The following courses will be offered for the 2024 Summer Session. Information on instructors, readings and evaluation, and more specific course descriptions is to come. However, finalized descriptions and marking schemes will be given out on the first day of classes with your course syllabus. The timetable information is subject to change. The Faculty of Arts & Science will publish any changes to the University’s Timetable Builder website.
PHL100Y1Y – Introduction to Philosophy
Instructors: Andriy Bilenkyy (f-term) and Vincent Lee (s-term)
Schedule: Mondays 18:00-20:00 and Wednesdays 18:00-21:00 (Tutorials: Mondays 20:00 or Wednesdays 17:00)
Delivery Method: Online-Synchronous (In-person Final Exam)
Description: An introduction to the central branches of philosophy, such as logic, theory of knowledge, metaphysics, ethics, and political philosophy. Writings from the central figures in the history of Western and non-Western philosophy, as well as contemporary philosophers, may be considered.
PHL200Y1Y – Ancient Philosophy
Instructors: Mark Gatten
Schedule: Tuesdays 9:00-12:00 and Thursdays 9:00-11:00 (Tutorials: Thursdays 11:00 or 12:00)
Delivery Method: Online-synchronous (In-person Final Exam)
Description: Central texts of the pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle, and post-Aristotelian philosophy.
PHL217H1S – Introduction to Continental Philosophy
Instructor: Matthew Delhey
Schedule: Mondays 18:00-20:00 and Wednesdays 18:00-21:00 (Tutorials: Mondays 20:00 or Wednesdays 17:00)
Delivery Method: In-Person
Description: An introduction to some of the post-Hegelian thinkers who inspired the various philosophical movements broadly referred to as continental, such as phenomenology, existentialism, deconstruction, and post-modernism. Questions include the will, faith, death, existence, history and politics, rationality and its limits, encountering an other. Authors studied may include: Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, Heidegger, Sartre.
Evaluation: TBD
PHL232H1F – Knowledge and Reality
Instructor: Vincent Lee
Schedule: Mondays 15:00-18:00 and Wednesdays 15:00-17:00 (Tutorials: Wednesdays 17:00 or 18:00)
Delivery Method: In-person
Description: An introduction to issues in the fundamental branches of philosophy: metaphysics, which considers the overall framework of reality; epistemology, or the theory of knowledge; and related problems in the philosophy of science. Topics in metaphysics may include: mind and body, causality, space and time, God, freedom and determinism; topics in epistemology may include perception, evidence, belief, truth, skepticism.
PHL240H1F – Persons, Minds and Bodies
Instructor: David Rattray
Schedule: Tuesdays 18:00-20:00 and Thursdays 18:00-21:00 (Tutorials: Tuesdays 20:00 or Thursdays 17:00)
Delivery Method: In-person
Description: Consciousness and its relation to the body; personal identity and survival; knowledge of other minds; psychological events and behaviour.
PHL243H1S – Philosophy of Human Sexuality
Instructor: Alexander Drusda
Schedule: Tuesdays and Thursdays 18:00-21:00
Delivery Method: Online-Synchronous
Description: Philosophical issues about sex and sexual identity in the light of biological, psychological and ethical theories of sex and gender; the concept of gender; male and female sex roles; perverse sex; sexual liberation; love and sexuality.
PHL245H1Y – Modern Symbolic Logic
Instructor: Marissa Bennett
Schedule: Tuesdays 15:00-18:00
An introduction to formal deductive logic. Semantics, symbolization, and techniques of natural deduction in sentential logic. Symbolization, natural deduction, and models in monadic predicate logic. Symbolization and natural deduction with polyadic predicates. Introduction to advanced concepts in first-order logic, such as operations, identity, and models.
Evaluation: TBD
PHL271H1F – Law and Morality
Instructor: Jovy Chan
Schedule: Mondays 09:00-12:00 and Wednesdays 09:00-11:00 (Tutorials: Wednesdays 11:00 or 12:00)
Delivery Method: Online-Synchronous
Description: Justifications for the legal enforcement of morality; particular ethical issues arising out of the intersection of law and morality, such as punishment, freedom of expression and censorship, autonomy and paternalism, constitutional protection of human rights.
Evaluation: TBD
PHL273H1S – Environmental Ethics
Instructor: Eric Shoemaker
Schedule: Tuesdays and Thursdays 12:00-15:00
Delivery Method: Online-Synchronous (In-person Final Exam)
Description: A study of environmental issues raising questions of concern to moral and political philosophers, such as property rights, responsibility for future generations, and the interaction of human beings with the rest of nature. Typical issues: sustainable development, alternative energy, the preservation of wilderness areas, animal rights.
PHL275H1S – Introduction to Ethics
Instructor: Ian Campbell
Schedule: Mondays 12:00-15:00 and Wednesdays 12:00-14:00 (Tutorials: Wednesdays 14:00 or 15:00)
Delivery method: In-person
Description: An introduction to central issues in ethics or moral philosophy, such as the objectivity of values, the nature of moral judgements, rights and duties, the virtues, and consequentialism. Readings may be drawn from a variety of contemporary and historical sources.
PHL281H1F – Bioethics
Instructor: Natalie Martin
Schedule: Mondays 18:00-20:00 and Wednesdays 18:00-21:00 (Tutorials: Monday 20:00 and Wednesdays 17:00)
Delivery Method: In-person
Description: An introduction to the study of moral and legal problems in medical practice and in biomedical research; the development of health policy. Topics include: concepts of health and disease, patient rights, informed consent, allocation of scarce resources, euthanasia, abortion, genetic and reproductive technologies, human research, and mental health.
PHL303H1S – Plato
Instructor: Joseph Gerbasi
Schedule: Tuesdays and Thursdays 18:00-21:00
Delivery Method: Online-Synchronous (Online Final Exam)
Description: Selected metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical themes in Plato’s dialogues.
PHL329H1F – Topics in 20th Century Continental Philosophy
Instructor: TBD
Schedule: Mondays and Wednesdays 9:00-12:00
Delivery Method: Online-Synchronous
Description: Selected topics and themes in continental philosophy of the 20th century, drawing on such approaches as hermeneutics, phenomenology, critical theory, structuralism, deconstruction, feminism, psychoanalysis, and post-colonial theory. Authors and texts will vary, but may include such authors as: Adorno, Arendt, Benjamin, Bloch, Deleuze, Derrida, Fanon, Foucault, Freud, Gadamer, Habermas, Heidegger, Irigaray, Kristeva, Lacan, Levi-Strauss, Levinas, Merleau-Ponty.
Evaluations: TBD
PHL340H1F – Issues in Philosophy of Mind
Instructor: Jim John
Schedule: Mondays and Wednesdays 12:00-15:00
Delivery Method: In-person
Description: Typical issues include: the mind-brain identity theory; intentionality and the mental; personal identity.
PHL375H1F – Ethics
Instructor: Michael Kirley
Schedule: Tuesdays and Thursdays 18:00-21:00
Delivery Method: In-person
Description: An intermediate-level study of selected issues in moral philosophy, or of influential contemporary or historical works in ethical theory.
PHL382H1S – Death and Dying
Instructor: S. Pringle
Schedule: Mondays and Wednesdays 18:00-21:00
Delivery Method: Online-synchronous
An intermediate-level study of moral and legal problems, including the philosophical significance of death, the high-tech prolongation of life, definition and determination of death, suicide, active and passive euthanasia, the withholding of treatment, palliative care and the control of pain, living wills; recent judicial decisions.
PHL388H1S – Literature and Philosophy
Instructor: Tim Mckee
Schedule: Tuesdays and Thursdays 15:00-18:00
Delivery Method: In-person
Description: An examination of the interplays and tensions between literature and philosophy. Possible themes include: the ‘literary’ expression of philosophical ideas; the ancient ‘quarrel of the poets and philosophers’; the relation of form to content in philosophical writing, and the immense variety of philosophical genres (e.g. aphorism, essai, confession, treatise, dialogue, manifesto, meditation, etc.); the philosophical content and significance of certain ‘literary’ works and forms; and philosophical problems regarding translation, adaptation, and interpretation. Topics and texts will vary according to instructor.
Readings: TBD
Evaluation: TBD