Fall 2022 Graduate Course Descriptions

Search for Fall 2022 courses on Albert.

 

PHIL-GA 1000; Proseminar; Tuesday 5:00-8:00; Jane Friedman/Jessica Moss

This course is for first year PhD students in the Philosophy Department only.

 

PHIL-GA 1002; Topics in Ethics & Political Philosophy; Monday 4:00-6:00; Daniel Viehoff

This course will focus on recent work at the intersection of interpersonal ethics and political philosophy. Topics we will discuss include the moral status of coercion, and of related phenomena like blackmail and exploitation; the value(s) of cooperation and of competition; and the ideals of solidarity, and of serving others. Readings will likely include work by G.A. Cohen, Waheed Hussain, A.J. Julius, Serena Olsaretti, David Owens, Japa Pallikkathayil, Nicholas Vrousalis, and others.

This is a small discussion seminar. Except for NYU philosophy graduate students, registration is only by permission of the instructor.

This course counts toward the Ph.D. distribution requirement for Value Theory.

 

PHIL-GA 1003; Logic for Philosophers; Wednesday 6:30-8:30; Marko Malink

This is an introduction to the metalogic of propositional logic, predicate logic, modal logic, and intuitionistic logic. We will establish the completeness of first-order modal predicate logic, and consider several corollaries of this result as well as their philosophical significance.

Except for NYU philosophy graduate students, registration is by permission of the instructor.

This course counts toward the Ph.D. distribution requirement for Logic.

 

PHIL-GA 1102; Advanced Intro to Philosophy of Language; Thursday 1:15-3:15; Kit Fine

Introduction to Truthmaker Semantics

There has recently been a growing interest in an alternative to possible worlds semantics in which the key idea is of a state or fact being an exact truthmaker for a given sentence or proposition.  This seminar will provide an introduction to truthmaker semantics, covering the basic framework and some of the applications within  linguistics, the philosophy of language and other areas of philosophy.  We will use the draft of a textbook that is co-authored by myself and Mark Jago; and I also hope to invite a number of speakers to talk about  their current research on the topic.

Except for NYU philosophy graduate students, registration is by permission of the instructor.

This course counts toward the Ph.D. distribution requirement for Metaphysics/Epistemology.

 

PHIL-GA 1104; Advanced Intro to Philosophy of Science; Tuesday 10:15-12:15; Tim Maudlin

The central question we will discuss is what—if anything—distinguishes a “scientific” discipline or theory from a “non-scientific” one. We will follow the arc of the Logical Empiricist movement from its origins in the Vienna Circle to its eventual demise, and then consider both contemporaneous competitors (e.g. Popper) and  successor approaches (Kuhn, Lakatos). Readings will include Carnap, Hempel, Quine, Popper, Kuhn, and Lakatos.

Except for NYU philosophy graduate students, registration is by permission of the instructor.

This course counts toward the Ph.D. distribution requirement for Metaphysics/Epistemology.

 

PHIL-GA 1210; 20th Century Continental Philosophy; Thursday 10:15-12:15; John Richardson

Heidegger

About 2/3 of the course will be focused on Being and Time, and the rest on a selection of Heidegger's later essays (after his 'turning').  I may adjust this ratio in the light of student interest.  Being and Time is widely considered the most important work in 20th century 'continental' philosophy, and the later essays have also been highly influential.  As far as possible, we'll take brief looks at Husserl's prior version of phenomenology, and at a few of the later thinkers responding to Heidegger's earlier and later views.

Except for NYU philosophy graduate students, registration is by permission of the instructor.

This course counts toward the Ph.D. distribution requirement for History of Philosophy.

 

PHIL-GA 2283; Aesthetics; Wednesday 4:15-6:15; Rob Hopkins/Michael Strevens

Philosophy and Cognitive Science of Music

This course looks at some philosophical questions raised by music, partly in the light of cognitive science. Topics include: The connection between music and emotion, and especially the sense in which music expresses emotion. The difference, if any, between expression and representation in music. Semantic structure in musical works. The connection between music and speech. Temporal experience and music. Does music create time (as a picture creates a space); does music represent time? (How) can music be profound? The importance of what's not heard in music: certain scale structures, complex thematic relations, and authenticity in performance.

Except for NYU philosophy graduate students, registration is by permission of the instructor.

This course counts toward the Ph.D. distribution requirement for Value Theory.

 

PHIL-GA 2286; Seminar on Action Theory; Friday 10:15-12:15; Sarah Paul

Agency, Knowledge, and Uncertainty

A major strand of thought in the philosophy of action identifies a close connection between agency, intention, and knowledge.  In the paradigmatic case, the thought goes, intentional agency is a matter of determining what is happening, and what is going to happen, thereby giving us a special kind of knowledge of these facts.  The first part of this seminar will be an advanced introduction to this strand of action theory, including readings by G.E.M. Anscombe, Gilbert Harman, David Velleman, Kieran Setiya, and Berislav Marušić.  In the second part of the course, we will question this general approach and turn our attention to cases of difficult, temporally-extended action in which the agent is appropriately uncertain about whether she will have the ability or the opportunity to succeed.  This space opens up puzzling questions about the nature and rationality of striving, persevering, planning for failure, and giving up.  What kinds of attitudes, capacities, and cognitive tools enable us to exert agency and make plans in the face of uncertainty, and what distinctive rational norms and pressures might apply in such contexts?  How should we understand the notions of commitment, grit, hope, and faith in the grips of uncertainty?  Readings will include Michael Bratman, Agnes Callard, Lara Buchak, Philip Pettit, Jennifer Morton, selected empirical work, and some of my own work on these topics.

Except for NYU philosophy graduate students, registration is by permission of the instructor.

This course counts toward the Ph.D. distribution requirement for Value Theory.

 

PHIL-GA 2320; History of Philosophy; Monday 10:15-12:15; Don Garrett

Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature

David Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature has a  strong claim to be the most important work of philosophy ever written in English. It is the original source of many of the philosophy’s best known and most influential arguments, including arguments about belief, induction, causal necessity, knowledge of the external world, free will, the role of reason and feeling in motivation and morality, the nature of moral obligation, and the conventional basis of such virtues as respect for property and fidelity to promises. It has inspired approaches widely called “Humean” to a wide range of philosophical topics. It constitutes a compelling articulation and development of at least three basic philosophical orientations: empiricism, skepticism, and naturalism. It is an early exemplar of the powerful idea that cognitive and conative psychology can shed important and even transformative light on philosophical issues. Stylistically, it is a pleasure to read.
At the same time, however, it is often supposed that the Treatise is more a collection of clever parts than a consistent and coherent whole. This seminar will involve a complete reading of all three Books of the Treatise (“Of the Understanding,” “Of the Passions,” and “Of Morals”) with the aim of discerning whatever underlying coherence it may have through close examination of its individual elements and sustained reflection on their relations to one another. In addition to reading the entire Treatise, the seminar will examine some of the most important secondary literature of the last few years on the enduring significance of Hume’s philosophy.

Except for NYU philosophy graduate students, registration is by permission of the instructor.

This course counts toward the Ph.D. distribution requirement for History of Philosophy.

 

PHIL-GA 3003; Topics in Epistemology; Monday 1:15-3:15; Xueyin (Snow) Zhang

Bayesian Epistemology

Bayesianism is a simple and powerful theory of epistemic rationality . Roughly, the view consists of two claims: (i) ideally rational agents have degrees of belief that are probabilistically coherent, and (ii) they revise their degrees of belief by conditionalizing on their total evidence. In this course, we will make precise what these two claims mean and subject them to critical scrutiny. Topics that we will discuss include: (1) arguments for Bayesianism (e.g. the Dutch book argument, the symmetry argument, the accuracy argument), their respective limitations, and the extent to which they give justifications for infinitary rational norms; (2) alternative formal models of partial beliefs (e.g. Dempster-Shafer, coherent prevision, comparative probability), their motivations and limitations; (3) the relationship between credence and categorical beliefs; (4) how/whether the Bayesian framework can accommodate perceptual learning, learning of conditional information and learning of higher-order evidence, and (5) the relationship between ideal and non-ideal epistemic theories.

Except for NYU philosophy graduate students, registration is by permission of the instructor.

This course counts toward the Ph.D. distribution requirement for Metaphysics/Epistemology.

 

PHIL-GA 3005; Topics in Ethics; Tuesday 1:15-3:15; 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.

This course is aimed at NYU graduate students in Philosophy and Psychology. Students in consortium PhD programs in Philosophy or Psychology are permitted to enroll. Advanced undergraduate students require permission of the instructor before enrolling.

This course counts toward the Ph.D. distribution requirement for Value Theory.

 

PHIL-GA 3400; Third Year Workshop; Wednesday 10:15-12:15; Laura Franklin-Hall

This course is only open to PhD students in the Philosophy Department.

 

PHIL-GA 3601; Work in Progress Seminar; Tuesday 5:00-7:00; Kit Fine

This course is only open to PhD students in the Philosophy Department.

 

PHIL-GA 1008 - 001; Topics in Bioethics; Monday 6:45–8:45; Matthew Liao

Nonconsequentialism

Cross-listed with GPH-GU 2028-001

Nonconsequentialism is a type of normative theory according to which the rightness or wrongness of an act is not determined solely by consequences. In particular, it holds that even when the consequences of two acts are the same, one might be wrong and the other right. In this course, we shall examine factors (prerogatives) that permit an agent to act in ways that do not maximize the good, and factors (constraints) that limit what an agent may do in pursuit of the good. We shall discuss topics such as the moral difference between harming and not-aiding; intending and foreseeing harm, i.e., the Doctrine of Double Effect; whether constraints are absolute; and how nonconsequentialists should address issues such as aggregation and the so-called paradox of deontology. We shall also investigate how one might be able to provide a plausible, theoretical foundation for nonconsequentialism.

This course counts toward the Ph.D. distribution requirement for Value Theory.

 

PHIL-GA 1008 - 002; Topics in Bioethics; Monday 6:45–8:45; Daniel Fogal

Reproductive Ethics

Cross-listed with GPH-GU 2025-001

This course surveys central issues in the ethics of human reproduction. Topics include whether (and when) procreation is permissible; the nature and extent of parental responsibility; the morality of abortion; the ethics of gamete donation; whether we can harm people by bringing them into existence; commercial surrogacy; genetic selection and disability; the impact of our reproductive choices on future generations; genetic engineering and enhancement. The course will introduce students to fundamental moral notions (e.g., harm, interests, rights, autonomy, respect), philosophical conceptions of personal identity, and the standards of bioethical debate.

This course meets the requirements for the Advanced Certificate in Public Humanities.

 

PHIL-GA 1115; Origins of German Critical Thought I; Friday 2:00-4:45; Eckart Forster

Kant and Goethe: A Dialogue

Cross-listed with GERM-GA 1115

In English

Although Kant and Goethe held each other in high esteem, they were antipodes in their philosophical positions. What for Goethe was the highest form of human cognition – intuitive judgment or intuitive understanding – for Kant was “a phantom,” “something of which we should not understand what it is, even if someone were in a position to tell us.”  According to Kant, only discursive thought is humanly possible.

In this seminar, we will examine the reasons for their respective positions and try to bring Kant and Goethe into a dialogue.

Selected Readings from:
Kant, Critique of Pure Reason. Transl. Guyer and Wood. Cambridge UP
Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment. Transl. Guyer and Matthews. Cambridge UP
Goethe, The Metamorphosis of Plants. Introduction and Photography by Gordon L. Miller. The MIT Press (Make sure you get this edition!)
Goethe, Scientific Studies. Transl. by Douglas Miller. Suhrkamp Publishers New York 1988.
Spinoza, The Ethics (Parts One and Five). Try to get the translation by Edwin Curley, e.g., in his A Spinoza Reader. Princeton UP.

 

PHIL-GA 2192; Heidegger & Wittgenstein; Tuesday 2:00-4:45; Hent de Vries

Martin Heidegger, Sein Und Zeit (Being and Time)

Cross-listed with GERM-GA 2192

In English

Starting with a detailed discussion of its Introduction and Division One, this seminar will offer an integral and close reading of Martin Heidegger’s 1927 magnum opus Sein und Zeit (Being and Time) against the background of its historical and philosophical origins and context, including its immediate reception at the time. Special attention will be paid to Heidegger's use, critique, and betrayal of his teacher Edmund Husserl. The seminar further aims to bring not only phenomenological, hermeneutic, neo-Marxist, and deconstructive but also analytic, notably epistemological and pragmatist, arguments and methods (next to insights and perspectives drawn from ordinary language philosophy and moral perfectionism) to bear upon the late 20th and early 21st century reception and undiminished significance of this modern classic.

 

PHIL-GA 3001; Topics in Philosophical Logic; Monday 6:30-8:30; Marko Malink

Ancient Logic

Cross-listed with CLASS-GA 3002-001X

This is an overview of the main developments in formal logic throughout Greek antiquity. Topics to be covered include: Aristotle's theory of the categorical syllogism and its application in demonstrative science, Theophrastus' theory of the hypothetical syllogism, Stoic propositional logic, the development of modal logic from Aristotle to the Stoics, Galen's account of relational syllogisms, and the reception of Peripatetic and Stoic logic in late antiquity. Secondary readings will be drawn from Jonathan Barnes, Susanne Bobzien, and Michael Frede, among others.  

This course counts toward the Ph.D. distribution requirement for History of Philosophy.

 

PHIL-GA 3302; Colloquium in Legal, Political, and Social Philosophy; Wednesday 2:35-4:35/Thursday 4:00-7:00; Samuel Scheffler/Jeremy Waldron

Cross-listed with LAW-LW 10596

Each week on Thursday a legal theorist or moral or political philosopher presents a paper to the group, which consists of students, faculty from the Law School and other departments of NYU, and faculty from other universities. The choice of subject is left to the paper’s author, within the general boundaries of the Colloquium’s subjects, and the discussions are therefore not connected by any structured theme for the term as a whole, though in past years certain central topics were canvassed in several weeks’ discussion. The Colloquium aims, not to pursue any particular subject, but to explore new work in considerable depth and so allow students to develop their own skill in theoretical analysis.

The list of Fall 2022 Colloquium speakers can be found on this page. Each week’s paper is posted there at least a week in advance, and participants are expected to have read it.

This course counts toward the Ph.D. distribution requirement for Value Theory.

 

PHIL-GA 3310; Life of Honor; Tuesday 2:15-4:15; Anthony Appiah

Cross-listed with LAW-LW 12372

Fall 2020 Description: Honor is especially interesting as a challenge for the law, because it is, among other things, a normative system that competes with the law for allegiance. It is a familiar idea that morality can come into conflict with law, raising questions about civil disobedience. We often think that a person may reasonably decide that a non-legal normative system, morality, requires them to reject the demands of the law. But the analogous thought about the honor, though widely accepted in practice, is less widely discussed. People will often do what honor requires even when it is illegal. And many people regard the decision to do so as reasonable. In the first part of the course we will map the contours of honor and try to develop a systematic account of what it is. This will involve historical, anthropological, and psychological inquiries. Beginning with the role of honor in the heroic cultures of the ancient Mediterranean world, we’ll go on to discuss its significance in a number of African societies, and the connection between foot binding and women’s honor in China. We’ll learn in these cases how honor is related to social identity—class, age, gender, ethnicity, nationality—and can be both individual and collective. Individual honor makes different demands on men and women, young and old, high and low, slave and free. We’ll then discuss socio-psychological approaches, and, building on this body of information we’ll be able to explore critically the outlines of a theory of honor. The basic thought will be that honor codes assign differential rights to respect to individuals and groups of different identities and determine what it takes to keep those rights and what leads people or groups to lose them. These codes work by drawing on a basic feature of normal human psychology, which makes people care about whether they receive the forms of respect they believe are due to them. In the second part of the course we’ll look more specifically at two cases—dueling and honor-killing—where legal regulation was for long periods relatively unsuccessful; and then discuss, briefly, at the end, ways in which honor can serve the laws purposes, as it does, for example, because the threat of loss of honor and the experience of shame are among the disincentives to criminal behavior.

 

PHIL-GA 3311; Theories of Discrimination; Thursday 11:00-1:00; Sophia Moreau

Cross-listed with LAW-LW 12699

This seminar focuses on recent issues in discrimination law and theory.  We will start by considering the nature of wrongful discrimination.  In some cases, it seems deeply objectionable to treat people differently because of traits such as their race or gender.  But in other cases, distinguishing between people on the basis of personal traits seems innocuous or even necessary.  For instance, the law gives those age 18 and over important rights that it denies to those under 18, and it gives us all the freedom to socialize with whomever we please, even when our choices reflect a preference for people of a certain race or gender.  What is the difference between these innocuous acts of differentiation and wrongful discrimination?  Is all wrongful discrimination wrong for the same reason, or is there an important difference between intentionally classifying people on the basis of a certain trait (“disparate treatment” or “direct discrimination”) and simply acting in a way that has the indirect effect of disadvantaging a particular social group because of that trait (“disparate impact” or “indirect discrimination”)?  We will explore these questions by looking at the writings of legal theorists and at the law; and we will sometimes compare American approaches to discrimination law with the approaches taken by countries such as the U.K. and Canada.  In the final part of the course, we will focus on current issues, such as discrimination during the pandemic; attempts to address discrimination against LGBTQ2S+ peoples through international law; and whether the common law can or should recognize a tort of discrimination.  Throughout the term, a number of the authors of the papers we read will join us over Zoom for a 30 minute Q&A.