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FALL 2009 COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

PHIL 140: Intro to Philosophy. 10:00 TR, 3140 Wescoe. Instructor: Scott Jenkins
This course is an introduction to the central ideas and methods of Western philosophy.  Readings will be drawn from recent work in philosophy and from historical sources such as Plato, Descartes, and Hume.  The aim of the course is to appreciate and engage with questions such as the following:  What is knowledge, and what can we know?  How is the mind related to the body? Are we responsible for our actions in a deterministic world?  What constitutes survival over time?  Is morality objective or merely conventional?  What should we care about?
   Written requirements include a series of short papers and two exams.  The required textbook is the fourth edition of Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings; Perry, Bratman, and Fischer (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2006.

PHIL 148: Reason and Argument, 1:00 MW, 3140 Wescoe. Instructor: Jennifer Kittlaus
This course is designed as an introduction to the theory and practice of logical analysis. Logic may be defined as the science of arguments. The chief aim of logic is to provide us with tools to evaluate others’ arguments, as well as methods to help us construct our own arguments. Studying logic is valuable insofar as we encounter arguments every day. Logic is valuable not only to the attorney, whose job it is to construct a compelling case on behalf of her client, or the physician, whose job it is to consider her patient’s interests and determine the treatment that is best for her patient; logic is also valuable to the voter who wishes to make an informed decision regarding the candidates for whom she will vote and the consumer who is trying to decide which product best suits her needs. The need to think critically pervades practically every facet of our lives. As a result, the study of logic is considered an important part of every student’s education.

PHIL 180: Intro to Social and Political Philosophy. 3:00 TR, 3140 Wescoe. Instructor: Derrick Darby
We will read selections from Plato’s Republic and other great works of philosophy to address central topics in social and political philosophy.  We will address various questions including:  What is the basis of our obligation to obey the law?  What is justice and why is it important?  What is the nature and value of rights?  When is society justified in interfering with individual liberty?  Should the power of government be used to promote the human good?

Phil 388: Analytic Philosophy: Frege to Quine. 9:30 TR, 1007 Wescoe. Instructor: John Bricke
Phil. 388 is an introduction to the principal figures and texts in analytical philosophy in the period 1879 to the present. The principal figures in question are: Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Rudolf Carnap, W. V. O. Quine, P. F. Strawson, Donald Davidson, and Saul Kripke. Lectures and discussion will focus on topics in the philosophy of language. In-class and final exams will be essay examinations, with a set of possible questions provided in advance. Phil. 388 is a requirement for the undergraduate major in Philosophy as well as a prerequisite for several 600-level courses in Philosophy

PHIL 580: Marxism. 10:00 MWF, 1007 Wescoe. Instructor: Richard De George
The course will be a survey of the development of Marxist philosophy from its Hegelian origins through the present day. The line from Marx, through Engels, Lenin, and Stalin will form the major thread. The emphasis will be on the philosophical problems in Marxism. Themes rather than straight chronology will be developed wherever possible. We shall consider the present day relevance of Marxism.
    Approach: lecture and class discussion. Requirements: Midterm test, final exam, and term paper. Satisfies: 19th/20th century philosophy requirement; H Humanities; World Civilization; INTL; REES    Prerequisite: A course in philosophy or a course in political science.
   Not recommended for freshmen or sophomores.

PHIL 610: Symbolic Logic. 9:30 TR, 3097 Wescoe. Instructor: Teresa Robertson
This course will cover some of the basic metatheory for sentential/propositional logic and predicate logic. Topics include truth-functional completeness of a set of connectives, soundness and completeness of derivation systems, decidability, and incompleteness. The course will contain a low-level introduction to computability.

PHIL 648: Theory of Knowledge. 1:00 TR, 3097 Wescoe. Instructor: Teresa Robertson
This course examines a variety of questions in epistemology (that is, the theory of knowledge)--What is the nature of knowledge generally? What is the nature of a priori knowledge? How is knowledge/justification structured? What can we know about the external world? Are our inductive/scientific practices justified?--along with some answers to these questions. Prerequisite: PHIL 384 and PHIL 386, PHIL 388 (which may be taken concurrently), or permission of instructor.

Phil 654 Philosophy of Mind. 2:30-3:45 TR, 122 Fraser. Instructor: John Bricke
We shall examine the following central topics: the nature of consciousness; the relation of the mental to the physical; the character of perceptual awareness; the nature of propositional attitudes (thoughts); the relation between thought and language; the analysis of action and intention; and the prospects for a scientific psychology. We shall use an introductory text (Colin McGinn’s The Character of Mind, 2nd edition) to provide a framework for our investigation, but shall also read closely, and discuss, a fair number of representative (and difficult) essays by such philosophers as Hilary Putnam, Tyler Burge, Donald Davidson, Jerry Fodor, Daniel Dennett, and Thomas Nagel (essays contained in David Chalmers (ed.), Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings).

PHIL 670: Contemporary Ethical Theory. 11:00 MWF, 4011 Wescoe. Instructor: Ben Eggleston
Contemporary ethical theory is concerned with two areas of inquiry that are largely independent of one another: meta-ethics and normative ethics. Meta-ethics is concerned with the nature of morality and moral judgments, and involves questions such as whether moral judgments are true or false, whether they are ultimately objective or (on the contrary) subjective or relative, what role intuition plays in making moral judgments, and whether they can be established by the same sorts of considerations that are taken to establish empirical or scientific claims. Meta-ethics is also concerned with psychological questions such as what sort of motivation (if any) must be present when a person makes a moral judgment. Meta-ethical theories are largely neutral on the question of what is moral or immoral; instead, they are theories about what sort of activity (or practice, or enterprise) morality is, independent of one’s specific views about right and wrong.
   In contrast, normative ethics is concerned with right and wrong, along with other evaluative concepts such as good and bad, and virtuous and vicious. A wide variety of theories about these concepts have been proposed: theories based on the consequences of acts or the consequences of the general acceptance of certain kinds of moral rules; rule-based theories that eschew a consequentialist basis; theories derived from Kant’s ethics; theories based on the social-contract tradition of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau; right-based theories, whether left-leaning or libertarian; theories building on Aristotle’s virtue-based approach to ethics; and theories derived from feminist, Continental, and pragmatic perspectives. Normative-ethical theories are largely neutral on meta-ethical issues, being concerned instead with articulating their own distinct moral principles.
   This course will survey both meta-ethics and normative ethics, devoting approximately equal time to each. We will read Hugh LaFollette’s edited anthology The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory from start to finish. Assignments will probably include two 2,000-word papers, revisions of them, two tests, and class participation.
   For more information, see the course web site, at web.ku.edu/~utile/courses/contempethics1.

PHIL 676: Medical Ethics: Life and Death Issues.  11:00 MWF, 1007 Wescoe (Lawrence campus) and 7-10 pm, M (Edwards campus).  Instructor:  Don Marquis
This class will be concerned only with controversial issues.  It will consist of four parts.  (1) Everyone agrees that dying patients have a right not to have their dying prolonged by medical means.  What is the scope of the right to refuse life saving medical care?  (2) Five perspectives on abortion ethics and a look at dilemmas concerning imperiled newborns.  (3) Is killing worse than letting die?  Should we legalize physician-assisted suicide?  How should we deal with humans in persistent vegetative state?  What is the doctrine of double effect?  (4)  How should death be defined?  Related issues concerning organ transplantation.
   There will be a mid-term and a final examination.  Two short critical essays will be required.  I reserve the right to give pop quizzes to make sure you keep up with your reading. 

PHIL 828: Kant. 2:30 M, 3097 Wescoe. Instructor: Scott Jenkins
This is a seminar on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.  We will read and discuss selections from each part of the work with the aim of evaluating Kant’s project of delimiting a legitimate realm for metaphysics.  Topics to be considered include the nature of space, time, and objectivity, the conditions of self-consciousness, and the limits of self-knowledge.  Additional readings will be drawn from other theoretical writings from Kant’s ‘critical’ period and from James Van Cleve’s book, Problems From Kant.
   Course requirements include one short (10-minute) seminar presentation and a research paper.  Regular attendance and participation are also required.
   Required texts: Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003 and James Van Cleve, Problems From Kant, Oxford University Press, 1999.

PHIL 888: Topics in Philosophy of Social Science: Social Science/Social Philosophy. 4:00 R, 3097 Wescoe. Instructor: Ann Cudd
Moral and political philosophy normatively analyzes issues in human social life, but it relies on some empirical description of those issues and of human nature that is (or ought to be) provided by the social (and biological) sciences. Equally, the choice of problems to study and methodologies in the social sciences is informed by some understanding of what is important in human social life. This course will investigate topics that social and political philosophy takes up that are (or ought to be) informed by social science, focusing on some topics I have written on, such as domestic violence, stereotyping, capitalism, and those of particular interest to the students in the seminar. In addition to the particular empirical and normative issues involved with each topic, we will also focus on these three metaphilosophical questions: (1) whether we can or should draw a boundary between these fields; (2) whether a scientific approach to such social issues misses something of normative or even descriptive importance; (3) what an interdisciplinary collaboration of social science and philosophy should look like.

 

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