2024-2025

30300 Plato’s Law. An introductory reading of Plato's Laws with attention to such themes as the following: war and peace; courage and moderation; rule of law; music, poetry, drinking, and education; sex, marriage, and gender; property and class structure; crime and punishment; religion and theology; and philosophy. Open to undergrads with consent of instructor. PQ:  Familiarity with Plato’s Republic. xSCTH 20300, xPLSC 48300, xFNDL 23400. N. Tarcov (MW, 1:30pm – 2:50pm, Foster 505)

35714 An Introduction to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. This will be an introductory course on Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. The seminar will be organized around the follow proposal: the book is meant to reveal the sort of understanding that is at stake whenever a philosophical problem arises.  It teaches that such understanding is not a form of knowledge — and in particular not scientific knowledge— of whether or why something is the case. Its clarification of the sort of understanding at issue here allows for a reading according to which the Tractatus, contrary to what most commentators assume, seeks to affirm rather than to cancel philosophy. It affirms it as a fundamental concern with understanding distinct from science or from reason. xSCTH25714, xPHIL 35714/25714 I. Kimhi (W, 3:00 – 5: 50 pm, Foster 505)

35715 Aristotle: Action, Embodied Agents and Value in Acting. The aim of the course is to understand and assess central aspects of Aristotle's account of actions and agency. We will locate his views within the context of his discussion of (a) the relation between psychological and physical states, processes and activities and (b) the value of acting well. The course is aimed at graduates and advanced undergraduates (seniors and juniors) in Philosophy or Classics. Auditors are allowed subject to enrollment and with the permission of the instructor. Auditors will be expected to attend all classes, complete all reading assignments and participate in class discussion, but not to complete writing assignments. Knowledge of Greek is not required.xSCTH 25715, xPHIL 35715/35176, D. Charles (T, 2:00 pm – 4:50 pm, Foster 305)

35009 Platonic Aesthetics. The anachronism of the course title constitutes our program: to what extent can Plato's thinking about artworks, images, poets in the polis, beauty, the visual world, the senses, subjectivity and criticism be viewed coherently as an aesthetic theory? Does his style and dramatic mode of writing interact significantly with these views? How have they been received, and to what extent are they right? xARTH 35009, xCLAS 38020, xFNDL 29005, A. Pop (Th, 2:00pm – 4:50pm, Foster 305)

30308 What is Hegelianism? The seminar will explore the fundamental issues in Hegel’s philosophy by means of attention the texts where he most clearly states his ambitions: his early essay, The Difference Between Fichte’s and Schelling’s Systems of Philosophy; The Introduction to his Phenomenology of Spirit; The long Introduction to his Encyclopedia Logic; The Preface and Introduction to his Philosophy of Right, and the Introduction to his Lectures on Fine Art. Course is open graduate students. Lecture plus discussion. xSCTH 20308; xPHIL 3038/20308, R. Pippin (TTh 3:30 pm –  4:50 pm, Foster 505)

ENGL 56800 Philosophical Literary Criticism. What is the relationship between literature and philosophy? This class attempts to answer this question by reading two philosophically rich literary texts (Shakespeare's King Lear and Jane Austen's Persuasion) in relation to a variety of thinkers--from Aristotle to Robert Pippin---who have developed their own, often conflicting accounts of this relationship. xSCTH 56800; xDVPR 56800. T. Harrison & H. Keenleyside (W, 11:30 am – 2:20 pm, Classics 113)

20686 McCarthy’s Blood Meridian: Or The Evening Redness in the West. Cormac McCarthy’s 1985 masterpiece, Blood Meridian; or, The Evening Redness in the West has been described as ‘the ultimate Western’ and the greatest American novel of the twentieth century.  Yet it is also a book that is infamous for its baroque prose style as well as its nightmarish depictions of violence and bloodshed.  Our primary task in this course is to read Blood Meridian in its entirety.  We will explore the novel’s themes, including (but not limited to): war and the problem of evil; history and myth; violence and the sacred; violence and the carnivalesque; empire and conquest.  But our reading will not be limited to Blood Meridian alone.  We will read parts of some of McCarthy’s other works; some of the books that McCarthy read in preparation for writing the novel; and some of the scholarship on Blood Meridian. xSCTH 30686, xHIST 27504/37504, xFNDL 20686 TBA. J. Isaac (T 2:00 pm – 4:50 pm, Foster 505) 

GRMN 35325 Nietzsche as Critic. Friedrich Nietzsche was as much a critic (of literature, art, music, culture) as he was a philosopher, and the purpose of this seminar is to bring out the conception of criticism that unfolds across his work. Doing so will require some comparisons: with the Enlightenment (Lessing) and Romantic (esp. the Schlegel brothers) conceptions of criticism, but also with notions of criticism advanced, for example, by the New Critics, by Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno, and in contemporary work on aesthetics. Our main focus, however, will be on pertinent writings by Nietzsche, including the early essay on “Truth and Lie in a Non-Moral Sense,” Birth of Tragedy, Untimely Meditations, relevant aphorisms from Human, All Too Human, Dawn, Joyful Science, Beyond Good and Evil, and Twilight of the Idols, concluding with Case of Wagner. The topic of criticism in Nietzsche is not separable, of course, from the core themes of Nietzsche’s work and the seminar may therefore be considered as one avenue of approach to Nietzsche’s overall achievement. Major positions in the boundless secondary literature on Nietzsche will be considered. This course is open to graduate students. Advanced undergraduate students with a special interest in the topic may be admitted only after consultation with the instructor. xSCTH 35325. D. Wellbery. (W 3:30 pm, TBA)

35716 The Linguistic Turn in Philosophy (Language, Meaning, Being): How did philosophy came to be understood as a special concern with our language?  We shall deal with this question by studying some essential chapters in twenty century philosophy (Frege, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Quine.  Davidson.). xSCTH 25714, xPHIL 35714/25714. I. Kimhi (TBA, TBA)

37523 Reading Kierkegaard: This will be a discussion-centered seminar that facilitates close readings two texts: Philosophical Fragments and Concluding Unscientific Postscript.  Each of these texts is officially by the pseudonymous author Johannes Climacus.  But the author of that author is Soren Kierkegaard.  Topics to be considered will include: What is subjectivity?  What is objectivity?  What is irony?  What is humor?  What is the difference between the ethical and the religious?  What is it to become and be a human being?  We shall also consider Kierkegaard’s form of writing and manner of persuasion. In particular, why does he think he needs a pseudonymous author?This course is intended for undergraduate majors in Philosophy and Fundamentals and graduate students in Social Thought and Philosophy. Permission of instructor required. xSCTH 27523, xPHIL 37523/27523, xFNDL 27523. J. Lear (T 12:30 pm – 3:20 pm, Foster 505)

38005 Morality and Psychology in the Films of Ingmar Bergman. The films of the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman are among the most powerful, complicated and philosophically sophisticated portrayals of moral and religious, and failed moral and religious, life in the twentieth century. Bergman is especially concerned with crisis experiences and with related emotional states like anguish, alienation, guilt, despair, loneliness, shame, abandonment, conversion, and the mystery of death. We will watch and discuss eight of his most important films in this course with such issues in mind: Wild Strawberries (1957), The Virgin Spring (1960), Winter Light (1963), Persona (1966), Shame (1968), Cries and Whispers (1973), Autumn Sonata (1978), Fanny and Alexander (1982). xSCTH 28005, xPHIL 34709/24709, XGRMN 34709/24709, R. Pippin (Lec: TTh 2:00 pm – 3:20 pm, TBA;  Feature Film:  W, 4 pm, TBA)

30930 Risk and Rationality in an Uncertain World. Our world is uncertain, but we must act in the present and plan for the future: this challenge is at the root of many modern theories of rationality. When is it rational to take risks, how many, and what kind? This course examines the history of thinking about such problems in philosophy, mathematics, economics, and psychology as well as the practices of gambling, insurance, commodities futures, disposal of nuclear waste, and long-term planning (for example, in the context of climate change). This course will meet two times per week for 3 hours, during the 1st five weeks of the quarter, March 24 - April 23. Instructor’s consent required for all students. xSCTH 20930, xPHIL 37330, xHIST 42202, L. Daston (MW 9:30 am - 12:20 pm F 305)

31222 Oedipus Tyrannus: thinking in and with Tragedy—Who/What/Where/When/Why. Oedipus: exemplary sovereign or outlier? savior of the city or its destroyer? Epistemophile or -phobe? Upholder or suspender of the law (including the laws of kinship)? Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannos has been good to think with since its first production in the fifth century BCE. Instructor’s consent required for undergraduates. xSCTH 21222, xCMLT 31222, xGREEK 34717/2714, xFNDL 21222, L. Slatkin (TTh 1:30 pm – 4:20 pm, Foster 305) 

35999 Sophocles, Oedipus the King: A close literary and philological analysis of one of the most remarkable of all Greek tragedies. This play raises important and perplexing issues of knowledge, responsibility, guilt, freedom, ethics, politics, and suffering, 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 comparing what can be known about other versions of the story and to exploring the reception of this play in later literature and other fields including Freudian psychoanalysis. Open to undergraduates with instructor consent. PQ: Knowledge of Ancient Greek or consent of instructor. Most, G., (M 9:30 am – 12:20 pm, F 305)

36000 Dysfunctional Families and Political Discord at Thebes: Sophocles, Euripides, Seneca, Statius, Corneille, Racine: In ancient Greek and Roman myth Thebes was plagued by strife from its very foundation.  Armed men who were sown from dragon’s teeth sprang up from the earth and fought each other to the death. Their descendants perpetuated the curse of monstrous birth, parricide, and civil discord. Oedipus’ patricide and incest and his sons’ fratricide became central figurations for endemic social and political conflict in general. This course samples the literary tradition that makes Thebes a paradigmatic locus for exploring the intersection of dysfunction in the family and in the polis. We will read Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, Euripides’ Phoenician Women, Seneca’s Oedipus, Statius’ Thebaid, Corneille’s Oedipe, and Racine’s La Thébaïde. All readings may be done in translation. However, we hope that students will read at least one of the texts in the original language. Open to undergraduates with instructor consent. Most, G & Lowrie, M. (W 9:30 am – 12: 20 pm Foster 305)

37327 Friedrich Nietzsche: The Gay Science: The Gay Science is the only work that Nietzsche wrote and published before and after the Zarathustra experiment of 1883–1885. It first appeared in 1882, ending with the last aphorism of Book IV and anticipating verbatim the opening of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In 1887 Nietzsche republished The Gay Science and added a substantial new part: Book V looks back to “the greatest recent event” announced by The Gay Science of 1882, “that ‘God is dead’.”I shall concentrate my interpretation on books IV and V, the only books of The Gay Science for which Nietzsche provided titles: “Sanctus Januarius” and “We Fearless Ones.” And I shall pay special attention to the impact of the Zarathustra endeavor which separates and connects these dense and carefully written books. Open to undergraduates with instructor consent.  Note: This course will meet two times per week for 3 hours, during the 1st five weeks of the quarter, March 24 - April 23, 2025. Meier, H. (MW 10:30a-1:20p, Foster 505)

GRMN 37525 Rilke, Malte, Modernism. The concept of “modernism” embraces a number of artistic trends and movements that arose in the second half of the nineteenth century in Europe (and beyond) and continued well into the twentieth century. The task of the seminar is to exfoliate core features of that concept by examining works of literature and visual art that are understood as “modernist” as well as works of criticism and philosophical contributions devoted to understanding what modernism is. As the seminar title indicates, the work of Rainer Maria Rilke will be an important point of reference. We will study his novel The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge as well as selected poems and essays. Since Paris is the locus of (much of) Rilke’s novel, we will look back to Baudelaire, especially his essay The Painter of Modern Life, while considering his much-discussed poem À une passante (To a passerby) along with relevant commentaries. Moreover, the fact that Rilke worked on the novel during a period when he was also deeply engaged with Cezanne’s painting affords an opportunity to consider certain paintings by Cézanne. Here we will be guided by Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s essay Cezanne’s Doubt, Robert Pippin’s study After the Beautiful: Hegel and the Philosophy of Pictorial Modernism (2014), and T.J. Clark’s recent book If these Apples Should Fall: Cézanne and the Present (2022). The course is conceived as a participatory (discussion-intensive) seminar, conducted at a graduate level. English translations will be provided for works in French and German, but seminar discussions will be dotted by references to the original works. Participation by interested undergraduates who have done advanced work in the arts and/or philosophy is possible but requires permission from the instructor. xSCTH 37525. D. Wellbery. (W 3:30 pm, TBA)

55512 Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. This seminar will introduce some of the some of the central concepts of psychoanalysis: Mourning and Melancholia, Repetition and Remembering, Transference, Neurosis, the Unconscious, Identification, Psychodynamic, Eros, Envy, Gratitude, Splitting, Death.  The central theme will be how these concepts shed light on human flourishing and the characteristic ways we fail to flourish.  Readings from Freud, Loewald, Lacan, Melanie Klein, Betty Joseph, Hanna Segal and others. Open to undergraduates with instructor consent. xSCTH 22212, xPHIL 51418/21418, J. Lear & A. Margulies (M 1:30pm – 4:20pm, F505)