Summer 2000 course offerings
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736-101: Introduction to Philosophy
Se 011: God, Metaphysics and Value 3 credits, U, HU MTR 6:30-9:15 pm 4 weeks beginning week of 5/30/00 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
Se 051: Selected Topics and Issues 3 credits, U, HU MWR 1:30-3:20 pm 6 weeks beginning week of 6/26/00 Professor Koethe tel 414-229-5216/4719 email koethe@uwm.edu |
We will look at a representative selection of topics from the history of philosophy and current philosophical debates: ethics, social and political philosophy, the scope and nature of our knowledge of the world, the nature of the self and mind. |
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736-101: Introduction to Philosophy
Se 091: Selected Topics and Issues 3 credits, U, HU MTR 10:30 am-1:15 pm 4 weeks beginning week of 7/24/00 Professor Steldt tel 414-229-4719 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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736-211: Elementary Logic
Se 011 3 credits, U, HU MTWR 9:30-11:35 am 4 weeks beginning week of 5/30/00 Professor Weiner tel 414-229-5217/4719 email begriff@uwm.edu Se 012 3 credits, U, HU MTWR 3:00-5:05 pm 4 weeks beginning week of 5/30/00 Professor Kaplan tel 414-229-5903/4719 email kaplan@uwm.edu |
"Does this conclusion follow from those premises?" This seems to be a question which calls upon us to exercise our imaginative powers. To determine the answer, our only option seems to be to try to imagine circumstances under which the premises come out true and the conclusion comes out false.
If (and only if) we find no such circumstance imaginable, should we conclude that the answer is "Yes?"
But what a risky procedure this is! After all, the mere fact that we haven't been able to imagine a circumstance under which the premises come out true and the conclusion comes out false does not mean that there is no such circumstance. How can we know that we haven't simply overlooked the crucial circumstance? The central aim of this course is to show that there is a better -- and very different way to go about answering the question. We will see that a significant portion of English discourse exhibits a structure that enables it to be translated into a purely symbolic language. And we will see that, once premises and conclusion are translated into a purely symbolic language, the question, "Does this conclusion follow from these premises?", can be decisively answered by a technique which involves nothing more than the manipulation of symbols according to precise rules. |
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736-211: Elementary Logic Se 051 3 credits, U, HU TR 6:30-9:15 pm 6 weeks beginning week of 6/26/00 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 that if everyone loves a lover and Madonna is a lover, then everyone loves everyone? 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. |
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736-232: Topics in Philosophy
Se 071: Popular Music from Blues to Rock 3 credits, U, HU TR 6:30-9:15 pm 6 weeks beginning week of 7/10/00 Professor Gendron tel 414-229-4771/4719 email bgendron@uwm.edu |
This course will treat blues, jazz, and rock music as major art forms of this century which have had significant cultural and social ramifications. Through a detailed history of popular music in this century, we will be addressing questions like: How are blues, jazz, and rock related to each other? How do they differ? What have been the controversies about them? In what sense, if any, are they true art forms? How do they compare in quality with "classical" music or contemporary experimental music? We will explore the very important influence of African-American music on popular music, and the continued discrimination against this music. We will also examine the important connection between the emergence of various youth subculture - the beats, hippies, punks, graffiti culture - and the emergence of various musical styles (e.g., modern jazz, psychedelic rock, grunge rock, rap). Finally, we will consider the impact of various technological and institutional changes on popular music (e.g., long-playing records, stereophonic sound, AM vs. FM radio, CD players). |
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736-237: Technology, Values and Society
Se 001 3 credits, U, HU MWF 12:30 pm 6 weeks beginning week of 6/26 Professor Mink tel 414-229-4719 email philosophy@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, Vilrilio, 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
Se 051 3 credits, U, HU MTR 10:30 am-1:15 pm 4 weeks beginning week of 6/26/00 Professor Steldt tel 414-229-4719 email philosophy@uwm.edu |
This course will explore the potentialities and limits of discourse in determining how to live our lives. We shall focus on utilitarianism, rationalism, and contractualism as attempts to establish those potentialities and limits. Two other topics we shall discuss are ethical relativism and possible criteria of moral responsibility. |
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736-253: Philosophy of the Arts
Se 051 3 credits, U, HU MW 6:30-9:15 pm 6 weeks beginning week of 6/26/00 Professor Mink tel 414-229-4719 email philosophy@uwm.edu |
This course will look at the way philosophy arrives "through" film, the way that film itself can be said to "think." The great filmmakers explore all the powers of the image, and thus construct a philosophical vision of the world - dialectics in Eisenstein, pure perception in Vertov and Brakhage, problems of light and space in Bresson, time in Orson Welles, ethical decision in American independent film, and so on.
Our principal texts will be the Cinema books of Gilles Deleuze, along with important essays from filmmakers and leading critics. |
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736-271: Philosophical Traditions
Se 191: Western Great Lakes American Indian Philosophy 3 credits, U, HU& TWF 1:00-3:50 pm 4 weeks beginning week of 7/24/00 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.
This course is taught off-campus at the Riveredge Nature Center, W Hawthorne Drive, Ozaukee County (Newburg). For details contact the American Indian Studies Program, Holton Hall 291, 414-229-6686 or Community Programs, Holton Hall 290, 414-229-6209. Women's Studies Course. |
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Page updated September 20, 2000 Site maintained by Julius Sensat sensat@uwm.edu |