Summer 2025 Session A

Undergraduate courses

2  Individual Morality and Social Justice. Nakazawa. MTuWTh 12-2, Dwinelle 211.

This course explores fundamental topics in moral and political philosophy and also provides an introduction to philosophical reading, writing, and argument skills. It seeks to address questions such as: How can I lead a meaningful life? How should we relate to others? Is morality objective? What makes a society just?

3  The Nature of Mind. Levac. TuWTh 1-3:30, Wheeler 124.

This course is an introduction to the philosophy of mind. You and I are conscious; we have experiences. In this respect among others we differ from such things as rocks, bicycles, planets, or waterfalls. But in some ways we are not so different from them. We have bodies composed of matter, subject to the laws of physics; the same is true even of our brains.

What explains the fact that some of the things in the world have conscious experiences, while others do not? What is the nature of the mind and the self we often associate with it, and how do these connect up with our scientific picture of the universe? What is consciousness, anyway? How and to what extent do the perceptual experiences of a subject put her in touch with a mind-indepexndent world? In the process of considering these questions and others, we’ll work on developing skills in reading and writing philosophy.

12A  Introduction to Logic. Ommundsen. TuWTh 10-12:30, Wheeler 126.

Logical argument and reasoning is fundamental to human inquiry. But how should we argue and reason correctly? The discipline of Logic inquires into correct logical argument and reasoning themselves.

Logic is an interdisciplinary subject with applications in many disciplines. It has been one of the main branches of philosophy since Aristotle, it revolutionized the foundations of mathematics in the 20th century, it has been called “the calculus of computer science”, and it is the foundation of the study of meaning in contemporary linguistics.

PHILOS 12A is a first course in symbolic logic, presupposing no prior knowledge of the subject. Students will learn how to formalize arguments and deductive reasoning in precise symbolic languages. We focus on two systems of logic. First, propositional logic, the logic of expressions like “or”, “and”, “not”, and “if”, as in the argument: “either the butler did it, or the gardener did. The gardener didn’t do it. So the butler did.” Second, predicate or first-order logic, the logic of expressions like “every”, “no” and “some” and of attributions of properties and relations, as in the argument: “if there are finitely many primes, some prime is greater than every other prime. No prime is greater than every other prime. So there are infinitely many primes.”

Students from philosophy, mathematics, computer science, and linguistics will find important connections between the symbolic logic covered in 12A and their other coursework.

25A  Ancient Philosophy. Coyne. MTuWTh 12-2, Dwinelle 262.

This course is an introduction to ancient Greek philosophy, focusing primarily on Plato (427-347 BCE) and Aristotle (384-322 BCE). We will also discuss the Pre-Socratic philosopher Parmenides and three major schools of Hellenistic philosophy, Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Pyrrhonian Skepticism.

25B  Modern Philosophy. Crockett. TuWTh 10-12:30, Wheeler 124.

In this course we will study the philosophical views of the most important and influential thinkers in early modern philosophy (roughly, the 17th and 18th centuries). This period in western thought was nothing short of extraordinary in that it saw the overthrow of a philosophical and scientific worldview that had dominated the west for over one thousand years. Prior to the 17th century, philosophy had been a blend of church doctrine and classical philosophy, and its methodology had been quite narrowly defined. The unfortunate effect of both the church’s influence on scholarly endeavors and the strictly defined methodology was that philosophical and scientific creativity was largely stifled. By the 17th century, however, the medieval worldview was beginning to crumble due in large part to a variety of subversive scientific discoveries. Advances in physics, astronomy and chemistry undermined central assumptions of classical science, which resulted in the wholesale abandonment of medieval philosophy more generally. Thus the scientific revolution of the 17th century set off an explosion of inspiration and creativity in the world of philosophy. It forced thinkers to make a new start in answering fundamental questions about the world such as: What is the nature of mind? What are the limits of human knowledge? What is a person? What is the basic stuff in the world?

These thinkers were the radicals of their day, and their views have shaped the way we practice contemporary philosophy. In fact, many of the philosophical questions we ask today could not have been formulated before these thinkers began to challenge philosophical orthodoxy. For that reason, studying the moderns is of central importance for understanding contemporary philosophy, and for understanding the nature of philosophical revolutions more generally.

117AC  Philosophy of Race, Ethnicity and Citizenship. Crockett. TuWTh 1-3:30, Dwinelle 233.

This course explores philosophical questions of race, ethnicity, and citizenship, with special attention to the experiences of African Americans, Asian Americans, Latino Americans, and indigenous peoples of the United States. Topics include the meaning of “race,” “ethnicity,” and “citizenship,” border control and immigration, reparations for past wrongs, discrimination and affirmative action, civic obligation and group solidarity, and the right to vote.