Undergraduate courses in Philosophy

PHIL 100-103 are surveys of important figures and movements in Western philosophy. Other courses in the 100+ range cover particular periods, movements, and figures in the history of philosophy. Prospective Philosophy majors should take as many as possible during the sophomore year.

PHIL 10. God, Self, and World: An Introduction to Philosophy

Traditional philosophical problems including the existence of God, how and what one can know about the world, how to understand the nature of the mind and its relation to the body, and whether people have free will. Paradoxes. Readings include classical and contemporary texts. GER:DB-Hum

5 units, Aut (Duarte, S)

PHIL 11N. Skepticism

(F,Sem) Stanford Introductory Seminar. Preference to freshmen. Historical and contemporary philosophical perspectives on the limits of human knowledge of a mind-independent world and causal laws of nature. The nature and possibility of a priori knowledge. GER:DB-Hum

3 units, Win (De Pierris, G)

PHIL 12N. Mortal Questions

Preference to freshmen. Should people fear death? Why does life sometimes seem meaningless? Can people be good or bad by accident? What makes a sexual act perverse? When is warfare immoral? Focus is on Thomas Nagel's Mortal Questions as an introduction to contemporary analytic philosophy. GER:DB-Hum

3 units, not given this year

PHIL 13N. Freedom of the Will and Moral Responsibility

(F,Sem) Stanford Introductory Seminar. Preference to freshmen. Historical and contemporary views on this central philosophical problem: in order to be morally responsible, do people have to have free will? If so, then would the premise that all events are causally determined make such freedom impossible? GER:DB-Hum

3 units, Spr (Schapiro, T)

PHIL 14N. Belief

(F,Sem) Stanford Introductory Seminar. Preference to freshmen. Is there anything wrong with believing something without evidence? Is it possible? The nature and ethics of belief, and belief's relation to evidence and truth. How much control do believers have over their belief? GER:DB-Hum

3 units, Win (Lawlor, K)

PHIL 15N. Freedom, Community, and Morality

(F,Sem) Stanford Introductory Seminar. Preference to freshmen. Does the freedom of the individual conflict with the demands of human community and morality? Or, as some philosophers have maintained, does the freedom of the individual find its highest expression in a moral community of other human beings? Readings include Camus, Mill, Rousseau, and Kant. GER:DB-Hum, EC-EthicReas

3 units, Aut (Friedman, M)

PHIL 16N. Values and Objectivity

Preference to freshmen. What is meant by the objectivity of beliefs and attitudes? Can the commitment of science to truthfulness be free of particular perspectives and subjective influence? Is objectivity a matter of degree relative to the kind of inquiry undertaken? Readings from philosophy of science, moral philosophy, and philosophy of mind. GER:DB-Hum

3 units, not given this year

PHIL 17N. The Logic of Social Justice

Preference to freshmen. Social choice theory studies the aggregation of individual preferences into a group preference, including voting procedures, auctions, and fair division procedures. Normative properties such as fairness, non-manipulability, and optimality. Central impossibility results. Student projects analyze real-life social mechanisms such as the Stanford housing draw, or voting systems of different countries. Recommended: AP mathematics or equivalent. GER:DB-SocSci

3 units, not given this year

PHIL 18N. Well-Being

What makes a life good for the person who lives it? Does well-being depend solely on the quality of the person's experiences? Are things good because people desire them or do people desire them because they are good? Are there objective criteria for assessing the goodness of a life? Readings from historical and contemporary sources.

3 units, not given this year

PHIL 19N. Practical Reasoning

(F,Sem) Stanford Introductory Seminar. Preference to freshmen. Practical reasoning aims. Structure of practical reasoning. Practical reasoning as means to ends that are taken as given. Practical reasoning about ends. Practical reasoning concerned with some sort of maximization of some value. Relation between practical reasoning and desire. Relation between practical reasoning and planning. Relation between different views about practical reasoning and different views about morality. Structure of practical reasoning affected by perceptions of subtle features of different situations. GER:DB-Hum

3 units, Win (Bratman, M)

PHIL 20. Introduction to Moral Philosophy

(Same as ETHICSOC 20.) What is the basis of moral judgment? What makes right actions right and wrong actions wrong? What makes a state of affairs good or worth promoting? What is it to have a good or virtuous character? Answers to classic questions in ethics through the works of traditional and contemporary authors. GER:DB-Hum, EC-EthicReas

5 units, Win (Schapiro, T)

PHIL 20S. Introduction to Moral Philosophy

What is the basis of moral judgment? What makes right actions right and wrong actions wrong? What makes a state of affairs good or worth promoting? What is it to have a good or virtuous character? Answers to classic questions in ethics through the works of traditional and contemporary authors.

3 units, Sum (McElroy, P)

PHIL 30. Introduction to Political Philosophy

(Same as ETHICSOC 30, POLISCI 3, PUBLPOL 103A.) State authority, justice, liberty, and equality through major works in political philosophy. Topics include human nature and citizenship, the obligation to obey the law, democracy and economic inequality, equality of opportunity and affirmative action, religion, and politics. GER:DB-Hum, DB-Hum, EC-EthicReas

5 units, Spr (Hussain, N)

PHIL 41Q. Truth

(S,Sem) Stanford Introductory Seminar. Preference to sophomores. Central issues animating current work in the philosophy of truth. What is truth? What is it about a statement or judgment that makes it true rather than false? Are there any propositions that are neither true nor false? Could truth be relative to individuals or communities? Do people have different notions of truth for different enterprises such as mathematics and ethics? Might truth be a matter of degree? Sources include the instructor's book manuscript and other contemporary writers. GER:DB-Hum

3 units, Aut (Burgess, A)

PHIL 42. Philosophy through Theater: Choice and Chance

Dramatic literature as a window into philosophical work on freedom of the will and indeterminism. Students participate in the production of original one-act plays. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, Win (Burgess, A)

PHIL 43S. Happiness: Positive Psychology and Philosophy

The connection between research in positive psychology to determine what happiness is and the conditions under which human beings are happy with issues in moral philosophy regarding whether we should aim at happiness or think of it as a good. The assumptions about happiness made by positive psychologists. The philosophical insight into the question of how people should live that is gained by looking at the empirical results provide by psychologists.

3 units, Sum (Papadopol, A)

PHIL 50. Introductory Logic

Propositional and predicate logic; emphasis is on translating English sentences into logical symbols and constructing derivations of valid arguments. GER:DB-Math

4 units, Win (Paul, S), Spr (Duarte, S)

PHIL 50S. Introductory Logic

Propositional and predicate logic. Themes include: translations of English sentences into logical symbols; semantics of and proof rules for propositional and predicate logic. Emphasis is on evaluating arguments with the syntax and semantics of contemporary logic.

4 units, Sum (Angelides, A)

PHIL 60. Introduction to Philosophy of Science

(Same as HPS 60.) 20th-century views on the nature of scientific knowledge. Logical positivism and Popper; the problem of induction; Kuhn, Feyerbend, and radical philosophies of science; subsequent attempts to rebuild moderate empiricist and realist positions. GER:DB-Hum

5 units, Aut (Ryckman, T)

PHIL 61. Science, Religion, and the Birth of Modern Philosophy

(Same as HPS 61.) Galileo's defense of the Copernican world-system that initiated the scientific revolution of the 17th century, led to conflict between science and religion, and influenced the development of modern philosophy. Readings focus on Galileo and Descartes. GER:DB-Hum

5 units, not given this year

PHIL 71H. Philosophy and the Real World

Introduction to the humanities as an applied discipline; how literary and philosophical ideas illuminate and change how people live their lives as individuals and members of society. Focus is on short texts that illustrate how literary and philosophical ideas arise from social problems and attempt to confront those problems. Methods and approaches: how to read such texts; how to make arguments about them; how such texts shed light on contemporary situations.

2 units, Sum (Staff)

PHIL 77. Methodology in Ethics: Translating Theory into Practice

(Same as ETHICSOC 77.) Ideally, social policies are informed by ethical thought and reflection, but doing good in the world requires the active translation of moral theory and political philosophy into action. What kinds of empirical data are relevant to social decision making, and how should they be collected, evaluated, and integrated into normative analysis? What assumptions about human nature are in play? How should diverse cultural values be addressed? Case studies from biomedical science, business, and government.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 78. Medical Ethics

(Same as ETHICSOC 78.) Introduction to moral reasoning and its application to problems in medicine: informed consent, the requirements and limits of respect for patients' autonomy, surrogate decision making, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, and abortion. GER:DB-Hum, DB-Hum, EC-EthicReas

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 80. Mind, Matter, and Meaning

Central topics in philosophy emphasizing development of analytical writing skills. What are human beings? Are human beings free? How do human minds and bodies interact? What does it all mean? Prerequisite: introductory philosophy course. GER:DB-Hum, WIM

5 units, Aut (Crimmins, M), Spr (Burgess, A)

PHIL 81. Philosophy and Literature

Required gateway course for Philosophical and Literary Thought; crosslisted in departments sponsoring the Philosophy and Literature track: majors should register in their home department; non-majors may register in any sponsoring department. Introduction to major problems at the intersection of philosophy and literature. Issues may include authorship, selfhood, truth and fiction, the importance of literary form to philosophical works, and the ethical significance of literary works. Texts include philosophical analyses of literature, works of imaginative literature, and works of both philosophical and literary significance. Authors may include Plato, Montaigne, Nietzsche, Borges, Beckett, Barthes, Foucault, Nussbaum, Walton, Nehamas, Pavel, and Pippin. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, Win (Anderson, L; Vermeule, B)

PHIL 100. Greek Philosophy

Greek philosophical thought, covering Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic schools (the Epicureans, the Stoics, and the Skeptics). Topics: the nature of the soul, virtue and happiness, knowledge, and reality. (Bobonich) GER:DB-Hum

4 units, Aut (Duarte, S)

PHIL 101. Medieval Religious Philosophy

(Same as RELIGST 167.) Focus is on God, world, and words. A pervasive assumption about the structure of the world, that it reflected the categories of God's mind and emerged from an act of divine speech, gave impetus to the interest in the nature of language and its relation to the world. Scripture served as one kind of divine communication to human beings, and The Book of the World as another. The problem of universals, the question of how words relate to God, epistemology, theories of reference, and semiotics. Readings from Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 102. Modern Philosophy, Descartes to Kant

Major figures in early modern philosophy in epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind. Writings by Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, Win (Duarte, S)

PHIL 103. 19th-Century Philosophy

Focus is on ethics and the philosophy of history. Works include Mill's Utilitarianism, Hegel's The Philosophy of World History, Marx's Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, Kierkegaard's The Sickness Unto Death, and Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 107. Plato and Heraclitus

(Same as PHIL 207.) Similarities and differences.

3 units, not given this year

PHIL 110. Plato

(Same as PHIL 210.) Plato's Republic. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, Aut (Bobonich, C)

PHIL 111. Aristotle

(Same as PHIL 211.) Aristotle's epistemology; related issues in his psychology and philosophy of science. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, Win (Bobonich, C)

PHIL 113. Hellenistic Philosophy

(Same as PHIL 213.) Epicureans, skeptics, and stoics on epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, and psychology. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 115. Problems in Medieval Philosophy

(Same as PHIL 215.) Is a science of metaphysics possible? What is a Aristotelian science? How does science get started? How are the most basic principles of scientific thinking known? If the special sciences cover every particular subject, as chemistry deals with substantial change and meteorology with accidental change, then what is the subject of the general science of metaphysics? Can it be unified? Answers by Aristotle, Aquinas, Duns, Scotus, and Ockham. GER:DB-Hum

3-5 units, not given this year

PHIL 117. Descartes

(Same as PHIL 217.) (Formerly 121/221.) Descartes's philosophical writings on rules for the direction of the mind, method, innate ideas and ideas of the senses, mind, God, eternal truths, and the material world. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, Win (De Pierris, G)

PHIL 118. British Empiricism, 1660s-1730s

(Same as PHIL 218.) GER:DB-Hum

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 119. Rationalists

(Same as PHIL 219.) (Formerly 143/243.) Developments in 17th-century continental philosophy. Descartes's views on mind, necessity, and knowledge. Spinoza and Leibniz emphazing their own doctrines and their criticism of their predecessors. Prerequisite: 102. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 122. Hume

(Same as PHIL 222.) (Formerly 120/220; graduate students enroll in 222.) Hume's theoretical philosophy, in particular, skepticism and naturalism, the theory of ideas and belief, space and time, causation and necessity, induction and laws of nature, miracles, a priori reasoning, the external world, and the identity of the self. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 125. Kant's First Critique

(Same as PHIL 225.) (Graduate students register for 225.) The founding work of Kant's critical philosophy emphasizing his contributions to metaphysics and epistemology. His attempts to limit metaphysics to the objects of experience. Prerequisite: course dealing with systematic issues in metaphysics or epistemology, or with the history of modern philosophy. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, Spr (De Pierris, G)

PHIL 126B. Kant's Ethical Theory

(Same as PHIL 226B.) (Graduate students register for 226B.) Kant's moral philosophy based primarily on the Groundwork of Metaphysics of Morals, Critique of Practical Reason, and The Metaphysics of Morals. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 127A. Kant's Value Theory

(Same as PHIL 227A.) (Graduate students register for 227A.) The role of autonomy, principled rational self-governance, in Kant's account of the norms to which human beings are answerable as moral agents, citizens, empirical inquirers, and religious believers. Relations between moral values (goodness, rightness) and aesthetic values (beauty, sublimity). GER:DB-Hum

4 units, Win (Hills, D)

PHIL 127B. Kant's Anthropology and Philosophy of History

(Same as PHIL 227B.) Kant's conception of anthropology or human nature, based on his philosophy of history, which influenced and anticipated 18th- and 19th-century philosophers of history such as Herder, Fichte, Hegel, and Marx. Texts include Idea for a Universal History, Conjectural Beginning of Human History, and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. Topics include: Kant's pragmatic approach to the study of human nature; the difficulty of human self knowledge; the role of regulative and teleological principles in studying human history; and Kant's theory of race.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 128. Fichte's Ethics

(Same as PHIL 228.) (Graduate students register for 228.) The founder of the German Idealist movement who adopted but revised Kant's project of transcendental philosophy basing it on the principle of awareness of free self-activity. The awareness of other selves and of ethical relations to them as a necessary condition for self-awareness. His writings from 1793-98 emphasizing the place of intersubjectivity in his theory of experience.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 130. Hegel's Elements of Philosophy of Right

(Same as PHIL 230.) (Formerly 122/222; graduate students register for 230.) Introduction to Hegel's philosophy, emphasizing his moral and political philosophy, through study of his last major work (1821). May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: course in the history of modern philosophy. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 134. Phenomenology and Intersubjectivity

(Same as PHIL 234.) (Graduate students register for 234.) Readings from Husserl, Stein, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty on subjects related to awareness of others. Topics include solipsism, collective experience, empathy, and objectification of the other. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 135. Existentialism

(Same as PHIL 235.) (Formerly 132/232.) Focus is on the existentialist preoccupation with human freedom. What constitutes authentic individuality? What is one's relation to the divine? How can one live a meaningful life? What is the significance of death? A rethinking of the traditional problem of freedom and determinism in readings from Rousseau, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, and the extension of these ideas by Sartre, Beauvoir, and Camus, including their social and political consequences in light of 20th-century fascism and feminism. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 136. History of Analytic Philosophy

(Same as PHIL 236.) (Formerly 147/247; graduate students register for 236.) Theories of knowledge in Frege, Carnap, and Quine. Emphasis is on conceptions of analyticity and treatment of logic and mathematics. Prerequisite: 50 and one course numbered 150-165 or 181-90. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 137. Wittgenstein

(Same as PHIL 237.) (Graduate students register for 237.) The main themes and claims in Wittgenstein's later work concentrating on his views about meaning, mind, knowledge, the nature of philosophical perplexity, and the nature of philosophical progress in his Philosophical Investigations. Emphasis is on the relationship between the novel arguments of the Investigations and its ways of writing up the results of philosophical questioning. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, Spr (Hills, D)

PHIL 143. Quine

(Same as PHIL 243.) (Formerly 183/283; graduate students register for 243.) The philosophy of Quine: meaning and communication; analyticity, modality, reference, and ontology; theory and evidence; naturalism; mind and the mental. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, Aut (Follesdal, D)

PHIL 150. Basic Concepts in Mathematical Logic

(Same as PHIL 250.) (Formerly 159.) The concepts and techniques used in mathematical logic, primarily through the study of the language of first order logic. Topics: formalization, proof, propositional logic, quantifiers, sets, mathematical induction, and enumerability. GER:DB-Math

4 units, Aut (Barker-Plummer, D)

PHIL 150X. Basic Concepts in Mathematical Logic

Equivalent to the second half of 150. Students attend the first meeting of 150 and rejoin the class on October 30. Prerequisite: CS 103A or X, or PHIL 50.

2 units, Aut (Barker-Plummer, D)

PHIL 151. First-Order Logic

(Same as PHIL 251.) (Formerly 160A.) The syntax and semantics of sentential and first-order logic. Concepts of model theory. Gödel's completeness theorem and its consequences: the Löwenheim-Skolem theorem and the compactness theorem. Prerequisite: 150 or consent of instructor. GER:DB-Math

4 units, Win (Pacuit, E)

PHIL 152. Computability and Logic

(Same as PHIL 252.) Approaches to effective computation: recursive functions, register machines, and programming styles. Proof of their equivalence, discussion of Church's thesis. Elementary recursion theory. These techniques used to prove Gödel's incompleteness theorem for arithmetic, whose technical and philosophical repercussions are surveyed. Prerequisite: 151. GER:DB-Math

4 units, Spr (Pacuit, E)

PHIL 153. Feminist Theories and Methods Across the Disciplines

(Same as FEMST 103, FEMST 203.) The interdisciplinary foundations of feminist thought. The nature of disciplines and of interdisciplinary work. Challenges of feminism for scholarship and research. GER:EC-Gender

4-5 units, Aut (Longino, H)

PHIL 154. Modal Logic

(Same as PHIL 254.) (Graduate students register for 254.) Syntax and semantics of modal logic, and technical results like completeness and correspondence theory. Applications to philosophy and computer science. Prerequisite: 150 or preferably 151. GER:DB-Math

4 units, Spr (vanBenthem, J)

PHIL 155. General Interest Topics in Mathematical Logic

Propositional calculus, Sudoku puzzles, problem P=NP. Possible worlds, modal logic. Incompleneteness, provability logic. Logic of knowledge and belief. May be repeated for credit.

4 units, Win (Mints, G)

PHIL 157. Topics in Philosophy of Logic

(Same as PHIL 257.) (Graduate students register for 257.) Disputed foundational issues in logic; the question of what the subject matter and boundaries of logic are, such as whether what is called second-order logic should be counted as logic. What is the proper notion of logical consequence? May be repeated for credit. Pre- or corequisite: 151, or consent of instructor.

3 units, Spr (Pacuit, E)

PHIL 160A. Newtonian Revolution

(Same as PHIL 260A.) (Graduate students register for 260A.) 17th-century efforts in science including by Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, and Huygens, that formed the background for and posed the problems addressed in Newton's Principia. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, Win (Smith, G)

PHIL 160B. Newtonian Revolution

(Same as PHIL 260B.) (Graduate students register for 260B.) Newton's Principia in its historical context, emphasizing how it produced a revolution in the conduct of empirical research and in standards of evidence in science. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, Spr (Smith, G)

PHIL 162. Philosophy of Mathematics

(Same as MATH 162, PHIL 262.) (Graduate students register for PHIL 262.) 20th-century approaches to the foundations and philosophy of mathematics. The background in mathematics, set theory, and logic. Schools and programs of logicism, predicativism, platonism, formalism, and constructivism. Readings from leading thinkers. Prerequisite: PHIL151 or consent of instructor.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 163. Significant Figures in Philosophy of Science

(Same as PHIL 263.) (Graduate students register for 263.) Directed study of two or more thinkers, past or present, who have made a lasting impact on contemporary philosophy of science. Subjects last year were Henri Poincaré, Pierre Duhem, and Gaston Bachelard. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 164. Central Topics in the Philosophy of Science: Theory and Evidence

(Same as PHIL 264.) (Graduate students register for 264.) The relation of theory to evidence and prediction, problems of induction, empirical under-determination of theory by evidence, and theory choice. Hypothetico-deductive, Bayesian, pragmatic, and inference to the best explanation models of explanation. The semantic approach to theories. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, Win (Smith, G)

PHIL 165. Philosophy of Physics

(Same as PHIL 265.) (Graduate students register for 265.) Central topic alternates annually between space-time theories and philosophical issues in quantum mechanics. Topics last year: absolute and relational theories of space, time, and motion. Newton's critique of Descartes and debate with Leibniz. The principle of relativity and space-time formulations of Aristotelian, Galilean, and relativity physics. Mach's principle and the theory of general relativity. Einstein's struggles with the principle of general covariance. Space-time substantivalism, and the meaning of background independence. May be repeated for credit if content is different. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, Aut (Ryckman, T)

PHIL 166. Probability: Ten Great Ideas About Chance

(Same as PHIL 266.) Foundational approaches to thinking about chance in matters such as gambling, the law, and everyday affairs. Topics include: chance and decisions; the mathematics of chance; frequencies, symmetry, and chance; Bayes great idea; chance and psychology; misuses of chance; and harnessing chance. Emphasis is on the philosophical underpinnings and problems. Prerequisite: exposure to probability or a first course in statistics at the level of STATS 60 or 116.

4 units, Spr (Skyrms, B)

PHIL 167B. Philosophy, Biology, and Behavior

(Same as PHIL 267B.) (Graduate students register for 267B.) Continuation of 167A/267A. Further philosophical study of key theoretical ideas in biology, focusing on problems involving explanation of behavior. Topics: evolutionary versus proximate causal explanations of behavior; genetic and other determinisms; and classification and measurement of behavior. Prerequisites: 167A; or one PHIL course and either one BIOSCI course or Human Biology core; or equivalent with consent of instructor.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 168. Theories of Truth

(Same as PHIL 268.) (Graduate students register for 268.) The correspondence, coherence, pragmatist and deflationary theories of truth. Tarski's semantic conception of truth and hierarchical truth definitions. The problems posed by the liar paradox for non-hierarchical theories. Formal theories of truth proposed since the 70s to deal with these problems.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 170. Ethical Theory

(Same as ETHICSOC 170, PHIL 270.) Major strands in contemporary ethical theory. Readings include Bentham, Mill, Kant, and contemporary authors. GER:DB-Hum, EC-EthicReas

4 units, Aut (Schapiro, T)

PHIL 171. Justice

(Same as ETHICSOC 171, IPS 208, PHIL 271, POLISCI 136S, PUBLPOL 207.) Focus is on the ideal of a just society, and the place of liberty and equality in it, in light of contemporary theories of justice and political controversies. Topics include protecting religious liberty, financing schools and elections, regulating markets, assuring access to health care, and providing affirmative action and group rights. Issues of global justice including human rights and global inequality. GER:DB-Hum, EC-EthicReas

4-5 units, Aut (Cohen, J)

PHIL 172. History of Modern Ethics

(Same as PHIL 272.) Major strands in the history of modern, pre-Kantian moral philosophy. Emphasis is on the dialogue between empiricists and rationalists on the subject of the relationship between the natural and the normative. Authors include Frances Hutcheson, David Hume, Adam Smith, Samuel Clarke, and Richard Price.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 173A. Aesthetics: Metaphor across the Arts

What if a metaphor is an instructively compact work of art, or if finding a metaphor apt is an instructively simple case of finding something aesthetically valuable? What does this reveal about the nature of art and language? Introduction to the philosophical study of art and aesthetic value, organized around metaphor. Contemporary accounts of metaphor as a verbal device. Arguments for the existence of nonverbal metaphor in nonliterary arts. The power and appeal of metaphors drawn from art, art criticism, theoretical inquiry, and everyday life. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, Aut (Hills, D)

PHIL 173B. Metaethics

(Same as PHIL 273B.) (Graduate students register for 273B.) Can moral and ethical values be justified or is it just a matter of opinion? Is there a difference between facts and values? Are there any moral truths? Does it matter if there are not? Focus is not on which things or actions are valuable or morally right, but what is value or rightness itself. Contemporary metaethics. Prerequisites: 80, 181, and an ethics course. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, Win (Hussain, N)

PHIL 174. Freedom and the Practical Standpoint

(Same as PHIL 274.) (Graduate students register for 274.) Confronted with the question of how to act, people think of themselves as freely determining their own conduct. Natural science poses a challenge to this by explaining all events, including human actions, in terms of causal processes. Are people justified in thinking of themselves as free? Major philosophical approaches to this question: incompatibilism, compatibilism, and the two-standpoint view. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 174A. Moral Limits of the Market

(Same as ETHICSOC 174A, PHIL 274A.) Morally controversial uses of markets and market reasoning in areas such as organ sales, procreation, education, and child labor. Would a market for organ donation make saving lives more efficient; if it did, would it thereby be justified? Should a nation be permitted to buy the right to pollute? Readings include Walzer, Arrow, Rawls, Sen, Frey, Titmuss, and empirical cases. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, Win (Satz, D)

PHIL 175. Philosophy of Law

Philosophical foundations of law and the legal system. The justifiability of patterns of assigning legal responsibility within criminal law. Prerequisite: PHIL 80 and one additional PHIL course. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, Spr (Bratman, M)

PHIL 175M. Two Ethical Theories and Being a Person

(Same as PHIL 275M.) The distinction between the ethics of being a person and the ethics of rules as opposed to the distinction between Kantian ethics and utilitarianism or consequentialism consequentialism. Comparison of these two types of ethics with respect to their relationship to agency and being a good person. Relations between Western ethics and those of other continents. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 176. Political Philosophy: The Social Contract Tradition

(Same as PHIL 276.) (Graduate students register for 276.) Why and under what conditions do human beings need political institutions? What makes them legitimate or illegitimate? What is the nature, source, and extent of the obligation to obey the legitimate ones, and how should people alter or overthrow the others? Answers by political theorists of the early modern period: Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 176B. The Economic Individual in the Behavioral Sciences

(Same as PHIL 276B.) (Graduate students register for 276B.)

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 177. Philosophical Issues Concerning Race and Racism

(Same as POLISCI 136.) Concepts of race, race consciousness, and racism, and their connections. What is race and what is its role in racism? How should ethnic and racial identities be viewed to secure the conditions in which humanity can be seen as a single moral community whose members have equal respect? What laws, values, and institutions best embody the balance among competing goals of group loyalty, opposition to racism, and common humanity? Philosophical writings on freedom and equality, human rights, pluralism, and affirmative action. Historical accounts of group exclusion. GER:DB-Hum, EC-AmerCul

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 178. Ethics in Society Honors Seminar

(Same as ETHICSOC 190.) For students planning honors in Ethics in Society. Methods of research. Students present issues of public and personal morality; topics chosen with advice of instructor.

3 units, Win (Reich, R)

PHIL 179. Semantics: Theories of Meaning

(Same as PHIL 279.) What makes ambiguity, polysemy, and context sensitivity needed in natural languages; why this is not the case with formal languages. How to develop semantics for context-sensitive structures. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 179S. Moral Psychology, Reasons for Action, and Moral Theory

(Same as PHIL 279S.) What sorts of considerations does an ethical agent take to be good reasons for action? Work in moral psychology to illuminate the theory of practical reasons, and the theory of practical reasons to test the prospects for systematic moral theory. Can any systematic moral theory be reconciled with the moral psychology of ordinary, morally respectable agents? Reading include Bernard Williams, Rosalind Hursthouse, Peter Railton, T.M. Scanlon, and Barbara Herman.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 180. Metaphysics

(Same as PHIL 280.) Traditional philosophical riddles involving the notion of existence including: the ontological argument for the existence of God; the problem of intuitively true, negative existential statements; the sorites paradox; and the question of why there is anything at all. Conceptual tools philosophers use to address these questions, from nonexistent objects to possible worlds. Meta-metaphysics. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 181. Philosophy of Language

(Same as PHIL 281.) The study of conceptual questions about language as a focus of contemporary philosophy for its inherent interest and because philosophers see questions about language as behind perennial questions in other areas of philosophy including epistemology, philosophy of science, metaphysics, and ethics. Key concepts and debates about the notions of meaning, truth, reference, and language use, with relations to psycholinguistics and formal semantics. Readings from philosophers such as Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Grice, and Kripke. Prerequisites: 80 and background in logic. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, Spr (Crimmins, M)

PHIL 182. Truth

Philosophical debates about the place in human lives and the value to human beings of truth and its pursuit. The nature and significance of truth-involving virtues such as accuracy, sincerity, and candor.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 184. Theory of Knowledge

(Same as PHIL 284.) Competing theories of epistemic justification (foundationalism, coherentism, and externalism) against the background of radical scepticism. Readings from contemporary sources. Prerequisite: 80 or consent of instructor. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, Win (Lawlor, K)

PHIL 184B. Philosophy of the Body

How essential is the body to people's conception of themselves as individuals and as human beings? What role does embodiment play in shaping cognitive capacities? How much or what kind of somatic awareness is required for agency? Embodiment theories of cognition. Readings from Plato, Descartes, Nietzsche, Merleau-Ponty, Parfit, novelist Michel Houellebecq, and contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive science. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, Spr (Maguire, L)

PHIL 184F. Feminist Theories of Knowledge

(Same as FEMST 166, PHIL 284F.) Feminist critique of traditional approaches in epistemology and alternative feminist approaches to such topics as reason and rationality, objectivity, experience, truth, the knowing subject, knowledge and values, knowledge and power. GER:DB-Hum, EC-Gender

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 185. Memory

Structure, content, functional role, and epistemic authority of human memories. Sources include philosophical and psychological literature from different schools and historical periods.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 186. Philosophy of Mind

(Same as PHIL 286.) (Graduate students register for 286.) Debates concerning the nature of mental states, their relation to physical states of the human body, how they acquire their content, how people come to know about them in themselves and others, and the roles they play in the explanation of human conduct.

4 units, Spr (Paul, S)

PHIL 187. Philosophy of Action

(Same as PHIL 287.) (Graduate students register for 287.) What is it to be an agent? Is there a philosophically defensible contrast between being an agent and being a locus of causal forces to which one is subject? What is it to act purposively? What is intention? What is it to act intentionally? What is it to act for a reason? Are the reasons for which one acts causes of one's action? What is it to act autonomously? Readings include Davidson and Frankfurt. Prerequisite: 80. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, Win (Bratman, M)

PHIL 188. Personal Identity

People seem to remain the same despite the changes they undergo during their lives. Why? The answer can influence one's beliefs about whether people are essentially bodies or minds, and whether one's own survival matters. Readings include John Locke, Thomas Reid, David Hume, Bernard Williams, and Derek Parfit. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 190. Introduction to Cognitive and Information Sciences

(Same as LINGUIST 144, PSYCH 132, SYMBSYS 100.) The history, foundations, and accomplishments of the cognitive sciences, including presentations by leading Stanford researchers in artificial intelligence, linguistics, philosophy, and psychology. Overview of the issues addressed in the Symbolic Systems major. GER:DB-SocSci

4 units, Spr (Wasow, T; Roberts, E)

PHIL 193W. Nietzsche, Doestoevsky, and Sartre

(Same as HUMNTIES 193W.) Literary works in which philosophical ideas and issues are put forward, such as prose poems, novels, and plays. Ideas and issues and the dramatic or narrative structures through which they are presented. Texts include: Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra; Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov; and Sartre, Nausea and No Exit. GER:DB-Hum

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 194A. Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind

Priority to majors. 20th-century analytic and early modern philosophy of mind and epistemology. Main text is Wilfrid Sellars's Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind; source materials and commentary. Enrollment limited to 12.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 194B. The Ethics of Belief

Priority to majors. Are beliefs subject to moral evaluation? Can it be right or wrong to believe or disbelieve something? Are people morally required to believe only that for which there is sufficient evidence; or can the good consequences of believing something justify the belief, irrespective of the evidence? Contemporary and historical sources. Enrollment limited to 12.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 194E. Undergraduate Seminar: Ethical Antitheory

May be repeated for credit.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 194L. W.E.B. DuBois as Writer and Philosopher

(Same as AFRICAAM 152, ENGLISH 152D.) Capstone seminar for Philosophy and Literature programs. Preference to majors in English, Philosophy, African and African American Studies, or the Philosophy and Literature programs. Life, career, thought, and writings of DuBois. Focus on the first half of his career, interactions among his early philosophical perfectionism, his work in social theory/social science, and his literary ambitions as an essayist and novelist. Sources include Souls of Black Folk, as well as his books on history and sociology, scholarly essays, and novels. GER:DB-Hum

5 units, Spr (Elam, M; Anderson, L)

PHIL 194P. Naming and Necessity

Saul Kripke's lectures on reference, modal metaphysics, and the mind/body problem.

4 units, Win (Burgess, A)

PHIL 194R. Epistemic Paradoxes

Paradoxes that arise from concepts of knowledge and rational belief, such as the skeptical paradox, the preface paradox, and Moore's paradox. Can one lose knowledge without forgetting anything? Can one change one's mind in a reasonable way without gaining new evidence? GER:DB-Hum

4 units, Aut (Lawlor, K)

PHIL 195A. Unity of Science

Primarily for seniors.

4-5 units, not given this year

PHIL 195B. Donor Seminar: Practical Reasoning

Primarily for seniors. Relationships among action, deliberation, reasons, and rationality. On what basis do people decide what to do? What norms or rules structure reasoning? What constitutes rationality?

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 196. Tutorial, Senior Year

5 units, Aut (Burgess, A), Win (Staff), Spr (Staff), Sum (Staff)

PHIL 197. Individual Work, Undergraduate

May be repeated for credit.

1-15 units, Aut (Staff), Win (Staff), Spr (Staff), Sum (Staff)

PHIL 198. The Dualist

Weekly meeting of the editorial board of The Dualist, a national journal of undergraduate work in philosophy. Open to all undergraduates. May be taken 1-3 quarters. (AU)

1 unit, Aut (Staff), Win (Staff), Spr (Staff)

PHIL 199. Seminar for Prospective Honors Students

Open to juniors intending to do honors in philosophy. Methods of research in philosophy. Topics and strategies for completing honors project. May be repeated for credit.

2 units, Spr (Staff)

PHIL 249. Evidence and Evolution

(Same as PHIL 349.) The logic behind the science. The concept of evidence and how it is used in science with regards to testing claims in evolutionary biology and using tools from probability theory, Bayesian, likelihoodist, and frequentist ideas. Questions about evidence that arise in connection with evolutionary theory. Creationism and intelligent design. Questions that arise in connection with testing hypotheses about adaptation and natural selection and hypotheses about phylogenetic relationships.

3-5 units, Spr (Staff)

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Stanford Bulletin, Archive 2008-09

Stanford Bulletin, Archive 2008-09

Alphabetical Index

Bulletin Archive

Undergraduate courses in Philosophy