Graduate courses in Philosophy

(Same as PHIL 115.) 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.

3-5 units, not given this year

PHIL 217. Descartes

(Same as PHIL 117.) (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.

4 units, Win (De Pierris, G)

PHIL 218. British Empiricism, 1660s-1730s

(Same as PHIL 118.)

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 219. Rationalists

(Same as PHIL 119.) (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.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 222. Hume

(Same as PHIL 122.) (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.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 224. Kant's Philosophy of Physical Science

Kant's Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786), published between the first (1781) and second (1787) editions of the Critique of Pure Reason, in the scientific and philosophical context provided by Newtonian natural philosophy and the Leibnizean tradition. The place of this work in the development of Kant's thought. Prerequisite: acquaintance with either Kant's theoretical philosophy or the contemporaneous scientific context, principally Newton, Leibniz, and Euler.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 225. Kant's First Critique

(Same as PHIL 125.) (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.

4 units, Spr (De Pierris, G)

PHIL 226B. Kant's Ethical Theory

(Same as PHIL 126B.) (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.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 227A. Kant's Value Theory

(Same as PHIL 127A.) (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).

4 units, Win (Hills, D)

PHIL 227B. Kant's Anthropology and Philosophy of History

(Same as PHIL 127B.) 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 228. Fichte's Ethics

(Same as PHIL 128.) (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 230. Hegel's Elements of Philosophy of Right

(Same as PHIL 130.) (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.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 233. Husserl

Husserl's phenomenology. Main themes in his philosophy and their interconnections, including consciousness, perception, intersubjectivity, lifeworld, ethics, mathematics and the sciences, and time and space. Works in English translation.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 234. Phenomenology and Intersubjectivity

(Same as PHIL 134.) (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.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 235. Existentialism

(Same as PHIL 135.) (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.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 236. History of Analytic Philosophy

(Same as PHIL 136.) (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.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 237. Wittgenstein

(Same as PHIL 137.) (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.

4 units, Spr (Hills, D)

PHIL 239. Teaching Methods in Philosophy

For Ph.D. students in their first or second year who are or are about to be teaching assistants for the department. May be repeated for credit.

1-4 units, Aut (Staff, 1)

PHIL 240. Individual Work for Graduate Students

May be repeated for credit.

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

PHIL 241. Dissertation Development Seminar

Required of second-year Philosophy Ph.D. students; restricted to Stanford Philosophy Ph.D. students. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

2-3 units, Sum (Bobonich, C)

PHIL 242. The Philosophical and Educational Thought of John Dewey

(Same as EDUC 304.) Dewey's pragmatic philosophy and educational thought; his debt to Darwin, Hegel, Peirce, and James; his educational writings including Democracy and Education; and his call for a revolution in philosophy in Reconstruction in Philosophy. (SSPEP)

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 243. Quine

(Same as PHIL 143.) (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.

4 units, Aut (Follesdal, D)

PHIL 248. Medieval Latin Paleography

The history of medieval scripts and medieval abbreviation. Dating and placing Latin European medieval manuscripts. Editing medieval texts in philosophy, psychology, physics, and theology. Class project: an anonymous commentary on Aristotle's Ethics preserved in a Florentine manuscript.

3-5 units, not given this year

PHIL 250. Basic Concepts in Mathematical Logic

(Same as PHIL 150.) (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.

4 units, Aut (Barker-Plummer, D)

PHIL 251. First-Order Logic

(Same as PHIL 151.) (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.

4 units, Win (Pacuit, E)

PHIL 252. Computability and Logic

(Same as PHIL 152.) 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.

4 units, Spr (Pacuit, E)

PHIL 254. Modal Logic

(Same as PHIL 154.) (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.

4 units, Spr (vanBenthem, J)

PHIL 257. Topics in Philosophy of Logic

(Same as PHIL 157.) (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 258. Minds and Machines

Readings on arguments concerning mechanical models of the mind including Turing machine models to which Gödel's incompleteness theorems are relevant, and connectionist (neural net) models. Prerequisites: 151 (formerly 160A), 152, or equivalents. Recommended: 389. (Feferman)

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 260A. Newtonian Revolution

(Same as PHIL 160A.) (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.

4 units, Win (Smith, G)

PHIL 260B. Newtonian Revolution

(Same as PHIL 160B.) (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.

4 units, Spr (Smith, G)

PHIL 262. Philosophy of Mathematics

(Same as MATH 162, PHIL 162.) (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 263. Significant Figures in Philosophy of Science

(Same as PHIL 163.) (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.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 264. Central Topics in the Philosophy of Science: Theory and Evidence

(Same as PHIL 164.) (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.

4 units, Win (Smith, G)

PHIL 265. Philosophy of Physics

(Same as PHIL 165.) (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.

4 units, Aut (Ryckman, T)

PHIL 266. Probability: Ten Great Ideas About Chance

(Same as PHIL 166.) 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 267B. Philosophy, Biology, and Behavior

(Same as PHIL 167B. 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 BIO course or Human Biology core; or equivalent with consent of instructor.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 268. Theories of Truth

(Same as PHIL 168.) (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 270. Ethical Theory

(Same as ETHICSOC 170, PHIL 170.) Major strands in contemporary ethical theory. Readings include Bentham, Mill, Kant, and contemporary authors.

4 units, Aut (Schapiro, T)

PHIL 271. Justice

(Same as ETHICSOC 171, IPS 208, PHIL 171, 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.

4-5 units, Aut (Cohen, J)

PHIL 272. History of Modern Ethics

(Same as PHIL 172.) 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 273B. Metaethics

(Same as PHIL 173B.) (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.

4 units, Win (Hussain, N)

PHIL 274. Freedom and the Practical Standpoint

(Same as PHIL 174.) (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.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 274A. Moral Limits of the Market

(Same as ETHICSOC 174A, PHIL 174A.) 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.

4 units, Win (Satz, D)

PHIL 275M. Two Ethical Theories and Being a Person

(Same as PHIL 175M.) 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.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 276. Political Philosophy: The Social Contract Tradition

(Same as PHIL 176.) (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.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 276B. The Economic Individual in the Behavioral Sciences

(Same as PHIL 176B.) (Graduate students register for 276B.)

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 279. Semantics: Theories of Meaning

(Same as PHIL 179.) 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.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 279S. Moral Psychology, Reasons for Action, and Moral Theory

(Same as PHIL 179S.) 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 280. Metaphysics

(Same as PHIL 180.) 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.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 281. Philosophy of Language

(Same as PHIL 181.) 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.

4 units, Spr (Crimmins, M)

PHIL 284. Theory of Knowledge

(Same as PHIL 184.) 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.

4 units, Win (Lawlor, K)

PHIL 284F. Feminist Theories of Knowledge

(Same as FEMST 166, PHIL 184F.) 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.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 286. Philosophy of Mind

(Same as PHIL 186.) (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 287. Philosophy of Action

(Same as PHIL 187.) (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.

4 units, Win (Bratman, M)

PHIL 312. Aristotle's Psychology

De Anima and parts of Parva Naturalia.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 318. Aristotle's Ethics

Topics in Aristotle's ethical theory and related parts of his psychology.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 319. Aristotle's Metaphysics

Aristotle's views about substance and the nature and possibility of metaphysics. Focus is on Categories and Metaphysics Book Zeta.

3 units, Win (Bobonich, C)

PHIL 322. Hume

Hume's theoretical philosophy emphasizing 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.

4 units, Spr (De Pierris, G)

PHIL 323. Kant's Criticism of Metaphysics

Motivations and strategies of Kant's criticisms of traditional metaphysics in the Critique of Pure Reason. Leibnizian and Wolffian versions of the concept containment theory of truth and the Wolffian ideal of a conceptual system of metaphysical knowledge. Kant's analytic/synthetic distinction, focusing on its place in the rejection of metaphysics and in arguments about the ideas of reason in the transcendental dialectic. Prerequisite: course on the first Critique, or consent of instructor.

4 units, Aut (Anderson, L)

PHIL 325. Modern Seminar

(Same as HUMNTIES 325.) Modern anxieties about the place of human concerns within a disenchanted natural world, focusing on texts of philosophy, social theory, and imaginative literature. Cultural and psychological consequences of perceived decline in and threats to religious faith. Authors may include Schiller, Schopenhauer, Coleridge, Kierkegaard, Marx, Baudelaire, Darwin, Nietzsche, Weber, Eliot, Woolf, Sartre, and Camus.

3-5 units, Spr (Anderson, L)

PHIL 332. Nietzsche

Preference to doctoral students. Nietzsche's later works emphasizing The Gay Science, Beyond Good and Evil, and On the Genealogy of Morals. The shape of Nietzsche's philosophical and literary projects, and his core doctrines such as eternal recurrence, will to power, and perspectivism. Problems such as the proper regulation of belief, and the roles of science, morality, art, and illusion in life.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 334. Habermas

Does Habermas have a distinctive account of normativity and normative judgements?

3-5 units, Spr (Hussain, N)

PHIL 335. Topics in Aesthetics

May be repeated for credit.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 336. Marx and Weber

(Same as POLISCI 336M.) How Marx and Weber each developed theories to account for the political problems of unfreedom, inequality, oppression, and bureaucratization; investigated the extent to which such problems could be mitigated or resolved; and believed that social science could contribute to understanding the modern world and efforts to change it. Their works with reference to politics, human agency, social change, and the role of knowledge.

4 units, Spr (Satz, D)

PHIL 338. Hobbes and Rousseau

(Same as POLISCI 338J.) On human nature, freedom, equality, and political authority in Hobbes's Leviathan and Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality and Social Contract.

3 units, Aut (Cohen, J)

PHIL 340. Time and Free Will

Free will and the consequence argument of Peter van Inwagen and others. Focus is on the principle that one cannot change the past and the problem of backtracking conditionals, and less on the problem raised by determinismon. Hypotheses less drastic than determinism support backtrackers; given the backtracker, would someone's not having done something require that he change the past? Issues related to time, change, the phenomenology of agency, and McTaggart's argument about the reality of time.

3-5 units, Aut (Perry, J)

PHIL 349. Evidence and Evolution

(Same as PHIL 249.) 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)

PHIL 350A. Model Theory

Language and models of the first order, predicate calculus, complete and decidable theories. Fraisse-Ehrenfeucht games. Preservation theorems. Prerequisites: 150,151, or equivalent.

3 units, Aut (Pacuit, E)

PHIL 350B. Finite Model Theory

(Same as MATH 290B.) Classical model theory deals with the relationship between formal languages and their interpretation in finite or infinite structures; its applications to mathematics using first-order languages. The recent development of the model theory of finite structures in connection with complexity classes as measures of computational difficulty; how these classes are defined within certain languages that go beyond first-order logic in expressiveness, such as fragments of higher order or infinitary languages, rather than in terms of models of computation.

3 units, not given this year

PHIL 351A. Recursion Theory

Theory of recursive functions and recursively enumerable sets. Register machines, Turing machines, and alternative approaches. Gödel's incompleteness theorems. Recursively unsolvable problems in mathematics and logic. Introduction to higher recursion theory. The theory of combinators and the lambda calculus. Prerequisites: 151, 152, and 161, or equivalents.

3 units, Aut (Mints, G)

PHIL 351B. Constructive Mathematics

Effective and non-effective proofs. Background from constructive logic and computability. Elementary constructive analysis, recursive analysis. Constructive models. Foundational issues. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisites: 151, 152, or equivalents, and a calculus class.

3 units, not given this year

PHIL 352A. Set Theory

(Same as MATH 292A.) The basics of axiomatic set theory; the systems of Zermelo-Fraenkel and Bernays-Gödel. Topics: cardinal and ordinal numbers, the cumulative hierarchy and the role of the axiom of choice. Models of set theory, including the constructible sets and models constructed by the method of forcing. Consistency and independence results for the axiom of choice, the continuum hypothesis, and other unsettled mathematical and set-theoretical problems. Prerequisites: PHIL160A,B, and MATH 161, or equivalents.

3 units, not given this year

PHIL 352B. Set Theory

(Same as MATH 292B.) The basics of axiomatic set theory; the systems of Zermelo-Fraenkel and Bernays-Gödel. Topics: cardinal and ordinal numbers, the cumulative hierarchy and the role of the axiom of choice. Models of set theory, including the constructible sets and models constructed by the method of forcing. Consistency and independence results for the axiom of choice, the continuum hypothesis, and other unsettled mathematical and set-theoretical problems. Prerequisites: PHIL160A,B, and MATH 161, or equivalents.

3 units, not given this year

PHIL 353A. Proof Theory

(Same as MATH 293A.) Gentzen's natural deduction and sequential calculi for first-order propositional and predicate logics. Normalization and cut-elimination procedures. Relationships with computational lambda calculi and automated deduction. Prerequisites: 151, 152, and 161, or equivalents.

3 units, not given this year

PHIL 353B. Higher-Order Logic

Second-order and general higher-order logic. Expressive power and failure of classical theorems such as axiomatizability, compactness, and Loewenheim-Skolem. Different systems of higher-order logic, including type theory. Proof theory and completeness over general models. History of type theory as an alternative foundation of mathematics. Applications in computer science and linguistics. Prerequisite: 151. Recommended: 152.

3 units, not given this year

PHIL 354. Topics in Logic

Readings on uses of proof theory in analysis and number theory. Proof mining: extraction of bounds from non-effective proofs, uniformity results. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisites: 151, 152, or equivalents, and a 100-level MATH course.

3 units, Win (Mints, G)

PHIL 355. Logic and Social Choice

Topics in the intersection of social choice theory and formal logic. Voting paradoxes, impossibility theorems and strategic manipulation, logical modeling of voting procedures, preference versus judgment aggregation, role of language in social choice, and metatheory of social choice. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: 151 or consent of instructor.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 356. Applications of Modal Logic

Applications of modal logic to knowledge and belief, and actions and norms. Models of belief revision to develop a dynamic doxastic logic. A workable modeling of events and actions to build a dynamic deontic logic on that foundation.

3 units, not given this year

PHIL 358. Rational Agency and Intelligent Interaction

(Same as CS 222.) For advanced undergraduates, and M.S. and beginning Ph.D. students. Logic-based methods for knowledge representation, information change, and games in artificial intelligence and philosophy. Topics: knowledge, certainty, and belief; time and action; belief dynamics; preference and social choice; games; and desire and intention. Prerequisite: propositional and first-order logic. Recommended: modal logic; game theory.

3 units, Spr (Shoham, Y)

PHIL 359. Advanced Modal Logic

Mathematical analysis of modal systems, including bisimulation and expressive power, correspondence theory, algebraic duality, completeness and incompleteness, and extended modal logics, up to guarded fragments of first-order logic, fixed-point logics, and second-order logic. Prerequisite: 151, 154/254, or equivalent background.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 360. Core Seminar in Philosophy of Science

Limited to first- and second-year Philosophy Ph.D. students.

4 units, Win (Friedman, M; Longino, H)

PHIL 365. Seminar in Philosophy of Science: Time

4 units, Win (Ryckman, T)

PHIL 366. Evolution and Communication

Topics include information bottlenecks, signaling networks, information processing, invention of new signals, teamwork, evolution of complex signals, teamwork. Sources include signaling games invented by David Lewis and generalizations thereof, using evolutionary and learning dynamics.

4 units, Spr (Skyrms, B)

PHIL 370. Core Seminar in Ethics

Limited to first- and second-year students in the Philosophy Ph.D. program.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 372. Problems in Kantian Ethics

May be repeated for credit.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 372D. Graduate Seminar: John Rawls's Political Philosophy

(Same as POLISCI 332.) Leading ideas in A Theory of Justice, Political Liberalism, and The Law of Peoples.

5 units, not given this year

PHIL 372E. Graduate Seminar on Moral Psychology

Recent philosophical works on desire, intention, the motivation of action, valuing, and reasons for action. Readings: Williams, Korsgaard, Smith, Blackburn, Velleman, Stampe, Frankfurt.

3-5 units, Aut (Staff)

PHIL 373. Moral Psychology: The Concept of Inclination

The weight placed by Kantian and rationalist moral theories on the distinction between inclination and reason. The concept of inclination as that which inclines but does not determine how people act. How are inclinations related to the people who hold them? Are they expressions of values, or more like internal weather? What is their nature? What does it mean to act from inclination? Are actions on inclination unchosen or just badly chosen? Historical and contemporary sources.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 374. Caring and Practical Reasoning

What is it to care about something; how is caring related to desiring, emotions, and having policies; what is the relationship between caring and the will; why do people care about things; can attention to caring help explain the phenomenon of silencing reasons? Readings from contemporary literature, including Frankfurt, Watson, Bratman, Scanlon, Williams, Helm, and Kolodny. May be repeated for credit.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 374D. Religion and the Constitution

(Same as POLISCI 336T.) (Same as LAW 569.) Issues of religious toleration in political theory and in American constitutional law. Topics include: whether religion merits special the special constitutional solicitude provided by the First Amendment's religion clauses; religion as distinct from culture, morality, and philosophy as understood for constitutional purposes; the tensions between ensuring free exercise and avoiding religious establishment; cases for and against free exercise exemptions; and whether the religion clauses can be understood as serving a single fundamental value such as liberty,equality, or neutrality. Readings from political and constitutional theory including Bodin, Locke, Madison, Jefferson, Rawls, Nussbaum, McConnell, Okin, Choper, Hamburger, and constitutional cases.

3-5 units, Win (Cohen, J; Sullivan, K)

PHIL 376. Agency and Personal Identity

How philosophical theories of agency interact with philosophical accounts of personal identity. Readings include David Velleman and Harry Frankfurt.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 378. Problems in Medical Ethics

Focus is on recent philosophical work concerning the moral status of non-paradigmatic human beings such as fetuses or Alzheimer's patients, and non-ideal conditions of decision making such as concretized emotions or exploitation. Prerequisite: 170 or equivalent.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 379. Graduate Seminar in Metaethics

Theories about the meaning of ethical terms and the content of ethical judgements. Do these theories fit with best accounts of human agency and practical deliberation? Readings from recent literature. Prerequisites: 173B/273B, 181, 187/287 or equivalent.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 380. Core Seminar in Metaphysics and Epistemology

Limited to first- and second-year students in the Philosophy Ph.D. program.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 381. Core Seminar in Philosophy of Language

Limited to first- and second-year students in the Philosophy Ph.D. program.

4 units, Aut (Perry, J)

PHIL 382. Seminar on Reference

Philosophical issues concerning the relationship between linguistic expressions and the objects to which they refer. Is it possible to get one unified theory of reference for different kinds of referring expressions such as proper names, pronouns, demonstratives, and other kinds of indexicals? Unsolved problems and desiderata for a theory of reference?

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 383. Philosophy of Mind Seminar

May be repeated for credit.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 384. Seminar in Metaphysics and Epistemology

May be repeated for credit.

4 units, Spr (Burgess, A)

PHIL 385. Philosophy of Language Seminar: Foundations of Non-Factualism

How could a meaningful, declarative sentence fail to say anything true or false? Focus is on Huw Price's Facts and the Function of Truth.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 385B. Topics in Metaphysics and Epistemology: Vaguenes

Contemporary proposals for how and whether to explain and accommodate vagueness in reality and in representation.Theories of mental and linguistic representation that struggle to explain imprecise representation, and metaphysical theories of the ultimate structure of reality that are threatened with incoherence if worldly boundaries are vague. May be repeated for credit.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 386B. Husserl and Adam Smith

Readings from Husserl and others in the phenomenological tradition, and recent work on intentionality and consciousness by philosophers and cognitive scientists.

4 units, Aut (Follesdal, D)

PHIL 386C. Subjectivity

Continuation of 386B.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 387. Practical Rationality

Contemporary research on practical reason, practical rationality and reasons for action. May be repeated for credit

4 units, Aut (Bratman, M)

PHIL 387S. Practical Reasons and Practical Reasoning

Attempts to develop alternatives to Humean, instrumentalist conceptions of practical reasoning, and alternatives to Humean, non-cognitivist views of practical reasons. Readings include Aurel Kolnai, Bernard Williams, David Wiggins, Joseph Raz, Michael Bratman, Elijah Millgram, and T.M. Scanlon.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 388. Normativity

May be repeated for credit.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 389. Advanced Topics in Epistemology

Skepticism and contextualism, epistemic closure, and problems generated by closure.

4 units, Aut (Lawlor, K)

PHIL 391. Research Seminar in Logic and the Foundations of Mathematics

(Same as MATH 391.) Contemporary work. May be repeated a total of three times for credit.

1-3 units, Spr (Mints, G; Feferman, S)

PHIL 450. Thesis

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

PHIL 470. Proseminar in Moral Psychology

Restricted to Philosophy doctoral students. May be repeated for credit.

4 units, not given this year

PHIL 500. Advanced Ph.D. Proseminar

Presentation of dissertation work in progress by seminar participants. May be repeated for credit.

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

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Stanford Bulletin, Archive 2008-09

Stanford Bulletin, Archive 2008-09

Alphabetical Index

Bulletin Archive

Graduate courses in Philosophy