UWM Department of Philosophy

Summer 2001 course offerings



736-101: Introduction to Philosophy
Se 011: God, Metaphysics and Value
3 credits, U, HU
MTR 6:30 pm-9:15 pm
4 weeks beginning week of 5/29/01
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.
736-101: Introduction to Philosophy
Se 012: Selected Topics and Issues
3 credits, U, HU
MWR 9:30 am-12:15 pm
4 weeks beginning week of 5/29/01
Professor Steldt
tel 414-229-5217/4719
email karlsteldt@hotmail.com
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.
736-101: Introduction to Philosophy
Se 051: Selected Topics and Issues
3 credits, U, HU
MWR 1:30 pm-3:20 pm
6 weeks beginning week of 6/25/01
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.
736-204: Introduction to Asian Religions
3 credits, U, HU
MTWR 9:30 am-11:35 am
4 weeks beginning week of 6/25/01
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.
736-207: Religion and Science
Se 031
3 credits, U, HU
MTWR 9:30 am-10:55 am
6 weeks beginning week of 6/11/01
Professor Luce
tel 414-229-5215/4719
email luce@uwm.edu
The Doré engraving shows Satan cast down on the rocks by an angry God. The accompanying text asks: "Is this our Fallen Intellectual, who demanded a sign from Him who gives no sign? - and who took the absence of a proof of the affirmative to be sure proof of the negative? Or is this our True Believer, who thought that with Scripture in hand, he could read the mind of God?"
    The text continues: "Many are the ways of shipwreck. It is good to be forewarned of the rocks and shoals. Is there a safe harbor? It is not to be found in this course. Nothing there but swift currents and raging waters. Heady ideas, disputation, controversy. Kierkegaard, Tillich, Barth. Galileo, Newton, Darwin. Aquinas versus Locke on revelation. Genesis and Job and poets who sing of Yahweh and Shiva. Creation as a logical problem. Probability, evidence, proof, theory: 'scientific method'. The concept of a universal spiritual concern: what can it explain? 'Functionalism' in anthropology. Sin, morality, truth: could God have been so mean as to force us to decide these questions for ourselves? No safe harbor. Just a fascinating learning-experience."
736-211: Elementary Logic
Se 011
3 credits, U, HU
MTW 9:30 am-11:20 am
6 weeks beginning week of 5/29/01
Professor Ross
tel 414-229-5903/4719
email pross@uwm.edu
This course will introduce you to formal techniques for analyzing and evaluating arguments.
    Logic is not an end in itself; however, like math, it is extremely useful as a tool for analysis. Unlike math, what you will analyze are arguments (the sorts of things we hear every day, intended to convince us to agree with certain points of view, buy certain products, and vote for certain candidates). Learning the basics of logic is useful for understanding and evaluating others' reasoning, as well as presenting your own; so it can be applied quite generally to understand and evaluate any argumentative writing or speaking. Also logic has more specialized uses; for example, it provides a very good preparation for standardized tests, such as the GMAT, LSAT, and GRE.

736-211: Elementary Logic
Se 071

3 credits, U, HU
TR 6:30 pm-9:15 pm
6 weeks beginning week of 7/9/01
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.
736-232: Topics in Philosophy
Se 071: Popular Music from Blues to Rock
3 credits, U, HU
TR 6:30 pm-9:15 pm
6 weeks beginning week of 7/9/01
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 subcultures - 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).
736-237: Technology, Values and Society
Se 011

3 credits, U, HU
MTR 6:30 pm-9:15 pm
4 weeks beginning week of 5/29/01
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, 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.
736-241: Introductory Ethics
Se 011

3 credits, U, HU
MWR 1:30 pm-3:20 pm
6 weeks beginning week of 5/29/01
Professor Steldt
tel 414-229-5217/4719
email karlsteldt@hotmail.com
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.
736-253: Philosophy of the Arts
Se 051

3 credits, U, HU
MW 6:30 pm-9:15 pm
6 weeks beginning week of 6/25/01
Professor Mink
tel 414-229-5217/4719
email kmink@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.
736-452: Special Topics in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy
Se 171: Field Study-American Indian Philosophy

3 credits, U, HU&
To be arranged
6 weeks beginning week of 7/9/01
Professor Boatman
tel 414-229-6686/4719
email boatman@uwm.edu
"Dancing Between Two Worlds - An Island Experience." Prerequisite of junior standing waived for students with Philosophy 271. Includes 2 weeks on Beaver Island, Michigan. Requires pre-registration in American Indian/Ethnic Studies Field Experience.
     For details contact the American Indian Studies Program, Holton Hall 291 or 285, 414-229-6686.
Ethnic Studies Course.
For a complete list of philosophy classes, please refer to the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee Summer 2001 Schedule of Classes. This booklet is available through Enrollment Services, Mellencamp Hall Room 274 or on the web at http://www.uwm.edu/schedule/
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