Spring 2001 course offerings
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736-101: Introduction to Philosophy
Se 001: Selected Topics and Issues 3 credits, U, HU M 6:30-9:10 pm Professor Steldt tel 414-229-5217/4719 email philosophy@uwm.edu |
We shall examine attempts to resolve various basic issues in philosophy such as the following: What is the rational foundation of morality? What is the relation between the mind and the body? How can we establish the existence of God? How are we accurately to describe and explain human behavior? Works of Plato, John Stuart Mill, Descartes, Hume, and E. O. Wilson will be discussed. |
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736-101: Introduction to Philosophy
Se 002: God, Metaphysics and Value 3 credits, U, HU T 6:30-9:10 pm Professor Hawi tel 414-229-4395/4719 email hawi@uwm.edu |
This course is a general orientation in the basic issues of philosophy. We discuss certain highlights in the philosophic tradition from Plato to John Stuart Mill. Such topics as: The proofs for God's existence, His nature, His relationship to man, the origin and scope of knowledge, the mind-body problem, evaluation of the scientific procedure, and the various standards of right and wrong behavior are examined and studied in detail. |
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736-101: Introduction to Philosophy
Lc 401: Reflections on the Human Condition 3 credits, U, HU MW 10:30 am Lc 402: Reflections on the Human Condition 3 credits, U, HU MW 1:30 pm Professor Gendron tel 414-229-4771/4719 email bgendron@uwm.edu |
The first half of this course deals with value issues concerning ethics and politics. We ask what our basic moral prohibitions (e.g., against murder) are based on and discuss such contentious issues as euthanasia. Also: what are the origins of our alleged political rights, such as the right to private property?
The second part of the course deals with the questions about the universe and our place in it. Is there a God? Are we totally physical things, or is there something spiritual about our minds that can possibly outlast the death of our bodies? Will machines someday be able to think better than us? What is the source of our individuality? We will read some great past philosophers (e.g., Rene Descartes) and some contemporary texts. |
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736-111: Informal Logic-Critical Reasoning
Se 001 3 credits, U, HU R 6:15-8:55 pm Professor Rice tel 414-229-4719 email rlhrice@uwm.edu |
Advertisers, media editors, politicians, etc. daily confront us with arguments to convince us of one position or other. Our evaluation of these arguments plays an important role in determining the decisions we make - who to vote for, what product to buy, what bill to support, and so on. The purpose of this course is twofold: (i) to teach students how to analyze, evaluate, and criticize arguments in practical settings and (ii) to teach students how to construct their own arguments and how best to present them in writing. As such, the emphasis will be more practical than theoretical. We will examine various kinds of real-life arguments (deductive, statistical, causal) drawn from a variety of sources. This course is taught off-campus at U.C.C.E., 161 W. Wisconsin Ave., Room 6000
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736-204: Introduction to Asian Religions
Lc 401 3 credits, U, HU MW 11:30 am Professor Neevel tel 414-229-5215/4719 email wgneevel@uwm.edu |
This course will be a historical and comparative introduction to Hindu and Buddhist religious life and thought. Special emphasis will be placed upon the development of the classical forms of these traditions within India. The Buddhist tradition will also be stressed as a missionary movement linking the various cultures of Asia and interacting with the indigenous traditions of East Asia. |
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736-211: Elementary Logic
Lc 401 3 credits, U, HU MW 10:30 am Lc 402 3 credits, U, HU MW 12:30 pm Professor Liston tel 414-229-4736/4719 email mnliston@uwm.edu |
The Island of Knights and Knaves is a place where only Knights and Knaves live. A Knight is a person who always tells the truth. Knaves, on the other hand, never tell the truth. Harry, who lives on the island, says: "If I am a Knight, then I'll eat my hat." Did you know that you can prove from the above information that Harry will eat his hat? Did you know: 1) Given that Sarah loves either Jim or Tom and that if she loves Jim then she loves Tom, you can prove that she loves Tom? 2) that if everyone loves a lover and there is even one lover in the world, then everyone loves everyone? 3) that if everyone fears Dracula and Dracula fears only me, then I am Dracula? Learn how to solve these and other puzzles in Philosophy 211, where we will study formal deductive logic -- the science of what follows from what. The concepts and techniques encountered in the study of deductive logic are of central importance to any analysis of argument and inference. They reflect fundamental patterns of proof found in science and mathematics, they underlie the programs that enable computers to "reason" logically, and they provide tools for characterizing the formal structures of language. This is an introductory course intended for students who have had no previous work in logic. There will be 3 exams and weekly homework assignments. |
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736-212: Modern Deductive Logic
Se 001 3 credits, U, HU TR 11:05 am-12:20 pm Professor Ross tel 414-229-5903/4719 email pross@uwm.edu |
The task of the first logic course -- Philosophy 211 -- was to develop a means for evaluating deductive arguments. This task involved the use of a formal language for expressing the logical structure of English sentences and the use of various formal techniques, including truth tables and deductions, for evaluating arguments. Once an English argument was translated into the formal language, formal techniques were used to solve an apparently informal problem, i.e., the problem of finding out whether it is possible for the conclusion of the argument to be false while all its premises are true.
In Philosophy 212 we will continue this inquiry into the evaluation of deductive arguments. We will concentrate on two central areas. First, we will deal with statements and arguments that are more quantificationally complex than those studied in Philosophy 211. Second, we will address the issue of the adequacy of the formal system. Explicit definitions of validity of arguments and formal systems will be used for the investigation, via informal reasoning and proof, of what can be achieved by a deductive system. Philosophy 211 is a prerequisite for this class. |
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736-217: Introduction to Metaphysics
Se 001 3 credits, U, HU TR 12:30-1:45 pm Professor Mondadori tel 414-229-5904/4719 email mondadf@uwm.edu |
In this course we shall raise, discuss, and attempt to answer, the following (inter-related) questions: (1) whether or not it is possible to change the past (and what is meant by the claim that it can, or cannot, be changed); and (2) whether or not the effect can precede its cause, i.e., whether or not there can be such a thing as backward causation. We shallread texts by Aristotle, St. Thomas, Petrus de Rivo, Arthur Prior, Michael Dummett and David Lewis. |
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736-237: Technology, Values and Society
Se 001 3 credits, U, HU MWF 10:30 am Professor Mink tel 414-229-5217/4719 email kmink@uwm.edu |
In this introductory course, we will examine the works of contemporary thinkers who have addressed the modern "problem of technology." Through the writings of thinkers as diverse as Marshall McLuhan, Heidegger, Paul Virilio, Donna Haraway, and Deleuze and Guattari, we will especially focus on the way the new media - film, television, video, and the Internet - have changed the routines of everyday life, the patterns of perception, and even raised new issues and introduced new concepts into philosophy. We will also take the opportunity to view and discuss relevant films, videos, and artwork on the Internet. |
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736-241: Introductory Ethics
Lc 401 3 credits, U, HU MW 12:30 pm Professor Bagnoli tel 414-229-5903/4719 email cbagnoli@uwm.edu http://www.uwm.edu/~cbagnoli |
This course offers an introduction to philosophical ethics. In particular, we will consider the problem of the authority of morality. We will deal with questions such as: Why is morality binding? How are the demands of morality justified? Philosophers have offered different arguments about the justification of moral obligation, and the authority of morality. Mill thinks that our actions are justified insofar as they produce the best consequences, that is, they bring about the greatest amount of utility. But is utility all we care about when we search for a moral reason to act? Do consequences alone justify our action? In contrast to this suggestion, Kant holds that morality is justified on the basis of reasons that everybody can fully endorse. On this view, morality is grounded solely on our capacity to reason. Contrary to Kant, Hume thinks that reason cannot justify morality, because morality is matter of moral feelings rather than reasoning. For Aristotle morality is expressed on virtues that express our rational nature and can be fully developed only in a community. Nietzsche provides a powerful critique of the traditional accounts of morality, exposing the ways in which morality is socially enforced, rather than grounded on reason or feelings. In this course, we will explore these competing classical ethical theories --that shape contemporary debates on ethics, reading philosophical texts such as J.S. Mill Utilitarianism, I. Kant Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics, F. Nietzsche The Genealogy of Morals. |
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736-245: Critical Thinking and the Law
Se 101: Law of Contracts 3 credits, U, HU W 6:15-8:55 pm Professor Santilli tel 414-229-4719 email philosophy@uwm.edu |
The goals of critical thinking are to instill in the student an understanding of the fundamental principles of analysis, problem solving, and construction of an argument. In order to convey these principles, students are taught how to use contract law using legal materials, including but not limited to, the language used by the legal profession and legal resources. It is through the study of law that teachers hope to impart to their students a system for analytical thinking which they may use in their every-day lives. Texts used will include Murphy, Speidel and Ayres’ Studies in Contract Law, 5th Edition, and Restatement (Second) Contracts and case law. This course is taught off-campus at U.C.C.E., 161 W. Wisconsin Ave., Room 6000 |
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736-271: Philosophical Traditions
Se 001: Western Great Lakes American Indian Philosophy 3 credits, U MWF 11:30 am Professor Boatman tel 414-229-6686/4719 email boatman@uwm.edu |
A study of selected aspects of Western Great Lakes American Indian Philosophy from the perspective of some traditional Elders. Ontological and cosmological facets of the Metaphysics, including selected perceptions of the essential nature of "Being," will be focused upon. Throughout the course particular emphasis will be placed on the important and very special role of "Female Beings" in the universe. Women's Studies Course. |
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736-341: Modern Ethical Theories
Se 001 3 credits, U/G TR 12:30-1:45 pm Professor Sensat tel 414-229-4669/4719 email sensat@uwm.edu http://www.uwm.edu/~sensat |
An exploration of the major contemporary philosophical accounts of the nature of morality, along with some of their substantive implications. |
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736-349: Great Moral Philosophers
Se 001 3 credits, U/G MW 5:30 pm-6:45 pm Professor Bagnoli tel 414-229-5903/4719 email bagnoli@uwm.edu http://www.uwm.edu/~cbagnoli |
It is generally held that moral philosophy offers two competing models of moral agency. On the first model, the focus is on moral action, which is justified on the basis of universal moral principles; the moral problem is what the moral agent ought to do. On the second model, the focus is on the agent's character and personality, history, dispositions and virtues, interests and emotions; the moral problem is who the moral agent ought to be. The first model promises a systematic, universalistic conception of morality. Because of its generality and abstractness, however, this model cannot account for the role that the agent's history and personality play in making choices, and cannot capture the importance of particular moral emotions, such as friendship and love. The second model is sensitive to the various tonalities of concrete situations, but it justifies morality on the basis of local traditions, and seems to have relativistic consequences.
These two models differ as to what the scope of deliberation and practical reason is. While the first model is usually associated with Kantian and Utilitarian ethics, the second model is associated with Aristotle's and Hume's ethics. Aristotle, Hume, Mill and Kant defend contrasting conceptions of moral deliberation and, consequently, they cast the notions of "character" and "virtue" in quite different ways. In this course we will consider the following questions. Can Kant make room for character and virtue? Does Aristotle's ethics of virtue lead to relativism? What is virtue for Hume? What role can Utilitarianism acknowledge to character? Taking seriously the ethics of virtue, contemporary moral philosophers further ask whether we should keep separated the question "what to do?" from the question "who to be?" The most interesting contemporary ethical theories challenge both the models of moral agency presented at the outset. Inspired by Aristotle and Kant, they attempt to reconcile universal criteria of moral justification with the acknowledgement of the particularity of moral emotions, the importance of the agent's history, character and personality. In this course we will consider also to what extent these contemporary attempts to reconcile Kant with Aristotle are altogether convincing. |
| 736-351: Philosophy of Mind
Se 001 3 credits, U/G TR 9:30-10:45 am Professor Atherton tel 414-229-5904/4719 email atherton@uwm.edu |
When I look out of my window, I see a field of brightly colored flowers. How is this eventrought about? How do the various physical features of the environment and the physiological states of my sense organs contribute to an apparently mental event, my seeing the colors of the flowers? Understanding how physical states relate to mental processes has remained a longstanding problem for philosophers. In this course, we will examine the various solutions contemporary philosophers have attempted to use in order to explain the relations and interactions of mind and body. We will use the example of color perception as a case study in investigating the different approaches to the mind/body problem in the current literature. |
| 736-432: History of Modern Philosophy
Se 001 3 credits, U/G TR 3:30-4:45 pm Professor Mondadori tel 414-229-5904/4719 email mondadf@uwm.edu |
The course will study the history of European philosophy in the 17th and 18th centuries, also called the modern period. This is an astonishingly rich period in the history of philosophy as thinkers came to grips with devastating challenges to the authority of centuries of tradition in the areas of religion, natural science and social theory. We will be concentrating on a few of the philosophers working at this time in order to be able to explore their ideas in some detail. We will be reading selections from Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley and Hume. |
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736-455: Recent Philosophy
Se 001: Psychological Theory, Evolution and Evaluation 3 credits, U/G TR 11:05 am-12:20 pm Professor Hawi tel 414-229-4395/4719 email hawi@uwm.edu |
The course is a philosophic (critical) study of the psychological theory from its inception to modern times. |
| 736-502: Phenomenology of Religion
Se 001 3 credits, U/G MW 3:30-4:45 pm Professor Neevel tel 414-229-5215/4719 email wgneevel@uwm.edu |
This course will consider the theoretical and epistemological problems and issues involved in the process of understanding for ourselves and interpreting for others the meaning of phenomena that appear as religious or sacred realities or symbols to still other human beings. We will analyze the appearances of the Holy or Sacred in human existence, seeking to assess the adequacy of Rudolf Otto's and other scholars' interpretations of the "essence" and structure of religious experience. Students will also follow their own interests in attempting to understand and interpret selected phenomena or types of religious experience and expression, e.g., creation myths, rituals (sacrifice, initiation, rites of passage), a god or goddess, a holy person (Buddha, Christ, Gandhi), Gnosticism, evil, "emptiness," Shamanism, mysticism, meditation, revelation, N.D.E.s and O.B.E.s, etc. |
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736-516: Language and Meaning
Se 001 3 credits, U/G TR 2:05-3:20 pm Professor Koethe tel 414-229-5216/4719 email koethe@uwm.edu |
"What is truth?" said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Philosophy of Language is one of the most central areas of philosophy. It is, in a sense, oth the place where traditional metaphysical concerns about reality, thought and objectivity have come to roost in the twentieth century, and the area which has had the deepest influence on disciplines outside of philosophy--having, for example, helped shape the methodology of such sciences as psychology and sociology, and provided much of the impetus behind fashionable current trends in literary studies. The reason for its importance lies in the extreme generality of the question it addresses: What is the nature of representation and reference? What is the nature of truth? The sort of approach one takes to these questions is often virtually definitive of one's general intellectual temperament. This course will examine various current theories of reference, truth and meaning. The readings will include works by Locke, Frege, Russell, Kripke, Tarski, Davidson and Quine. |
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736-532: Philosophical Problems
Se 001: Perceptible Qualities and Moral Properties 3 credits, U/G TR 2:05-3:20 pm Professor Ross tel 414-229-5903/4719 email pross@uwm.edu |
Philosophers have traditionally divided sharply between those who claim that colors (and other so-called secondary qualities such as tastes and sounds) are wholly subjective properties--they are merely an aspect of our mental reactions to objects in the world--and others who hold that colors are properties of objects, and so are to this extent mind independent. Interestingly, in considering the metaphysics of moral properties there is a similar traditional division: some philosophers claim that moral properties are merely an aspect of our mental reactions to situations in the world, and others hold that moral properties are mind independent. Indeed, some philosophers have claimed that color and moral value are similar kinds of properties, and accordingly that an understanding of one of these kinds of properties provides illumination with regard to the nature of the other (the direction taken is usually that an understanding of color provides illumination with regard to the nature of moral value). We will examine these two kinds of properties on their own, and then consider whether they are in fact similar in any interesting way. For example, similar problems with understanding how color and moral properties are mind independent may lead us to conclude that both kinds of properties are merely subjective. Or similar ways of understanding how color and moral properties are mind independent may lead us to conclude that extreme subjectivism about both color and moral properties is false. Authors we will read include: Frank Jackson, Paul Boghossian and David Velleman, Mark Johnston, Colin McGinn, J. J. C. Smart, David Armstrong, J. L. Mackie, Simon Blackburn, John McDowell, and David Wiggins. |
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736-941: Seminar in Ethics and Social and Political Philosophy
Se 001: Hegel's Moral and Political Thought 3 credits, U/G W 2:30-5:00 pm Professor Sensat tel 414-229-4669/4719 email sensat@uwm.edu http://www.uwm.edu/~sensat |
The celebration of Hegel's 56th birthday received more play in the Berlin press than a party for the King of Prussia had. Hegel was that notable because of the widespread belief that philosophy--indeed, his philosophy--was the quintessential intellectual discipline of modernity. On this view, modern philosophy does not merely articulate the rational elements of a historical movement realizing human freedom. It is the rational self-consciousness of that movement as well, and it is thereby essential to that movement, completing it as well as comprehending it. This freedom and this self-consciousness also require a social form of life with definite moral, political and economic features. Hegel delineates this structure in his Philosophy of Right. That text will be the center of our concern. We shall pay some attention to its reception as well as its context of origin, and to its potential significance for present-day moral and political philosophy. |
| 736-953: Seminar in Aethetics
Se 001: Aesthetic and Moral Value in Kant and his Predecessors 3 credits, U/G M 2:30-5:00 pm Professor Wainwright tel 414-229-4395/4719 email wjwain@uwm.edu |
Ethics and aesthetics are closely connected in 18th century Anglo-American thought. The so-called "moral sense" and our "sense of beauty" are analyzed in similar ways. There is also a tendency to aestheticize morality. For example, "the beautiful soul" is employed as an ethical concept. We will explore these themes in Frances Hutcheson, Jonathan Edwards, and David Hume, among others, and examine Kant's critique of this tradition. We shall see that in spite of his avowed intention to segregate aesthetics from morality, Kant's accounts of the beautiful and the sublime continue to have moral overtones and implications. |
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