Doctoral Course Offerings, Fall 2003 |
PHI 600 PLATOIn this course we will study the Meno, Republic, Parmenides (in Part), Theaetetusand Sophist. Students will be expected to read carefully and imaginatively, write up a summary of at least one class, participate in discussian in class, and write four brief papers (3-5pp.each) during the course of the semester. The one-volume edition of the complete dialogues and letter published by Hackett can be purchased at Stony Books across from the railroad station. PHI 612 PSYCHOANALYSISPsychoanalysis. An explaination of philosophical issues raised by psychoanalytic theory and practice:e.g., to the role of affect and emotion in the context of drives and instincts. Close readings from selected texts by Freud will form the core of the course. Other authors may include Jacques Lacan, Melanie Kein, Andre Green, and Hans Loewald - along with philosophical commentaries by figures such as Jacques Derrida, Theresa Brennan, and Richard Boothby.PHI 615 FEMINISM (CROSS-LISTED WITH WST 601)Feminist Epistemologies: Knowledge, Ignorance, and ActionEpistemology is the study of knowledge - of what we can know, and how we can know it. Mainstream epistemology seeks to found universal theories of Truth, to develop the means to achieving objectivity, and to discover a deep structure of human language and an intelligible reality. Feminist epistemologists, on the other hand, argue that knowledge is always partial, situated, and embodied. In this course, we will study several themes and theories of knowledge developed by feminists working out of analytic, pragmatist, continental, queer and postcolonial contexts: standpoint theories, situated knowledges, the matrix of power/knowledge, the workings of epistemic privilege, the pragmatist link between knowledge and action, and the role of emotions, embodiment, and desire in knowledge. The capstone for this course will be a study of the emerging "epistemologies of ignorance." We will read the piece by Charles Mills where the term is coined (in a postcolonial context), and then study the workings of ignorance in the production of knowledge about race, sex/gender, and sexuality. Some of the questions that will be raised by these materials include:
PHI 616, PHILOSOPHY AND TECHNOLOGY: TECHNOSCIENCEThis term the technoscience research seminar will examine feminist critics and theoreticians who address science and technology. Primary figures will include: Donna Haraway, Sandra Harding, Evelyn Fox-Keller among others. The 'science wars' have often included protests and defenses against feminist critics, but in several cases these critics are themselves from science disciplines. In addition, we will examine several concrete examples of differences which have followed women's participation in research programs within particular sciences. The seminar will continue its format of reading living authors, with participants doing short presentations followed by critical discussions. Each participant should have a working reseach project which will also be discussed in the seminar.Technoscience continues as an Interface seminar with its unusual format which includes: *Readings in philosophies of science and technology, science studies and humanities and social science perspectives upon the sciences; *reading living authors, some of whom are "roasted" upon invitation [spring term has a commitment from Bruno Latour, Paris/Harvard, TBA]; themes changing with seminar participants involved in choices. Participants can expect to do fast readings, make presentations and develop a working research project during the seminar. PHI 630, HUSSERL'S TRANSCENDENTAL PHENOMENOLOGY20th Century Continental Philosophy finds not only its wellspring but also one of its most suggestive formations in the thought of Edmund Husserl. This seminar, designed for doctoral students, will attempt to combine a broad analysis of the scope and depth of Husserl's philosophy with an in-depth reading of his seminal lecture manuscript on the problem of what he called passive synthesis. I will take responsibility for the first, basing my comments on texts from different periods of Husserl's writings; it will fall to you to cover the second by leading discussions of the passage selected for that evening.For students unfamiliar with Husserl I recommend readings Dan Zahavi's Husserl's Phenomenolgy ( Stanford, 2003) over the summer. We will use the following texts in seminar;
PHI 631, SEMINAR IN ANALYTICAL PHILOSOPHYA leading conception of analytic philosophy is that philosophy advances understanding not by promulgating doctrines but by inquiring about what is not understood. I like this conception and so, it seems, does Bernard Williams when he says in his recent work, Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy, that he aims to do "philosophy before it becomes history." Accordingly, I propose to focus the seminar on the questions that Williams raises in this book and to use the book as a springboard for further philosophical inquiry.Williams's main question is "What is the value of truth?" It arises from contemporary tension between suspicion of being deceived (no one likes to be fooled) and skepticism about whether objective truth exists at all (no one likes to be na€ve). He proposes to pursue his inquiry by means of a fictional genealogy, a "State of Nature" story. (His sources for this idea are left for the reader to discern.) Accordingly, a second question arises, "What are the varieties of genealogical accounts in philosophy, how do they differ, and what use are they?" In the course of Williams's inquiry, considerations from many thinkers are discussed and related philosophical questions arise. Decisions about which of these and others shall be pursued in depth will be made by the seminar members, individually or communally, as appropriate. Thucydides and Herodotus, Apel and Habermas, Tarski, Dummett, and Davidson, Plato and Nietzsche, Rousseau and Diderot, Foucault, Latour, and Rorty are a few Williams mentions, and there is room in the seminar agenda for inclusion of work by other philosophers who have contributed to this topic, perhaps, for example, Quine and Carnap, Cormier and Peirce. Since the seminar is in analytic philosophy rather than intellectual biography or history of ideas, inquiry rather than person is the focus throughout. Philosophical questions that Williams raises concern cultural diversity, historical truth, naturalism and reduction, perhaps an ample enough menu, but we'll have the option to follow other paths as they arise in the course of inquiry. CLT 602, POSTMODERNISMSWhat does it mean to be postmodern? What are the differences between
the modern and the postmodern? What is the relation between postmodernism
and post-modernity? How have those differences been articulated by various
contemporary literary, philosophical, and art theorists? In what sense are
there many different postmodernisms?
PHI 623, TEACHING PRACTICUMThe Teaching Practicum is directed to students planning to teach their own course in the following academic year. The Practicum meets by-weekly. Topics: contents, teaching methods, syllabi, and general management of classes. Various speakers from the larger university community will give presentations according to their respective areas of expertise (teaching writing, assessing performance, dealing with plagiarism, potential legal problems, composition of S.B.âs undergraduate population, structuring lectures, etc.). |