2026-2027

From Parmenides to Wittgenstein.  Elisabeth Anscombe gave this title to a volume of her collected philosophical essays. She ends the introduction with the claim: “Whitehead’s remark about Plato might, somehow narrowly, be applied to his great predecessor: Subsequent philosophy is footnotes on Parmenides.” I shall offer a reading that differs from Anscombe’s of the thesis expressed by her title and her remark on philosophy and its history. Wednesdays, 12:30-3:20pm, permission of the instructor required to register. I. Kimhi 

Comparative Social Theory. This class is designed for Committee on Social Thought Students to bring more social science into the Committee and particularly the Fundamentals Exam. Hopefully it will also be interesting to other PhD students in the social sciences, particularly political science, economics and sociology. I want to do this in a way that intersects as much as possible with other core topics of the Committee, in particular political thought and philosophy. To do this I will structure the course around the topic of “the emergence of complex society” (a misnomer as we shall see) or perhaps “state formation” or “political centralization.” Loosely, I want to discuss research that has examined how human society evolves over time and how and why it becomes more “complex” or “centralized.” This is a topic that has attracted attention from all types of social scientists, philosophers, archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians. I will pair empirical and secondary work with philosophical or political theory texts. Thursdays, 9:30-12:20pm, permission of the instructor required to register. J. Robinson

Critical Theory - Past and Present. In this course, we will study the works of the major theorists of what came to be called the "Frankfurt School". We start with Horkheimer's original program for an interdisciplinary study of the contradictions of modern societies, combining essential insights of German idealism with (a revised form of) historical materialism, and continue with thinkers like Adorno, Marcuse and Benjamin. Habermas transformed critical theory in important ways, which we will discuss. Furthermore, we study the works of N. Fraser, S. Benhabib, A. Honneth and others to understand the plurality of the new directions critical theory took and takes. Tuesdays, 3:30-6:20 permission of the instructor required to register. R. Forst.

Approaches to the History of Political Thought. This course will examine some of the most influential recent statements of method in the history of political thought, alongside work by the same authors that may (or may not) put those methods or approaches into practice. We will read works by Quentin Skinner, Reinhart Koselleck, J.GA. Pocock, Leo Strauss, Sheldon Wolin, Michel Foucault, and David Scott among others, with some emphasis on writings about Hobbes and questions of sovereignty and the state. J. Pitts.

Philosophical Problems in the Films of Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock’s films all involve the complexity of crucial conceptual distinctions unavoidable in modern, especially twentieth century bourgeois American life. These include the distinctions between guilt and innocence, good and evil, order and chaos, reality and illusion, the virtues of character and the charismatic appeal of personality, rationality and irrationality, the need for and the danger of knowledge, authenticity and social performance and theatricality. We want to investigate the philosophical implications of the instability of these distinctions, the difficulties characters encounter in trying to appeal to such distinctions, and what it might mean for a film to “raise” such issues by distinctly cinematic means. We will want to contrast the way his films can provide insight into the experiential dimensions of this instability, compared with the attempts by philosophy to pin down and argue for the stability of the distinctions by conceptual analysis. We will be especially interested in what might lie behind Hitchcock’s presentation of how the lived experience of modern bourgeois life makes all but inevitable forms of motivated irrationality, such as self-deceit and wishful thinking, in order to endure such experience and why that might be so. We will watch together and discuss eight of his films: his first sound film Blackmail (1929); Shadow of a Doubt (1943); Notorious (1946); Strangers on a Train (1951); Rear Window (1954); North by Northwest (1959); Psycho (1960); and we conclude with his masterpiece, Vertigo (1958). Lecture plus discussion. R. Pippin.

Aristotle's Eudemain Ethics. The Eudemian Ethics is one of Aristotle’s two major works about the nature of human happiness. Although not as famous as its Nicomachean counterpart, it is filled with distinctive, fascinating, and philosophically appealing discussions about virtue (including the super-virtue, “noble-goodness”), deliberation, luck, friendship, and the relation of all of these to “living well.” It also contains important discussions about philosophical methodology and ethical teleology. We will read our way through some of the EE’s most interesting arguments, taking advantage of the many recent articles written about them. G. Lear.

Euripides' Trojan Women. In this seminar we will examine Euripides' Trojan Women. The seminar will undertake a close literary and philological analysis of this drama, one of the most remarkable of all Greek tragedies and one that has experienced an extraordinary growth in popularity in recent years. This play looks back on the fall of Troy from the viewpoint not of the victorious Greek men but of the defeated Trojan women; it raises important and perplexing issues of crime, responsibility, guilt, gender, ethics, politics, suffering, the body, and old age, to name only a few. While the poetic text, in its many dimensions, including staging, will offer more than adequate material for classroom analysis and discussion, attention will also be directed to exploring the reception of this play. PQ: Graduate students: reading knowledge of ancient Greek or instructor’s consent. Undergraduate students: reading knowledge of ancient Greek and instructor’s consent. G. Most.

On Intensity: Kleist. Although one of the masterful storytellers and playwrights in world literature, Kleist is not a regular point of reference in English-language criticism. In fact, he is little read. In this seminar, we will consider his masterful novellas: The Marquise von O, The Earthquake in Chile, Michael Kohlhass, and The Duel. We will also study his comic response to Sophocles' Oedipus Rex entitled The Broken Jug. Consultation of his letters will afford us a closer look at his personality. Kleist's essays are no less powerful than his plays and novellas and we will devote a session to his pieces on the Marionette Theater, on Caspar David Friedrich's painting The Monk at the Sea, and to his reflection On the Gradual Formation of Thought. D. Wellbery.

Disenchantment and Modernity. Ever since the sociologist Max Weber coined the phrase "disenchantment of the world" to describe the essential difference between modern societies and all others, it has become a catchword shared by both the champions and critics of modernity. It has served as a historical narrative, a sociological diagnosis, and an elegiac lament in social theory, history, literature, philosophy, and even science. This seminar explores the origins, meanings, and validity of the thesis that citizens of modern societies inhabit a disenchanted world by analyzing the uses to which prominent thinkers have put it. At stake is not only a particular vision of modernity but the concept of modernity itself. L. Daston.

Nietzsche’s Critique of Morality. A close reading of several major passages from Nietzsche’s The Gay Science (1882), and all of his On the Genealogy of Morals (1887). Major issues: What is a genealogical critique?; Nietzsche’s account the relation between morality and religion; the role of Christian morality in Western culture; the relation between psychology and philosophy. T TH Time TBD. Undergrad and grad student course. R. Pippin.