PHL400H5 S – Seminar in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy: Aristotle’s Ethics
Instructor: J. Allen T 3-6 PM
In the history of philosophy, no work has exerted a more lasting and significant influence than Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. What is more, the issues it tackles are alive as those in few other works of comparable antiquity are. Among these issues are the human good, the complementary roles of reason, emotion and desire in human character and action, the nature of the virtues and their place in the good human life, moral responsibility, justice, pleasure, friendship, and the competing claims of the life of fully engaged citizen exercising the full range of moral virtues, on the one hand, and the life of philosophical contemplation, on the other. The aim of the seminar is to explore these issues through a careful reading of the Ethics with the aid of select classics in the secondary literature.
Prerequisites: (PHL200H5 and 3.0 credits of PHL) or by permission of the Instructor or Department.
PHL420H5 F – Seminar in 19th and 20th Century Philosophy: German Romanticism
Instructor: O. Ware
Is a life guided by reason alone the best life? The thinkers, poets, and artists we know today as the German romantics disagreed. There are many things, they claimed, which cannot be explained by reason, and which make life worth living. They in turn sought new ways of philosophical thinking to reach a better understanding of ourselves and the world we live in, often by turning to art, poetry, and music. This course will offer an introduction to the philosophical and literary principles of German romanticism through the work of Schiller, Schleiermacher, F. Schlegel, Novalis, Hölderlin, and Schelling.
Prerequisites: 3.5 credits of PHL or by permission of the Instructor or Department.
PHL432H5 F – Seminar in Metaphysics: Absence and Non-Existence
Instructor: N. Das M 12-3 PM
In this course, we will explore questions about absence and non-existence in contemporary metaphysics. Are there negative facts that make sentences like “Sherlock Holmes doesn’t exist” true? After the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911, was its absence an entity that was located at a certain place at a certain time? Suppose I promise to water your plants but then forget to do so. If they die, does my failure to water your plants an absence that causes their death? What do we see when we see holes and shadows—absences or presences? We will see how questions like this are connected to the deepest puzzles in metaphysics: puzzles about truth makers, ordinary objects, and causation.
Exclusion: PHL430H5
Prerequisites: 3.5 credits of PHL or by permission of the Instructor or Department.
PHL440H5 F – Seminar in the Philosophy of Mind: Consciousness
Instructor: D. Raffman W 3-6 PM
Understanding the nature of conscious thought and experience has been a central challenge for philosophers for centuries. Just what does being conscious consist in, and why have so many philosophers claimed that the available theories of consciousness, both philosophical and psychological, “leave something out”? Significant progress has been made since the 1970’s or so and continues to the present. In this seminar we will begin by looking at important writings from the 20th century and then turn to current work on the problem.
Prerequisites: 3.5 credits of PHL or by permission of the Instructor or Department.
PHL455H5 S – Seminar in the Philosophy of Science
Instructor: TBD
Advanced study of some area or problem in the philosophy of science.
Prerequisites: [(PHL355H5 or PHL357H5) and 3.0 credits of PHL] or by permission of the Instructor or Department.
PHL489Y5 Y – The Socrates Project (by application only)
Instructor: P. Clark M 9-11 AM
The Socrates Project (PHL489Y) is a full-year course with 3 components. First, you will serve as a TA for a section of PHL103H/PHL113H during the Fall and Winter terms. During the Fall semester, you will attend two 1-hour PHL103H/PHL113H lectures each week, and teach one tutorial of 20-25 students, meeting with them for 1 hour each week. You will grade their papers, hold office hours, and meet with the relevant professor as needed. You will be paid for approximately 100 hours of work each semester, for a total of 200 hours, at the current hourly wage for CUPE Unit 1. The second component of the course is a seminar that meets once per week for 3 hours each time, during the fall term. Most of the seminar will be devoted to more in-depth study of the topics taken up in the PHL103H/PHL113H; but you will also discuss the methods and challenges of teaching philosophy-grading papers, prompting and guiding discussion, and so forth. Third, during the winter term you will write a seminar paper, on a topic of your choosing, under the supervision of a UTM Philosophy faculty member working in the relevant area. You will also present your work orally at an undergraduate research conference held jointly with the Socrates students from the St. George campus. Admittance to the Socrates Project is by application only. Instructions and the application form are available on the web at: http://philosophy.utoronto.ca/employment/cupe-3902-unit-1
Preparation: PHL245H5 and 4.5 PHL credits preferred.