Courses
Courses
Spring 2005
- Visit Bearings to search for courses by title, instructor, department, and more.
- Login to Blackboard. Instructional materials are available on a course-by-course basis.
- 014. Philosophy and Poetry
- Denis Corish T 8:30 - 9:55, TH 8:30 - 9:55
- What is the nature of poetry? This is a philosophical question, considered by using traditional and contemporary poems as examples. Also considers the relation of philosophy to poetry in the particularly interesting case of the condemnation of poetry by the Greek philosopher Plato.
- 112. Modern Philosophy
- Matthew Stuart M 2:30 - 3:55, W 2:30 - 3:55
- A survey of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European philosophy, focusing on discussions of the ultimate nature of reality and our knowledge of it. Topics include the nature of the mind and its relation to the body, the existence of God, and the free will problem. Readings from Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, and others.
- 120. Moral Problems
- Sarah Conly M 11:30 - 12:25, W 11:30 - 12:25, F 11:30 - 12:25
- Our society is riven by deep and troubling moral controversies. Examines several moral problems in the context of current arguments, leading theoretical positions, and the question of whether and how moral controversies can be settled. Possible topics include abortion, euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, capital punishment, sexuality, gender equality, pornography, and affirmative action.
- 210. Philosophy of Mind
- Scott Sehon T 1:00 - 2:25, TH 1:00 - 2:25
- We see ourselves as rational agents: we have beliefs, desires, intentions, wishes, hopes, etc.; we also have the ability to perform actions, and we are responsible for the actions we freely choose. Is our conception of ourselves as rational agents consistent with our scientific conception of human beings as biological organisms? Can there be a science of the mind, and, if so, what is its status relative to other sciences? What is the relationship between mind and body? Can we have free will, or moral responsibility, if determinism is true? Readings primarily from contemporary sources.
- 225. The Nature of Scientific Thought
- Denis Corish T 10:00 - 11:25, TH 10:00 - 11:25
- A historical and methodological study of scientific thought as exemplified in the natural sciences. Against a historical background ranging from the beginnings of early modern science to the twentieth century, such topics as scientific inquiry, hypothesis, confirmation, scientific laws, theory, and theoretical reduction and realism are studied. Readings include such authors as Duhem, Hempel, Kuhn, Popper, Putman, and Quine, as well as classical authors such as Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Berkeley, and Leibniz.
- 227. Metaphysics
- Matthew Stuart M 9:30 - 10:25, W 9:30 - 10:25, F 9:30 - 10:25
- Metaphysics is the study of very abstract questions about reality. What does reality include? What is the relation between things and their properties? What is time? Do objects and persons have temporal parts as well as spatial parts? What accounts for the identity of persons over time? What is action, and do we ever act freely?
- 237. Language and Reality
- Scott Sehon M 10:30 - 11:25, W 10:30 - 11:25, F 10:30 - 11:25
- Philosophy of language is a point of intersection for a great many traditional philosophical concerns, including the nature and status of morality, the nature of mind, the existence of God, and the objectivity of science. Answers to these problems ultimately depend in part upon the nature of language, theories, evidence, and meaning. Analyzes and evaluates what the best philosophers of the twentieth century have said about these questions.
- 399. Advanced Seminar: Applied Ethics
- Lawrence Simon Matthew Stuart T 6:30 - 9:25
- This spring the Advanced Seminar will explore recent work in applied ethics by two philosophers: Jeff McMahan of Rutgers University, and Frances Kamm of Harvard University. Our primary focus will be on ethical questions about various sorts of killing -- abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and the killing of combatants and non-combatants in wartime. We will also consider related questions about the metaphysics of personhood, and about the ethics of genetic engineering and cloning. Professor McMahan (author of the recent book The Ethics of Killing) and Professor Kamm (author of the two-volume Morality, Mortality) will each be visiting Bowdoin in the Spring, and joining us for a meeting of the seminar.