Of the four major branches of mathematical logic, from their inception, three of them---set theory, proof theory, and computability theory--- have had strong ties with ontology. What is a set? What is a proof? What is a computation? Even though there seems to be a general consensus as to how those notions function in mathematical practice, in philosophy they still inspire fruitful debates. The status of the fourth and the youngest branch – model theory – is different. While its roots can be traced to earlier work by Thoralf Skolem, Kurt Gödel, Anatoly Maltsev and others, the history of model theory begins for good in the 1950's with the systematic explorations by Alfred Tarski and Abraham Robinson, and their respective schools. Pertaining to those developments, there is also a legitimate question: What is a mathematical structure?  The aim of the course is to explore plausible answers.

The course will begin with an outline of first-order logic, to give a sufficient background for a discussion of basic concepts of model theory. We will discuss the development of the classical number systems, and the axiomatic method in set theory. Those are the two basic ingredients needed to explain how mathematical logic is used to analyze and classify mathematical structures.  While prior familiarity with first-order logic and some exposure to abstract algebra will be helpful in the discussion of some more advanced results at the end of the course, the course has no formal prerequisites. Most examples will be kept at the basic level, with all mathematics behind them fully explained.

Two recent books have attracted much attention: Philosophy and Model Theory, by Tim Button and Sean Walsh (Oxford University Press, 2018), and Model Theory and the Philosophy of Mathematical Practice: Formalization without Foundationalism, by John Baldwin (Cambridge University Press, 2018). The course could be considered an introduction to a more advanced course based on the very rich material of both books. 

The text for the course will be Mathematical Logic: On Numbers, Sets, Structures, and Symmetry, by Roman Kossak, Springer Graduate Texts in Philosophy, 2018.

This course will satisfy either Distribution Group A or Group E.

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The topic of memory has not been as popular among philosophers of mind and psychology as topics like: perception, concept, belief, emotion, and consciousness.  But the philosophical problems and puzzles surrounding memory are at least as compelling as those involving these other mental constructs.  In the past decade or so, there has been an uptick in philosophical interest in “episodic memory”: the capacity to retain information from experiences pertaining to events that occurred in one’s own personal past.  This interest has been fuelled by a body of empirical evidence that points to memory’s constructive nature and its proneness to being distorted or its tendency to incorporate information that derives from other sources.  This raises philosophical questions about the very nature of episodic memories: must they be causally connected with past experience, and are they true by definition (is the verb ‘remember’ factive)?  It also raises questions about the dividing line between memory and imagination, to the point that some philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists have argued for rejecting the distinction altogether, lumping them together as forms of “mental time travel.”  Can we maintain that memory is a distinct capacity in the face of this challenge?  If so, what individuates it?  Moreover, can we be assured that it is a reliable source of knowledge about the past?  Is the function of memory to provide such knowledge, or to strengthen social ties, to enhance self-understanding, harbor grudges, reduce boredom, reminisce about dead loved ones, teach lessons to young people, cope with thoughts of mortality, or foster our sense of personal identity?  Finally, does episodic memory have a distinctive phenomenology, and is that part of its functional profile?
Some topics that may be discussed:

• Memory: episodic vs. semantic memory
• Causal theory of memory
• Memory traces
• Phenomenology of memory and “autonoetic consciousness”
• Memory errors and “false memories”
• Constructivism about memory
• “Mental time travel” and imagination
• The function of memory
• Memory, truth, and factivity
• Memory and personal identity

Readings will be drawn mainly from the recent literature in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, but we will also read a few classic papers in both the philosophy and science of memory (e.g. Martin & Deutscher 1966, Tulving 1972, Loftus & Palmer 1974).
 
This course will satisfy Distribution Group B.

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The course examines the main theories of criminal sanction relevant to contemporary liberal democracies (and the U.S. and U.K. in particular). In a liberal democracy if the state is to deliberately deprive persons of liberty (and/or impose other undesirable conditions) as a response to criminal behavior a clear and widely endorsable justification is needed. That is a requirement for the legitimacy of the rule of law in a liberal-democratic political order. We will explore numerous conceptions of the aim and justification of sanction, how the relation between law and morality is understood in a liberal democracy, and the relation between criminal justice and other aspects of justice overall (e.g., distributive and political justice). How does criminal justice figure in the conception of a just society? That last question is a matter of pronounced significance at present. 
 
While most of the discussion will focus on the U.S. and U.K. we will also consider approaches to criminal sanction in some other broadly liberal democratic countries. This is not primarily a comparative course but even amongst Anglophone countries with a good deal of shared jurisprudential tradition and political culture there is some notable diversity regarding censure and sanction. We will look at efforts at restorative justice in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. What do those efforts suggest about how to understand the project of restorative justice, how it should be conceptualized as an alternative to traditional models of criminal justice, and what counts as success?
 
There are many additional, important issues but we are limited in regard to what we can include so, our focus will be on punishment. Questions about criminalization and policies governing such things as plea-bargaining, parole, mandatory sentences, probation, and reintegration are important and we won’t ignore them. However, the focus on punishment will present us with plenty of significant challenges in its own right.
 
Views regarding punishment reach well back into antiquity. We will be focused on the recent and contemporary world but right at the start I’ll say a bit about the history of the issues to set the course in motion. Below is a list of the main topics and readings. In addition, I will provide a bibliography of philosophical works and some especially relevant works by contemporary criminologists.
 
Some Key Background on Law and Morality
H. L. A. Hart, Law, Liberty, and Morality
Jeffrie G. Murphy,  “Legal Moralism and Liberalism”
Lon Fuller, Excerpt from The Morality of Law
Nicola Lacey, Excerpts from State Punishment
Retributivism
R. A. Duff, excerpt from Trials and Punishment
Jeffrie G. Murphy, “Last Words on Retribution”
Andrew von Hirsch, excerpt from Censure and Sanction
Deterrence
C. Beccaria, excerpt from On Crimes and Punishments
J. Bentham, excerpts from An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
H.L.A. Hart, excerpt from Punishment and Responsibility
Daniel Farrell, “The Justification of General Deterrence”
Expressivism
Joel Feinberg, “The Expressive Theory of Punishment”
Communicative Theory
R. A. Duff, excerpts from Punishment, Communication, and Community
Restorative Justice
John Braithwaite, “Principles of Restorative Justice”
Joanna Shapland,“Restorative Justice and Criminal Justice: Just Responses to Crime?”
 
Familiarity with some of the most influential empirical studies can be very helpful. Moreover, numerous criminologists are concerned with moral and political aspects of the issues. They want to bring philosophy and criminology into fuller dialogue. Some such works are listed below. I will be happy to help with bibliographic suggestions, regarding both philosophy and criminology, and the relations between them. (There is some very interesting recent work on connections between empirical criminology, penal policy, and political theory.)
 
These are some important works by criminologists with strong interests in a broad range of relevant moral issues.
 
John Braithwaite, Crime, Shame and Reintegration
David Garland, The Culture of Control
Craig Haney, Reforming Punishment: Psychological Limitations to the Pains of
Imprisonment
Alison Liebling, Prisons and Their Moral Performance
Ian Loader, Richard Sparks, Public Criminology?
Ian Loader, Neil Walker, Civilizing Security
Gresham Sykes, The Society of Captives: A Study of Maximum Security Prison [From the
late 1950’sand not directly about moral issues but still very interesting and relevant to important matters of moral psychology.]
Andrew von Hirsch, Andrew Ashworth, Julian Roberts, Principled Sentencing
 
Much of my own work in recent years has focused on issues covered in this course. My most recent book, The Liberal State and Criminal Sanction: Seeking Justice and Civility was published recently (Oxford University Press, 2020), and I have written numerous articles and chapters contributed to collections. I co-edited the Routledge Handbook of Criminal Justice Ethics (2016), and I have been Editor of the journal, Criminal Justice Ethics (Taylor & Francis) since 2011.

This course will satisfy Distribution Group C.

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In his three seminal works, the Critique of Pure Reason (1781/7), the Critique of Practical Reason (1788), and the Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790), as well as in dozens of other influential publications, Immanuel Kant changed the course subsequent philosophy would take—determining many future philosophers’ positions as either (implicitly or explicitly) Kantian, or as (implicitly or explicitly) opposed to Kant’s or Kantian views, or (not infrequently) as a combination of both.
 
In order to understand these classifications (which often come with the force of accusations), we must first understand the views that give rise to them. In this course, we will be paying particular attention to Kant’s theoretical philosophy in the Critique of Pure Reason. Our starting point will be Kant’s famous ‘Copernican Revolution in Philosophy,’ announced in the Preface to the Critique of Pure Reason, which proposes a fundamental change in philosophical perspective and method: from a naïve form of realism (aka ‘dogmatism’) to a more complicated (namely, ‘critical’) view of the nature of reality and our way(s) of knowing it. This moment in the history of philosophy is of more than merely antiquarian interest. A variety of ‘non-critical’ realisms (naïve and otherwise) have over the years made a resurgence and inform much of Anglo-American analytic philosophy today, even as that same analytic tradition is arguably predicated on some of Kant’s most fundamental concepts and distinctions.
 
The preponderance of the course will be devoted to a detailed look at the mechanics of Kant’s views as presented in the Critique of Pure Reason. Throughout, we will, where suitable, make connections to contemporary philosophical thought. We will end by looking at the internal tensions Kant’s critical system is prone to and at some of the ways in which Kant himself later sought to remedy those tensions.
 
This course will satisfy Distribution Group D – modern.

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In this course, we will canvass major topics in the philosophy of literature including the ontology of literature, the nature of narrative and that of fiction, philosophical issues regarding the novel (and possibly lyric poetry), the relation of literature to cognition, to emotion, to morality, to society and politics. and issues of the interpretation and evaluation of literature. There are no prerequisites for this course. Grading will be based on class participation and a final term paper.

This course will satisfy Distribution Group C.

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The idea that aspects of our world are socially constructed has been defended within a number of domains. Defenses of social construction can be found in philosophy of science, feminist philosophy, critical race theory, philosophy of psychiatry, Foucauldian genealogy, and other subfields. It also has defenders in fields outside of philosophy, including sociology, social psychology, anthropology, gender studies, and disability studies. 
 
The goal of this seminar is twofold: to better understand social constructionist claims and to explore controversies about social construction in several domains. With respect to understanding, a number of questions will be considered: how does the idea of social construction relate to relativism, nominalism, and anti-realism?  Is social constructionism a thesis about norms, concepts, causation, or constitution?  How does social construction take place?  Does it apply to all kinds of categories (e.g., both social kinds and so-called natural kinds)? 
We will consider a number of domains where debates about social construction have taken place: biological and chemical kinds, emotions, mental illness, sex/gender, sexual orientation, race, and racism. In each case, there are questions about whether the phenomenon in question is natural, cultural, or some combination of the two.  Along the way, we will consider a range of constructivist perspectives, as well as some opposing views.

This course will satisfy either Distribution Group B or Group C.

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Wittgenstein and Heidegger are two of the most influential philosophers of the 20th Century.  Both were charismatic figures who influenced those around them, as well as many philosophers from subsequent generations. The similarities do not end there. Both were concerned with central issues in metaphysics, the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mind, and being embedded in the social world. Moreover, the thought of both evolved considerably over their lives. Wittgenstein came to reject the Tractatus; and though Heidegger never rejected his earlier work, it took a quite different direction after the Kehre (turning). However, the evolutions in the philosophy of the two thinkers went in somewhat opposite directions. Wittgenstein moved from the apparent mysticism of the last parts of the Tractatus to the importance of people being embedded in forms of life in the Investigations.  Heiddegger, on the other hand, went from a story of how people are thrown into the (social) world in Being and Time to the apparent mysticism of some of the later writings.

The secondary literature on both of these writers is enormous. However, in this course we will concentrate on the primary texts, reading and discussing them each week. We will consider not only the thought of each philosopher, but the relationships between the two. For Wittgenstein will read the Tractatus, and at least Part 1 of the Investigations. For Heidegger we will read at least Division 1 of Being and Time, and a selection of the post-Kehre writings.

This course will satisfy either Distribution Group A or Group B.

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There is a widespread skepticism about many sorts of knowledge claims today, and this skepticism has been promoted from both the right and the left. The skepticism is largely based on the realization that there are variable frameworks that can play a significant role in whether or not a claim becomes accepted as true, and the further realization that some of these variable frameworks may be connected to nationalist projects, corporate interests, social movements, etc.  Such skepticism needs to be met not with a retreat into overly simplistic notions of knowledge but with more realistic accounts that include both critique and reconstruction.
 
This course will cover recent work on the relationship of knowledge, power, and cultural differences. Continental philosophy – especially critical theory, hermeneutics, and post-structuralism – has thematized the way in which knowledge is always embedded in cultural history and social institutions. This work has advanced the discussion about how to strengthen inadequate self-correcting measures in the production of knowledge and science. We will begin with some key texts from this tradition, from Habermas, Gadamer, and Foucault.
 
Yet this work in continental philosophy has all but ignored issues of colonialism and racial domination. This course will stage an imaginary conversation/debate between the continental problematics and new decolonial ones.
 
The effort to decolonize epistemology is a growing field that takes up the ways in which some mainstream theories of justification and methodologies of inquiry carry implicit colonialist assumptions that call for critical analysis and reconstruction. We will read a variety of work in this new area that takes up the following themes: 1) Eurocentrism, how to define it precisely and what the solution to it might look like; 2) Critiques of core concepts in the European (including Anglo-American) tradition, such as the category of the ‘human,’ the ‘anthropocene,’ ‘religion,’ ‘science,’ and others; 3) Debates over a way forward, from interculturality, delinking from western paradigms, pluriversality, and other models of dialogic knowing that can accommodate multiple frameworks of analysis.
 
This section of the course will include works by David Haekwon Kim, Manuel Vargas, Edward Said, Leopoldo Zea, Muhammad Ali Khalidi, Nassim Noroozi, Ofelia Schutte, Omar Rivera, Sandra Harding, Kyle Whyte, Nelson Maldonado-Torres, Walter Mignolo, Inkeri Koskinen, Kristina Rolin, and Stephanie Rivera Berruz. 

This course will satisfy either Distribution Group B or Group C.

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In this course we will critically explore the history, theory, and philosophy of psychological disorders. We will consider the general question of what constitutes a psychological disorder (reviewing neurological, phenomenological, social constructionist, latent variable, dysfunction and network accounts) and examine theoretical accounts of individual psychological disorders such as depression, mania, schizophrenia, paraphilia, addiction, dissociative disorder, autism, and psychopathy (if time permits, we may consider other disorders), and their implications for agent autonomy, moral and legal responsibility, personal identity and social psychology. We will also explore evolutionary psychological explanations of psychological disorders, the possibility of genuine cultural and historical variance in psychological disorders, and the nature of placebo effects and their role in the evaluation of forms of psychological therapy.

All students will give a class presentation and lead a class discussion, and submit a final paper on the general concept of a psychological disorder or a particular psychological disorder (although I am open to alternative paper topics). 

This course will satisfy either Distribution Group A or Group B.

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This course explores the idea of epistemic or intellectual character, and models of those traits that constitute epistemic virtues or vices. We will think about the epistemology of testimony in order to explore the virtue of truthfulness, and the vice of testimonial injustice and its cognates; we will explore the structure of epistemic virtues and vices; discuss recent work in ‘vice epistemology’; models of specific epistemic virtues such as open-mindedness, and vicious epistemic habits such as mendacity, propagandizing, bullshitting, dog-whistling, and bald-faced lying, especially in political contexts where the purpose may be less to deceive than to directly influence or simply express a contempt for the obligation of truthfulness.
 
By the end of the course you should have a good understanding of a range of central topics in virtue and vice epistemology. And you will have thought deeply about a range of different, sometimes opposing, positions concerning these topics. My aim is to offer enough background as we go along, so that students with little prior grounding in social epistemology can take full part. There will be two strictly required readings for each class, which we will actively discuss in class, and there will also be at least two other recommended readings for each week. Our collective discussion of the required readings will be normally opened by a short student presentation, to help you develop relevant professional skills.
 
This course will satisfy either Distribution Group B or Group C.

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How can individuals find effective agency in a world of continuous social and asocial influence? Does human nature contain moral content, or are moral norms cultural constructs? Are emotions (or affective reactions) reliable guides to action? How can we discern the proper dao or way to live? The aim of this course is to illuminate these enduring philosophical questions by using insights from classical Chinese thought.

Among the topics we will examine: the Confucian defense of tradition and ceremony as appropriate methods to cultivate the self and foster social cohesion; the Mohist critique of tradition and their search for objective evaluative criteria and a unified, systematic ethics; Daoist metaethical skepticism concerning the entire project of trying to adjudicate right from wrong; and a 'discriminate-and-response' or 'pattern-recognition' model of agency that may be common across a range of thinkers from this period.

Readings will include primary texts in translation, relevant secondary literature (which has been growing in philosophical sophistication), as well as some contemporary philosophical and psychological research. No prior familiarity with Chinese philosophy or the Chinese language will be assumed or required.

This course will satisfy either Distribution Group C or Group D (ancient). Final papers must concentrate on an ethical problem OR a historical / interpretive problem in order to satisfy these requirements, respectively.

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It’s commonly held that one cannot do justice to the intentional content of thoughts or the semantic properties of speech acts in purely extensional terms.  So we’ll begin with W. V. Quine’s argument for rejecting all nonextensional language, his related denial of analyticity, and his use of logical form as a theoretical tool for understanding language.  We’ll also consider his claim that logic has the status of a science, his thesis of the indeterminacy of translation, and his distinct argument for the inscrutability of reference, working up to his claim of "the baselessness of intentional idioms and the emptiness of a science of intention" (Word and Object, 221). 

In apparent contrast with Quine, Wilfrid Sellars held that thoughts have the status of folk-theoretical posits that explain speech behavior, which have content that’s analogous to the semantic properties of speech acts.  He built this folk-theoretical realism about intentionality on a functionalist account of both intentional content and the speaker’s meaning of speech acts.

In keeping with this—and in opposition to currently dominant views about the mind—Sellars argued that we come to have first-person access to intentional states when we come to have the ability to report noninferentially that we are in such states.  Our first-person grasp of the mind, he argued, is in effect built from third-person resources.  We’ll pay special attention to evaluating this challenge to current approaches to mental phenomena.

We’ll also ask whether Sellars' realist views about meaning and intentionality actually do conflict with Quine's austere strictures, as they superficially seem to.  And we’ll consider whether, instead, Sellars’ views should be seen as supplementing Quine’s, resulting in a well-founded, compelling theory about thought, speech, and the relation between them.  And we’ll evaluate the implications of Quine’s and Sellars’ views for a Gricean intention-based semantics.

Along the way we’ll take up Quine’s and Sellars’ views about several related matters, such as the logical form of ascriptions of thoughts and speech acts, and whether to understand such ascriptions theoretically (Sellars), as mere dramatic idiom (Quine), or in some other way.  We’ll also consider the nature of quantification, its bearing on ontology, and its interaction with nonextensional contexts.  And we’ll look at Quine’s and Sellars’ views about indexicals and self-reference and about the holism of meaning and belief, and the implications their views have for the relation of third-person ascriptions of thoughts to our first-person conscious access to them.

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Some material will be available online.  But we’ll also rely heavily on the following books, so that it may be useful to get hold of at least some of them, though they’ll all also be on library reserve:

Quine:  From a Logical Point of View; The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays; Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (all Harvard U. Press); and Word and Object (MIT).

Sellars:  Science, Perception and Reality; Science and Metaphysics; and Philosophical

               Perspectives:  Metaphysics and Epistemology (all Ridgeview Publishing: 

               http://www.ridgeviewpublishing.com/)

Week-by-week details and more at https://tinyurl.com/QS2021

This course will satisfy either Distribution Group A or Group B.

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Climate change will be among the most influential forces shaping human life in the 21st century and beyond, if not the most influential force. It is not just a technical problem, an environmental issue, a moral challenge, or a political quandary. Rather, as environmental engineer Costa Samaras put it, climate change is the landscape on which our future unfolds. While there is well-developed philosophical literature on some aspects of climate change, this course focuses on topics in need of more attention from philosophers. As such, the course presents an opportunity for graduate students to begin work in areas that likely will, and should, gain prominence over time.

We will consider some of the cultural, political, psychological, economic, and conceptual changes needed in the face of the climate crisis. Specifically, we will discuss (1) the political psychology of climate voter behavior; (2) the history and recent growth of authoritarianism, right-wing populism, and “eco-fascism;” (3) climate justice and the relationship between prejudice, inequality, and decarbonization; (4) and “individual” vs. “structural” approaches to social change. While no specialist knowledge is required, students should expect readings to draw widely from the social and behavioral sciences, and thus to become familiar with multi-disciplinary literatures and methods by means of which they can make their own work relevant to the climate crisis. Most classes will have a guest speaker, and the course will conclude with a student-led workshop as well as a one-day conference.

Confirmed guests for the course include John Broome (Philosophy, Oxford), Nikhar Gaikwad (Political Science, Columbia), Sally Haslanger (Philosophy, MIT), Jennifer Jacquet (Environmental Studies, NYU), Daniel Kelly (Philosophy, Purdue), Robert Keohane (Political Science, Princeton), Alex Madva (Philosophy, Cal Poly Pomona), Leigh Raymond (Political Science, Purdue), David Roberts (Vox Media), Samy Sekar (Analyst Institute), Olúfémi Táíwò (Philosophy, Georgetown), and Robin Zheng (Philosophy, Yale-NUS).

This course will satisfy Distribution Group C

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