [PHIL-223]
11.
Introduction to Philosophy
Instructor:
J. Ellis
Course Description:
This course will provide an introduction to some central and enduring questions in philosophy. Using both classical and contemporary readings, we will focus primarily on the following questions: "What makes one action morally right and another morally wrong?"; "Does God exist?"; "Do we have reason to believe many of the things we believe?"; "What is the 'meaning' of life?"; "Do we have free will?"; "What is the relation between mind and body?" In addition, it is a central goal of this course to cultivate the student's ability to think effectively and write persuasively about philosophical issues.
26.
Existentialism and After
Instructor:
R. Goff
Course Description:
This is an introduction to Philosophy by means of continental European sources. There are no formal prerequisites. Course lectures and discussions will address ideas about the self as creator, as knower and as moral agent, about textual meaning and interpretation, and about epochal circumstances such as the Holocaust and globalized technology.
The readings for the course may include works by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, DeBeauvoir, Gadamer, Foucault, Levinas, Blanchot, and Irigaray. These readings are accessible to a student with no previous philosophy, but, as with any primary texts in the subject, they will present some discomforting challenge.
Course Requirements:
Attendance at all sessions, and participation in the student's assigned discussion section. Three papers, about 1200 words each. Two exams, midterm and final, covering texts and class presentations. Some text materials will be available at the Literary Guillotine, 204 Locust Street, Santa Cruz, and others at the UCSC Campus Copy Center.
Questions may be addressed to the instructor Robert Goff, at 181 Cowell, telephone 831-459-2264, 459-2609 (messages); e-mail robtg@ucsc.edu.
80S.
Philosophy of Science
Instructor:
R. Otte
Course Description:
This course is an introduction to philosophical reflection about natural science. The focus will be on the nature of science and scientific change. Originally most philosophers thought of science as being a very rational and formal endeavor; social and cultural factors were irrelevant to good science. More recently many philosophers have rejected this view, claiming that one cannot separate science from a social and cultural setting. In this course we will look at various proposals as to what science is like. Topics will include the following: what is the nature of a scientific theory, what separates science from non-science, can theories be confirmed, can theories be falsified, can scientists rationally compare different scientific theories, is theory choice primarily based on reason, and what is the best way to characterize what science is?
91.
Ancient Greek Philosophy
Instructor:
J. Doris
Course Description:
This course will selectively survey the thoughts of the three best-known figures in Ancient Greek Philosophy: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. We will consider some of their views on central issues in ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics, as those issues are framed in "Analytic Philosophy." Often, the ancients' concerns are quite familiar, and we should not be shy about engaging them in light of contemporary philosophical preoccupations. But we should also remember that in addition to having sharp disagreements with one another (some of which we will attempt to illuminate), Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle are products of a very different culture; if we are to understand them, we must pay close attention to what they actually say, as opposed to what we might expect them to say. Here, this will involve repeated close readings of their works in English translation. A central aim, in addition to doing some philosophy of our own, will be to learn something about the exegesis of historical texts as practiced in "Analytic" philosophy departments.
108.
Nineteenth-Century Philosophy
Instructor:
J. Hoy
Course Description:
The first half of the quarter will consist of a survey of important 19th century philosophers including Hegel, Schopenhauer, Feuerbach, Marx, and Kierkegaard. The second half will concentrate on major works by Nietzsche. There will be a midterm exam, and either an 8-page paper or final exam on Nietzsche. Occasional very short writings assignments may be included during the quarter.
Required
texts, available at The Literary Guillotine:
- Gardiner,
ed. Nineteenth Century Philosophy
- Kaufmann, ed., Basic Writings of Nietzsche
121.
Knowledge and Rationality
Instructor:
J. Ellis
Course Description:
Epistemological skeptics claim that we are unjustified in believing many of the most basic things we believe. Hume's arguments about inductive reasoning, for instance, purport to show that we have no good reason to believe many of the things we believe about the future—such as that the sun will rise tomorrow. And Descartes' arguments have convinced many philosophers that we do not know that what appears to be directly in front of us (such as this piece of paper) is truly there. This course looks closely at these two perennial problems in epistemology and at some contemporary treatments of them.
Along the way, we will discuss (among other things) the epistemological significance of Nelson Goodman's pseudo-color terms (e.g., "grue" and "bleen"), Hilary Putnam's and Ludwig Wittgenstein's thoughts about meaning, Alejandro Amenábar's 1997 Spanish film Open Your Eyes (Abre Los Ojos), and the growing "contextualist" movement against skepticism.
135.
Philosophy of Psychology
Staff
Course Description:
An examination of philosophical and empirical theories of the mind. What is the mind? Can it be studied scientifically? The relation of mind to brain, body, and behavior; language and thought; animal and machine minds; intentionality; rationality, consciousness; cognitive science.
Prerequisite: one course in philosophy.
145.
/ 245. Brave New World
Instructor:
E. Suckiel
Course Description:
This is a lecture/discussion course examining ethical issues involved in recent and upcoming advances in genetic research and technology—such as genetic engineering, cloning, genetic therapy, the privacy of an individual's genetic information, eugenics, stem cell research, and the manipulation of human evolution. We will also discuss fundamental issues such as the moral responsibility of scientists, our obligations to future generations, and the notion of human perfectibility.
Course readings will be primarily contemporary articles on genetics and ethics on Library electronic reserves. The course requirements will include both papers and exams.
There will be a separate graduate section of this course.
Prerequisite: One course in philosophy.
154.
Philosophy in Literature
Instructor:
R. Goff
Course Description:
This course considers philosophy IN literature, not "OF" or "ON." We will be reading some literary works, mainly stories and novels, with an eye to philosophical problems which their interpretation may present. We will also consider some examples of philosophical writing that make use of literary forms such as narrative, dialogue, and aphorism.
Readings will include many of the following: Melville, Tolstoy, Nietzsche, Kafka, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Borges, Kundera, Agamben, Saramago, Sebald, and Levi.
Two or three papers, amounting to about 5,000 words total.
Attendance required.
171.
Faith and Reason
Instructor:
R. Otte
Course Description:
This course will investigate the relation between reason and traditional religious faith. Topics to be covered might include arguments for and against the existence of God, human freedom and divine foreknowledge, miracles as violations of laws of nature, alternative explanations of religious experience, the problem of religious diversity, the problem of evil, and the rationality of belief in God. The course will focus on philosophical arguments involving traditional western religious belief, and we will not discuss eastern religions or non-traditional western religions. The approach in this class will be that of analytic philosophy, and we will be analyzing arguments that various philosophers have presented for their positions.
It is strongly recommended that students have taken Philosophy 9, Introduction to Logic, before taking this course. Much of the class will use logic to analyze arguments, and previous students overwhelmingly say that logic should be required for this course.
Evaluations will be based on exams, papers, and class discussion.
190D.
Kant's Moral Theory
Instructor:
D. Guevara
Course Description:
A careful study of Kant's moral theory, with an emphasis on the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, the Critique of Practical Reason, and the Metaphysics of Morals. Recent secondary sources are considered as well.
190Y.
Insults and Intentions
Instructor:
J. Neu
Tuesdays
6:00-9:00 p.m., Stevenson 230
Course Description:
The schoolyard wisdom about "sticks and stones" does not take one very far: insults do not take the form only of words, and even words have effects, and the popular as well as the standard legal distinctions between speech and conduct are at least as problematic as they are helpful. The questions to be addressed in the course include the following: What kind of injury is an insult? Is its infliction determined by the insulter or the insulted? What does it reveal of the character of each and of the character of society and its conventions? What is its role in social and legal life (from play to jokes to ritual to war and from blasphemy to defamation to hate speech)? Philosophical, anthropological, psychoanalytical, and legal approaches to the questions will be emphasized.
223.
Recent European Philosophy
Instructor:
D. Hoy
Seminars: Thursday 2-5 pm, Stevenson 230
[Time is different from what is listed in the fall schedule]
Course Description:
The topic for this course is the "History of Consciousness." We will examine the history of philosophical conceptions of consciousness in the continental tradition with particular attention to issues about the self, subjectivity, society, and time. The principal philosophers to be read will probably be Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, supplemented with selected readings from Kant, Benjamin, Zizek, Butler, and others. Whereas the emphasis in this course will be on German philosophy, in the spring quarter of 2004 this theme will be continued by studying French philosophers in PHIL/HISC 252, Poststructuralism.