Search for Fall 2023 courses on Albert.
PHIL-UA 3; Ethics and Society; T/R 3:30-4:45pm; Caroline Bowman
An introduction to philosophy through the study of selected moral, social, and political issues. The course will consider big-picture questions about the nature of oppression and domination, as well as philosophical accounts of concrete institutions and practices such as policing and incarceration; marriage and the family; and work and workplaces.
*There are mandatory recitations associated with this course. Please visit Albert to view the schedule.
*This course fulfills the philosophy introductory course requirement, only. If you have already taken an introductory course, it will not count toward the major or minor.
PHIL-UA 5; Minds and Machines; T/R 2:00-3:15pm; David Chalmers
This course will be an introduction to some central issues in philosophy through the lens of modern technology. We will consider issues such as "How do we know about the external world?", "What is the relationship between mind and body?", "How can we know about other minds?", and "Can machines be conscious?", in part by thinking hard about technologies such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence.
*There are mandatory recitations associated with this course. Please visit Albert to view the schedule.
*This course fulfills the philosophy introductory course requirement, only. If you have already taken an introductory course, it will not count toward the major or minor.
PHIL-UA 8; Philosophical Approaches to Race and Racism; M/W 3:30-4:45pm; K. Anthony Appiah
This course has two themes. The first is an exploration of the concept of race. This is a question in social ontology, which is the philosophical study of the nature of social entities. The second is an examination of some of the normative and conceptual issues surrounding the most morally significant of the ways in which “race” has mattered for social life, namely as the concept that defines the object of the attitudes, practices, institutions and beliefs we call “racist.” We shall ask what racism is, what sorts of things can be racist, and what makes racism wrong. The course also aims to be an introduction to the ways in which philosophers approach such ontological and normative questions. We shall see that answering the questions in social ontology may require knowledge of history and the social sciences. We shall also see that addressing the normative questions will often require us first to answer ontological ones. We shall end with a discussion of some possible responses to racism. In particular, we shall explore the question whether (and, if so, in what sense) the state ought to be colorblind; and whether (and, again, if so, in what sense) we ought ideally to be colorblind in our own private lives. Many disciplines are useful in thinking about questions of race and racism. This course offers you a chance to learn about the distinctive contributions of philosophy.
*There are mandatory recitations associated with this course. Please visit Albert to view the schedule.
*This course fulfills the philosophy introductory course requirement, only. If you have already taken an introductory course, it will not count toward the major or minor.
PHIL-UA 20; Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy; T/R 3:30-4:45pm; Jessica Moss
Examines some of the most important philosophical ideas and developments in Ancient Greece and Rome. Covers major writings by Plato and Aristotle, and a selection of writings by such thinkers as the Presocratics, Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics.
*There are mandatory recitations associated with this course. Please visit Albert to view the schedule.
Prerequisite: one introductory course in philosophy
PHIL-UA 30; Kant; T/R 12:30-1:45pm; Anja Jauernig
This course provides an introduction to Immanuel Kant’s critical theoretical and practical philosophy. We will spend about two thirds of the course on the theoretical philosophy, working through chunks from the Critique of Pure Reason and the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics. The final third of the course will be devoted to Kant’s practical philosophy, with readings from the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason.
*There are mandatory recitations associated with this course. Please visit Albert to view the schedule.
Prerequisite: one introductory course in philosophy
PHIL-UA 41; Nature of Values; T/R 2:00-3:15pm; Sanford Diehl
Examines the nature and grounds of judgments about moral and other values. Are such judgments true or false? Can they be more or less justified? Are the values of which they speak objective or subjective?
*There are mandatory recitations associated with this course. Please visit Albert to view the schedule.
Prerequisite: one introductory course in philosophy
PHIL-UA 70-001; Logic; M/W 9:30-10:45am; Vishnya Maudlin
An introduction to the basic techniques of sentential and predicate logic. Students learn how to put arguments from ordinary language into symbols, how to construct derivations within a formal system, and how to ascertain validity using truth tables or models.
PHIL-UA 70-002; Logic; M/W 12:30-1:45pm; Cristina Ballarini
An introduction to the basic techniques of sentential and predicate logic. Students learn how to put arguments from ordinary language into symbols, how to construct derivations within a formal system, and how to ascertain validity using truth tables or models.
PHIL-UA 70-003; Logic; T/R 4:55-6:10pm; Vincent Peluce
An introduction to the basic techniques of sentential and predicate logic. Students learn how to put arguments from ordinary language into symbols, how to construct derivations within a formal system, and how to ascertain validity using truth tables or models.
PHIL-UA 74; Modal Logic; T/R 9:30-10:45am; Matthew Mandelkern
Modal logic is an extension of classical logic which has been developed for reasoning about intensional operators like 'it is necessary that', 'it is possible that', 'Susie believes that', 'It was the case that', 'If … then …’, and so on. We will explore the foundations and applications of modal logic, starting with possible worlds semantics, proof theory, and soundness and completeness. Then we will look at various philosophical applications, including to the theories of conditionals, tense, and attitudes, perhaps exploring alternative semantic foundations along the way.
*There are mandatory recitations associated with this course. Please visit Albert to view the schedule.
Prerequisite: Logic (PHIL-UA 70)
PHIL-UA 76; Epistemology; M/W 3:30-4:45pm; Jane Friedman
In this class we'll think about rational belief and knowledge. Here are some questions we'll try to make headway on: What does knowing amount to? What do we know (and what don't we/can't we know)? What is it reasonable or rational for us to believe? What counts as good evidence and how much of it do we need to know or believe reasonably? What should we believe about matters about which there is widespread disagreement?
We'll read a series of articles that look at and argue for different positions on these questions and many more. In the end, we'll hopefully make some progress in our thinking about what we should believe and when, whether our beliefs are well-founded and why, and whether and how we know what we think we do.
*There are mandatory recitations associated with this course. Please visit Albert to view the schedule.
Prerequisite: one introductory course in philosophy
PHIL-UA 85; Philosophy of Language; T/R 4:55-6:10pm; James Walsh
An introduction to the philosophy of language. We will be concerned with the following questions: Do speakers of different languages conceive of the world in fundamentally different ways? Are the rules of language innate or learned? What is it for a linguistic expression to be meaningful? How is it possible for language to represent the world?
*There are mandatory recitations associated with this course. Please visit Albert to view the schedule.
Prerequisite: Logic (PHIL-UA 70) and one introductory course in philosophy
PHIL-UA 88; How Science Works; M/W 11:00am-12:15pm; Michael Strevens
What is science? How does it work? Is there a scientific method? We will use a mix of logical argument, history, and sociology to investigate these questions. We will read the philosophers of science Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn, as well as the early modern thinker Francis Bacon, and we will look at the history of scientific inquiry into the structure of the solar system, gravitation, the nature of heat, the question of the age of the earth, evolutionary theory, continental drift, and some modern physics including quantum theory. We’ll travel into the lab with sociologists of science such as Harry Collins and Bruno Latour, as well as taking a more high-level look at the social organization of science and at the problems involved in “following the science” when formulating public policy to deal with climate change and covid-19.
*There are mandatory recitations associated with this course. Please visit Albert to view the schedule.
PHIL-UA 90; Philosophy of Science; M/W 4:55-6:10pm; Tim Maudlin
This course will provide an overview of 20th century philosophy of science, starting with Bertrand Russell and the Vienna circle (Rudolph Carnap, Carl Hempel), Karl Popper, W. V. O Quine, Nelson Goodman, Thomas Kuhn and Imre Lakatos. Examples from science are mostly drawn from physics and astronomy, although Lakatos’ Proofs and Refuations deals with informal mathematics. Topic include the empiricist theory of meaning, the problem of induction, definition of dispositional terms, scientific explanation, the problem of assessing evidential support and general scientific methodology.
*There are mandatory recitations associated with this course. Please visit Albert to view the schedule.
Prerequisite: one introductory course in philosophy
PHIL-UA 94; Philosophy of Physics; M/W 9:30-10:45am; Tim Maudlin
This course will focus on the nature of space and time and different proposals for spatial and temporal structure. We will start with Newton and his debate with Leibniz, then discuss classical electromagnetic theory and Einstein’s development of the Special Theory of Relativity. Next comes the General Theory of Relativity and how it uses space-time curvature to account for gravitational effects. We will finish with some speculations about how the ultimate structure of space and time might be discrete rather than a continuum.
Students should be prepared to learn some of these theories to the extent of being able to solve simple problems. Mathematics beyond algebra will not be required.
PHIL-UA 101; Topics in History of Philosophy; M 4:55-7:25pm; Gabriel Shapiro
Arabic and Hebrew Medieval Philosophy
This course provides a careful study of topics in Arabic and Hebrew Medieval Philosophy. It will focus on the reception of Aristotelianism in the works of al-Kindi, al-Farabi and the Baghdad School, Avicenna, Averroes, Maimonides and Gersonides. It will cover topics in theoretical philosophy, including future contingents, modality, existence, and essence.
Prerequisite: one course from those listed in Group 1: History of Philosophy. May be repeated once for credit as topics change.
PHIL-UA 102; Topics in Ethics & Political Philosophy; W 2:00-4:30pm; Peter Unger
Experimentally Studying People's Moral Convictions
Though we’ll read most of Professor Unger’s Living High and Letting Die, most of the course will go, in several ways, far beyond anything to be found there.
Here are some of those ways:
We will go over experiments done to learn about what are some of the most basic moral convictions of (the great majority of) people relevantly like ourselves - contemporary rather highly educated people, mostly educated along lines that have prevailed in the West for the last 50 years or more.
What factors most heavily determine how it is that (most) people like us assess the moral status of this or that agent’s behavior, in one or another situation. Was the behavior at least morally all right? Or, was it badly wrong; or what?
Some of the experimental work studied will have been done only by others – the most recent will have been done by the instructor and his collaborators, the latter being, at least in the main, experimental psychologists.
Prerequisite: Ethics (PHIL-UA 40), The Nature of Values (PHIL-UA 41), or Political Philosophy (PHIL-UA 45). May be repeated once for credit as topics change.
PHIL-UA 104; Topics in Language and Mind; T/R 2:00-3:15pm; Tyler Brooke-Wilson
Philosophy of AI
This seminar course will look at philosophical issues in artificial intelligence. We’ll cover the foundational paradigms of the field and the theoretical debates that guided early AI. We will then examine several case studies in contemporary AI (such as computer vision, language modeling, and reasoning) to assess how these tasks have changed the theoretical landscape. A central theme will be the tenability and the desirability of building human-like AI. We’ll end the class with an exploration of the various ethical issues that arise from the deployment of AI systems, both present and future.
Prerequisite: Logic (PHIL-UA 70) and either Philosophy of Mind (PHIL-UA 80) or Philosophy of Language (PHIL-UA 85). May be repeated once for credit as topics change.
PHIL-UA 202; Senior Honors Thesis Workshop; F 11:00am-1:00pm; Laura Franklin-Hall
To be taken by honors program students in the fall of the senior year. Students write an honors thesis under the direction of an approved faculty advisor while participating in a weekly thesis-writing discussion workshop directed by the course instructor. An oral thesis examination administered by the faculty advisor and another appointed faculty member follows submission of the final thesis. Submission of the final thesis and the oral thesis examination may be deferred to the beginning of the following spring semester if desired, although students who plan to use the thesis as a writing sample for graduate school applications are especially advised to complete the process during the fall semester.
Prerequisite: admission to the department’s honors program and completion of Junior Honors Proseminar (PHIL-UA 201). Email jhm378@nyu.edu for enrollment permission.