Catalogue

Philosophy

philosophy.bard.edu

Faculty

Garry L. Hagberg (director), Roger Berkowitz, James Brudvig, Jay Elliott, Seth Halvorson, Michelle Hoffman, Yarran Hominh, David Shein, Kathryn Tabb, Robert Tully, Zachary Weinstein, Ruth Zisman

Overview

The Philosophy Program at Bard approaches philosophy as a humanistic discipline and emphasizes connections between philosophy and many other fields, including history, politics, literature, the arts, and the sciences. The program offers introductory courses designed to show how students in any field of study can use philosophy to fruitfully reflect on their own experience. Intermediate courses initiate students into philosophy as a discipline by asking them to reflect on the many “Histories of Philosophy.” Advanced courses invite students to contribute to the work of contemporary philosophy as a living practice. 

Areas of Study

Program faculty regularly offer courses in the following historical areas: ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, medieval Latin and Arabic philosophy, early modern European philosophy, and 19th- and 20th-century European and American philosophy. Also offered regularly are courses that introduce students to major philosophical problems in the following subject areas: aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of mind and language, philosophy of science and medicine, social and political philosophy, and symbolic logic. The curriculum embraces a variety of philosophical traditions, including continental philosophy, analytic philosophy, and pragmatism.

Requirements

In order to moderate in the program, students are required to take three philosophy courses in the Lower College. Majors are required to take at least seven philosophy courses altogether, at least four during their studies in the Upper College. Starting with the Class of 2025, all students are required to take two courses designated as “Histories of Philosophy.” During their time in the Upper College, Philosophy majors are also required to take the Philosophy Research Seminar, a collaborative workshop focused on the skills of philosophical writing and peer review, as well as a 300-level Junior Seminar. Junior Seminars are intensive investigations of a single thinker, text, problem or intellectual tradition, and are designed to prepare students for the Senior Project. A Senior Project in philosophy is typically an extended philosophical essay that includes sustained critical investigation of a philosophical question using a combination of primary and secondary sources. 

Recent Senior Projects in Philosophy

• “Concrete Thinking in Images: Art and Image as a Site for Meaning in Hannah Arendt’s Life of the Mind” 
• “Environmental Philosophy: From Theory to Practice”
• “How Fashion Teaches Philosophy about Beauty”
• “Investigating Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations” 

Courses

Introductory courses are numbered in the 100s. Courses numbered in the 200s, while more specialized in content, are also generally appropriate as first courses in philosophy. Courses numbered in the 300s are more advanced and require previous courses in philosophy or permission of the instructor. Advanced students may also request that faculty members supplement their coursework with tutorials. In recent years, tutorials have allowed students to explore such topics as Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, theories of democracy, philosophy of disability, and contemporary queer theory. 

The following descriptions represent a sampling of courses from the past four years.

Introduction to Philosophy: Classics of Western Philosophy
Philosophy 103
A critical examination of the work of some major figures in philosophy, emphasizing historical continuities and developments in the subject. Authors include Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Nietzsche, and Russell.

Introduction to Philosophy: Multicultural Perspectives
Philosophy 104
Themes covered include the nature of reality and our capacity to know it, ethics and justice, and conceptions of how one should live. Readings from a diverse range of traditions, including Western, Hindu, Buddhist, Chinese, African, Native American, and feminist texts.

Introduction to Philosophy: The Meanings of Life
Philosophy 108
If our lives have meaning, what gives them meaning? If our lives do not have meaning, how ought we to live them? Guided by these questions, the course explores classical and contemporary attempts to figure out whether the universe is purposeful and how the answer to that question might impact how we live our lives. Topics discussed include the existence of God, nature of reality, possibility of knowledge, conceptions of the good, and the relationship between the individual and the state. 

Introduction to Ancient Philosophy
Philosophy 109
CROSS-LISTED: CLASSICAL STUDIES
In ancient Greece and Rome, philosophy was more than an academic study: it was a way of life, focused on the achievement of happiness through training in wisdom. This course introduces students to the practice of philosophy, beginning with Socrates and his disavowal of knowledge, method of dialogue, public trial, and exemplary death. Attention then turns to Plato and Aristotle, and finally to the critiques of classical philosophy developed by the major philosophical schools in postclassical Greece and Rome, including cynicism, epicureanism, stoicism, and skepticism.

Introduction to the History and Philosophy of Science
Philosophy 120
CROSS-LISTED: STS
Investigations of the natural world have long circled around the same questions: What is causation? What is evidence? How should science be demarcated from other forms of inquiry? This course first looks at various scientific conflicts in order to understand what has, historically, been considered as the right way to discover the truth about the natural world. It then turns to attempts by philosophers to make sense of these different recipes for scientific success.

Thoughts for the Times
Philosophy 125
Nietzsche’s Untimely Meditations suggests that the author’s thoughts are “untimely” precisely because he questions the values and practices of his time. In “Thoughts for the Times on War and Death,” Freud suggests there are certain events in human history that demand our thinking. To what extent should we understand the task of philosophy as a task of thinking for our times? Is this role better served by politicians, journalists, or poets? The course explores the work of philosophers who have addressed these and related questions.

Philosophy of Experiment
Philosophy 127
CROSS-LISTED: EXPERIMENTAL HUMANITIES
What does it mean to experiment? How does experiment differ from everyday experience, and what does it mean to gain expertise? This course considers a range of methods that fall under the label “experimental”—in the arts, politics, and especially science—and what they have in common. Topics include moments in history when the turn toward experiment has been most pronounced; moments where experimentalism has been most resisted; the role of experiment in philosophy; and the trendiness of x-phi, or experimental philosophy, today. 

Philosophy of Slavery
Philosophy 129
CROSS-LISTED: CLASSICAL STUDIES, HUMAN RIGHTS
While many today regard slavery as the ultimate example of evil, we live in a society shaped by the institution and its aftereffects. There have only been two major slave societies in history: Greco-Roman antiquity and the modern Atlantic. This course looks at slavery and its enduring effects through those societies, with special focus on the connection between philosophy and slavery. Many of the founding figures of Western political thought—Aristotle, Locke, Hegel—produced justifications of slavery that raise profound questions about the legacies of these canonical thinkers. 

Philosophy and Human Rights
Philosophy 130
CROSS-LISTED: HUMAN RIGHTS
From the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, the language of rights permeates our understanding of political life, citizenship, and personhood itself. Yet the foundation, function, and limits of human rights remain deeply puzzling and highly contested. What is the relationship between human rights and human nature? Between human rights and morality? Can any human right truly be universal? This course attempts to answer such questions by exploring the philosophical underpinnings, justifications, and criticisms of human rights.

Art, Narrative, and Humane Understanding
Philosophy 131
How do we understand other people as people, rather than as biological or physical systems? How should we understand other people? The course explores these questions as they arise in epistemology, philosophy of mind, and aesthetics. Topics include theories of understanding, mindreading (how do we learn about what goes on in someone else’s mind?), empathy (how can we take on someone else’s perspective?), and how understanding an artwork is like (and unlike) understanding a person. 

Arguing about Ethics
Philosophy 132
Students learn how to construct and respond to arguments about philosophical issues, with a focus on contemporary, real-world ethical dilemmas such as 23andMe, Standing Rock, corporate responsibility, #metoo, and fractioning of social movements. Specific issues are chosen from cases for the 2019–20 Collegiate Ethics Bowl. Students who take the class for credit are eligible to participate in the regional Ethics Bowl and, if they win, represent Bard in the national competition.

Theory of Knowledge
Philosophy 135
What characteristics make it appropriate or ­desirable to believe certain things—reliability, our belief that something is likely to be true, or something else? What should we do when our beliefs conflict with others’? How does member­ship in a cultural group impair or facilitate our having or sharing knowledge? How is transmission of knowledge affected by bias? This introduction to current topics in epistemology considers these and other questions.

Other Animals
Philosophy 140
CROSS-LISTED: EUS
DESIGNATED: THINKING ANIMALS INITIATIVE
We humans have learned to think of ourselves as animals, and to think of our pets, laboratory subjects, wild animals, and those we slaughter for meat as “other animals.” Yet the lives of these other animals remain profoundly mysterious to us. Can we understand their thoughts, desires, and lives? What do we owe them by way of justice, love, or sympathy? This course, part of the Thinking Animals Initiative, approaches these questions through works of philosophy, poetry, fiction, and history.

History of Philosophy I
Philosophy 203
The course closely examines selected texts, emphasizing historical connections and developments from ancient Greece to 18th-century Great Britain. Readings from Plato (Republic), Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics), Epictetus, Augustine (Confessions), Aquinas, Descartes (Meditations), Spinoza, Locke (Essay Concerning Human Understanding), Berkeley (Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous), and Hume.

History of Philosophy II 
Philosophy 2044
The basic perspective of the course is that the history of philosophy does not exist; there are only different histories, depending on the interpretive narrative one constructs. The class focuses on such questions as: What is knowledge, and to what extent are we capable of achieving it? What is the origin and nature of morality? What sort of political and social arrangements best promise human flourishing and justice? What is the wisdom that philosophy (philo-sophia, “the love of wisdom”) invites us to love? 

Early Greek Thinking
Philosophy 212
CROSS-LISTED: CLASSICAL STUDIES
The word “philosophy” derives from the Greek philosophia, meaning “love of wisdom.” What did it mean to love wisdom in ancient Greek societies, and what might it mean today? The course invites students into the discipline of philosophy through a critical consideration of its origins in ancient Greece, at a time of rapid urbanization, expanding literacy, colonial warfare, and democratic experimentation. The course centers on the enigmatic figure of Socrates, in whose intellectual circle the term “philosophy” first came into common use.

Existentialism
Philosophy 215
CROSS-LISTED: FRENCH STUDIES
Existentialism is a philosophic, literary, artistic, and social movement that emerged during WWII in France, but had roots in the 19th-century works of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard and German atheist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. The class considers selected writings by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, Beauvoir, Camus, and Heidegger, focusing on existentialist preoccupations such as the rebellion against rationalism, the corresponding emphasis on subjectivity and perspectivism, the perception of the human predicament as absurd, and the necessity of anxiety and suffering for authentic existence.

Philosophy in the U.S.A.
Philosophy 217
The guiding question of the course is whether there is such a thing as a “tradition of American philosophy.” Movements considered include the pragmatism found in thinkers from C. S. Peirce to Richard Rorty; the pluralism championed by philosophers from Ida B. Wells to Alain Locke; the socialized ethics of Jane Addams, John Dewey, and the intellectual leaders of the Civil Rights Movement; and the radicalism of political thinkers from Emma Goldman to Cornel West.

Body and World: Selves and Social Sense-Making
Philosophy 219 
DESIGNATED: DASI COURSE
Our everyday accounts of action, social norms, language, and even intelligence take conceptual rationality as the essential feature of human life. A good deal of recent philosophy, though, explores the possibility that we might not be “rational all the way out” and that we use concepts to supplement other, embodied ways of knowing, being, and being with others. Students examine conceptual and nonconceptual ways that we make sense of reality. Texts by Dreyfus, Merleau-Ponty, Butler, Kristeva, Foucault, Todes, others.

History and Philosophy of Evolutionary Biology
Philosophy 221
CROSS-LISTED: HISTORICAL STUDIES, STS
In this survey of evolutionary theory from the 18th century to the 20th, topics include the earth sciences, classification of life, pre-Darwinian concepts of biological evolution, Darwin and Wallace’s theory of evolution by natural selection, the problem of inheritance, and the modern synthesis. Philosophical debates surrounding questions on adaptationism, genetic determinism, evolutionary ethics, and evolutionary progress are also considered. A recurring theme is the reception of Darwinian e volution, both among scientists and the broader public.

Chinese Philosophy
Philosophy 225
CROSS-LISTED: ASIAN STUDIES
An overview of pre-Qin philosophical thought in China. Texts from the major schools—not only Confucianism and Daoism, but also “Legalism,” Mohism, and the School of Names. Discussion includes questions in ethical and political philosophy, as well as questions about the nature of the world, the self, and language.

Philosophy of Psychiatry
Philosophy 229
CROSS-LISTED: HUMAN RIGHTS, STS
Philosophers have long been interested in rationality and its absence, but mental illness has recently become an especially hot topic due to the release of a new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and breakthroughs in neuroimaging and molecular genetics. This course gives an overview of recent writings about psychiatry by philosophers, scientists, clinicians, and the people in their care. Readings also include criticisms from the antipsychiatry and neurodiversity movements.

Philosophy, Art, and the Culture of Democracy
Philosophy 234
How have philosophical conceptions of liberty, equality, freedom of expression, and representation defined our conception of American political democracy? How have they shaped our conceptions of individuality, education, and social engagement? How do the arts contribute to our political culture? Texts include works by Locke, Mill, Emerson, Cavell; Hollywood films of the 1930s and 1940s; works of feminist philosophy; and works of art and criticism by Baldwin, Ligon, and Rankine, among others.

Symbolic Logic
Philosophy 237
CROSS-LISTED: MBB
Logic is not imposed on natural language but embedded in it. Symbolic logic maps its logical structure. The course starts with whole statements (the units of language with which truth and falsity are associated) and the ways they combine into compound statements. It then proceeds to examine arguments, which connect statements by means of a fundamental relation called implication. Different strategies are introduced for testing symbolized arguments as well as for constructing them. The course also considers the presence of logic within the domain of natural language use. 

Philosophy and Literature
Philosophy 238 
From Aristotle’s praise of metaphor making as the mark of genius to Heidegger’s conception of the saving power of poiesis, philosophers have extolled the virtues of literature. Yet the relationship between philosophy and literature is also fraught. Socrates exiled the poets from his city, reminding his disciples that “there is an ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry . . .” Students read philosophical and literary texts side by side as they consider philosophical theories of literature and literary portrayals of and allusions to philosophical questions and problems.

Rhetoric versus Reason
Philosophy 240
This course navigates the choppy waters between natural language, the medium in which we speak, write, and reveal our feelings, and the analysis of language offered by formal logic. Where arguments are concerned, rhetoric and reason coexist in eternal tension. From the standpoint of formal logic, an argument aims to prove that its conclusion is true; rhetoric aims to persuade people to accept the conclusion. Students gain an appreciation of the richness of natural language and a grasp of the working parts of arguments on which their logical strength depends.

Marx, Nietzsche, Freud
Philosophy 245
CROSS-LISTED: GERMAN STUDIES, HUMAN RIGHTS
A comprehensive introduction to the works of Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud, three German-language thinkers who revolutionized modern philosophy. Writing from the mid-19th century through the 1930s, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud each worked to reformulate notions of selfhood and subjectivity, history and politics, God and religion, art and interpretation. The course brings these thinkers into conversation with one another and examines the ways in which their writings form the basis of contemporary critical thought.

Philosophy of Mind
Philosophy 247
CROSS-LISTED: MBB
This course examines the nature of the mind, including the relationship between the mental and the physical; consciousness; and mental abilities, like perception, memory, and intention. Readings begin with texts from the early modern period, but emphasize more contemporary philosophical work. Recent relevant work in the sciences is also considered.

Medieval Philosophy in the Latin and Arabic Worlds
Philosophy 250
CROSS-LISTED: CLASSICAL STUDIES, MEDIEVAL STUDIES, MES
Medieval thinkers in the Latin and Arabic traditions undertook an outrageous project: to jointly inherit the spiritual, literary and intellectual legacy of two radically different cultures, Greco-Roman paganism and the Semitic monotheism of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. For these thinkers, philosophy was the name of a specific set of arguments, practices, and attitudes derived from pagan antiquity. Themes of inquiry: the diverse contexts of medieval philosophical activity; the role of philosophy in dialogue within and between religious traditions; and connections between philosophy, poetry, science, and the arts.

Darwinism and Its Discontents
Philosophy 257
CROSS-LISTED: EUS, HISTORICAL STUDIES, STS
Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection has been revolutionary, not just for scientists but for everyone who reflects on human nature and human destiny. The first aim of this course is to separate Darwin’s theory from its scientific, religious, and cultural aftershocks, and consider how its influence developed and changed over the century and a half since On the Origin of Species was published in 1859. 

Constructing Modern Science: Objectivity, Authority, Ideology
Philosophy 258 
CROSS-LISTED: STS
In debates over evolution, climate science, and the COVID-19 pandemic, the authority of science is continually asserted and challenged. This course examines how scientists, philosophers, and others have constructed competing visions of science to further specific ends. At stake in these visions is the concept of scientific objectivity. What does it mean for science to be objective? When and how did concepts of objectivity gain currency? What is the proper place for human values—social, political, ethical—in scientific knowledge making? 

Philosophical Research Seminar
Philosophy 302
An intensive advanced seminar required of all philosophy majors in their junior year. A problem in contemporary philosophy is carefully selected, exactingly defined, and thoroughly researched; an essay or article is written addressing the problem; the article is formally presented to the group, followed by discussion and debate; and the article in its completed form is submitted to an undergraduate or professional journal of philosophy, or to an undergraduate conference in philosophy. 

The Philosophy Lab
Philosophy 306
This 2-credit course focuses on philosophy as a discipline, with special attention paid to questions of inclusion and access. Students discuss readings on the current state of the profession and its history, learn about what life as a philosopher looks like at the post-graduate and professional levels, and contribute to the community of the program. This last component might include choosing speakers for the annual Speaker Series, organizing events for the Philosophy Salon, managing the Philosophy Study Room, and participating in a mentoring program.

Spinoza
Philosophy 317
CROSS-LISTED: JEWISH STUDIES, REL
Spinoza’s Ethics, published posthumously and banned upon its release in 1677, methodically addresses classical philosophical questions, including the nature of God, human knowledge, and how one might live well. However, his conclusions are far from orthodox, as he famously identifies nature with God and reinserts humanity firmly within the laws of nature. This course provides a careful study of the Ethics, a paradigm of rationalist metaphysics.

Philosophers of Christianity
Philosophy 327
CROSS-LISTED: THEOLOGY
Key contributors to the development of theology crafted their thought in active dialogue with philosophical traditions of their eras. Examples include Origen the Platonist, Augustine the Stoic, Aquinas the Aristotelian, Friess the Kantian, Whitehead the Hegelian, and Marion the Wittgensteinian. The seminar investigates how such theologians were influenced by, and influenced, the philosophical discourse of their times, while shaping the articulation of faith.

Spinoza’s Ethics
Philosophy 335
Spinoza’s notorious Ethics, published posthumously and banned upon its release in 1677, methodically addresses classical philosophical questions, including the nature of God, human knowledge, and how one might live well. However, his conclusions are far from orthodox, as he famously identifies nature with God and reinserts humanity firmly within the laws of nature. This seminar pays special attention to Spinoza’s ethical theory: What makes an ethics, and what roles do the affects, passions, and conatus (or striving) play in this unique ethical system?

Philosophy of Mathematics
Philosophy 336 / Mathematics 336
Students in the course explore various attempts to identify the conceptual underpinnings of mathematics. Topics include logicism, formalism, intuitionism, the concept of a formal procedure, the distinction between naive and axiomatic set theory, the set-theoretic characterization of the real number system, the theory of types, and, time permitting, different attempts to solve Zeno’s paradoxes. Texts by Galileo, Bolzano, Frege, Russell, Gödel, Turing, and Putnam, among others. Prerequisite: Philosophy 237 or Mathematics 261.

Life of the Mind: Hannah Arendt
Philosophy 337 / German 337
What is the life of the mind? What makes us think and where are we when we think? What is the relationship between thinking and willing, between thought and action? What is the history and meaning of the concept of a “free will”? Hannah Arendt engaged these and related questions intensively in the last several years of her life, in conversation with a wide array of predecessors, including Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Duns Scotus, Descartes, Kant, Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Kafka. This course presents a careful study of that engagement.

Thinking about Thinking from Locke to James
Philosophy 339
Modern epistemology is occupied with what it means to know things and how we justify our beliefs about morality, the natural world, and other areas of inquiry. But long before the advent of neuroscience, philosophers asked questions like: What are the basic building blocks of thought and how are they assembled in the mind? Are ideas born with us or do we generate them throughout our lives? This course considers ideas of the idea in modern philosophy, with a focus on Locke, Hume, and William James.

Philosophy of Sigmund Freud
Philosophy 341
CROSS-LISTED: GERMAN STUDIES
Philosophers such as Michel Foucault and Paul Ricoeur place Freud alongside Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche as one of the “three masters” of modern thought, arguing that Freud’s work presents a “new possibility of interpretation” and clears the horizon for a “new reign of Truth.” This course approaches Freud as a thinker who grappled first and foremost with the nature of the mind. In addition to reading Freud’s major works, the class considers the philosophical legacy of, and objections to, Freudian psychoanalysis.

Pragmatism
Philosophy 350
This detailed examination of the content and methods of a number of classic works of American philosophy emphasizes issues in epistemology. Philosophical movements discussed include transcendentalism, pragmatism, empiricism, and realism. Texts by Peirce, William James, Royce, Dewey, Santayana, Mead, and more recent writers. The investigation of these works involves problems in the philosophy of religion, ethics, aesthetics, the philosophy of language, the philosophy of education, and social and political philosophy.

Lost in Translation? Daoism and Philosophy of Language
Philosophy 352
CROSS-LISTED: ASIAN STUDIES
With a focus on the Dao De Jing and Zhuangzi, this course tackles questions of understanding others, theoretical concepts in different systems of thought, whether it is possible to say something in one language that it is not possible to say in another, and the ineffability of certain philosophical ideas. Many of these ideas are presented through analytic philosophy and the reflections of those who work on Chinese thought.

Feminist Philosophy
Philosophy 360
CROSS-LISTED: GSS, HUMAN RIGHTS
DESIGNATED: HSI COURSE
The course examines a variety of feminist philosophical approaches to modern culture’s production of images of sexuality and gender. Background readings in a diverse range of feminist theoretical frameworks—liberal, socialist, radical, psychoanalytic, and postmodern. Also explored: the cultural enforcement of both feminine and masculine gender identities; the mass-marketing of popular cultural images of sexuality, gender, and race; the intersection of feminism and environmentalism; and issues of sexual violence and harassment. 

Plato’s Writing: Dialogue and Dialectic
Philosophy 362
CROSS-LISTED: CLASSICAL STUDIES, LITERATURE
Interpreters of Plato have often asked why he wrote in dialogue form, and the answers proposed have frequently appealed to Plato’s conception of dialectic, although the meaning of that term in his texts is a matter of considerable debate. This course examines Plato’s writings from philosophical and literary perspectives. Readings include Euthyphro, Euthydemus, Meno, Phaedrus, Republic, and Sophist. Primary texts are complemented with secondary scholarship that illustrates the range of modern approaches to Plato.

Ethics with Aristotle
Philosophy 363
Over the last century, philosophers have been increasingly drawn to the work of a revolutionary thinker whose ideas have come to dominate contemporary Anglophone ethics: Aristotle. Yes, a guy who died more than 2,000 years ago. This course looks closely at his most influential ethical work, Nicomachean Ethics, while also encountering a range of thinkers who represent his contemporary influence. Questions considered: What is distinctive about Aristotle’s approach to ethics? How can we adapt Aristotle’s ideas to our very different social and political contexts? .

The Philosophy of Nietzsche
Philosophy 375
The course tackles several of Nietzsche’s most famous works: Human, All Too Human (selections), The Gay Science, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, On a Genealogy of Morals, Twilight of the Idols, and Ecce Homo. While trying to do justice to the particularities of these works the class addresses what issues, if any, are central to his thinking. Those of an ethical or metaethical nature receive the most attention, but issues of metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of language are also considered.

The Philosophy of Wittgenstein
Philosophy 385
This course features the major works of one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Readings include Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, The Blue Book, and The Philosophical Investigations.

The Philosophy and Literature of Jean-Paul Sartre
Philosophy 389
CROSS-LISTED: FRENCH STUDIES
DESIGNATED: HSI COURSE
Readings from a variety of Sartre’s philosophic texts, including Existentialism, Anti-Semite and Jew, Essays in Aesthetics, and Being and Nothingness, and a number of his novels and plays, including Nausea, The Wall, No Exit, The Flies, The Respectful Prostitute, Dirty Hands, and The Devil and the Good Lord. The relation between the two genres of Sartre’s writing is explored, including the extent to which the philosophic and literary productions complement each other.

Philosophy and the Arts Seminar
Philosophy 393
This advanced seminar on aesthetics works through three masterpieces in the field. Beginning with Aristotle’s Poetics, the class looks into questions of representation in the arts, the role and experience of the spectator, the connections between ethics and aesthetics, and the relation between art and knowledge. Also considered is Hume’s essay on taste, Kant’s Critique of Judgment, and the transition to the aesthetics of romanticism and 19th-century aesthetic thought.

Feminist Epistemology
Philosophy 395
CROSS-LISTED: GSS
An introduction to the rationale and motivations behind late 20th-century movements within feminist epistemology and philosophy of science. Questions considered: to what extent, if any, is rationality gendered, and in what ways have female perspectives been excluded in the history of knowledge production? Also examined: the role of gender in philosophical investigations of the natural world and feminist responses to traditional stances in environmental and biomedical ethics. 

Søren Kierkegaard
Philosophy 399
An examination of Søren Kierkegaard’s aesthetic, psychological, and theological texts. Readings are drawn from such pseudonymous works as Either/Or (Victor Eremita), Repetition (Constantine Constantius), Fear and Trembling (Johannes de Silentio), Concluding Unscientific Postscript (Johannes Climacus), and Training in Christianity and The Sickness unto Death (Anti-Climacus), as well as some of the sermons written under Kierkegaard’s own name. Additional texts by Sartre, Derrida, Levinas, Ricoeur, and Agacinski.