Courses

The word ‘being’ has two senses. In the first sense, it means something that is, or exists: an entity, a thing. In the second sense, it refers to what all the things that are have in common. The most important questions concerning being can be thought of as corresponding to these two senses. The first question asks what is there; that is, what are the beings or entities in the world? The second question concerns what is it to be? In this course, we shall look at some answers to these questions.

This is an advanced course in the normative theory of democracy. Normative political theories ask the question, Whether the claim of a state to a right to rule can be justified. The anarchist response is, No, there is no such a thing as a justified right to rule. Opponents of the anarchist thesis hold that the claim of states to a right to rule can be justified, and so states can have legitimate authority, at least under certain conditions. Democratic theory insists that the democratic nature of political rule is part of the necessary conditions of the legitimacy of political authority. This course is dedicated to the examination of this claim. We will address the problem of what the

This is the continuation of a course, Forms in ancient philosophy, which explored the status of form in Presocratic philosophy and Plato. Nevertheless, it does not presuppose that participants took also that course: instead we shall discuss Plato’s theory of forms as we proceed in Aristotle. Our main concern will be how Aristotle’s theories of form mesh in with different aspects of his metaphysics, philosophy of nature and ethics, and how and in what sense they criticise and at the same time incorporate Platonic doctrine. After Aristotle we will move on to Hellenistic philosophy and discuss how the function of form is taken up by the special stuff pneuma in the Stoics.
No knowledge

Hermeneutics (or theory of interpretation) can be understood narrowly as a theory about the nature of interpreting certain kinds of things such as texts, artworks and the like. It can also be taken more broadly as a theory about what it is to understand, grasp or know anything at all, especially if one reasons that all such understanding has a perspectival character. We will consider hermeneutics in both senses. We’ll begin with the historical roots of the hermeneutics in German philosophy, then examine closely a bit of Heidegger and a good chunk of his disciple Gadamer’s Truth and Method and then turn to current work on the subject, including parts of my book in progress on the topic.

This course will focus primarily on the formal properties of statements and sets of statements. It will be shown how to determine which statements are logical truths or tautologies, i.e., true by virtue of their logical form, and how to determine when a statement follows from, or is entailed by, other statements as a matter of logic alone. We will develop the methods for formally deriving conclusion from premises, or logical truths from no premises at all. We will show that our logical system has certain desired features: (1) soundness – any statement that can be derived in the system is a logical truth, and (2) completeness – any logical truth can be derived in the system.

‘Justice for Hedgehogs’ puts Dworkin’s political and legal philosophy into the context of his wider philosophical views on ethics (understood as the conception of how to live well) and morality (understood as the conception of what we owe to other people who, like us, have a right and responsibility to lead their lives well). Its main thesis is that value is ‘one big thing’: genuine values hang together, they mutually support and illuminate each other, and do not conflict in application. So the putative conflicts between liberty and equality, self-interest and morality etc., correctly understood, are spurious. We will examine the meaning of this highly controversial claim as well as many

The course offers an introduction into some classic problems of epistemology which form the subject of lively discussion also in contemporary philosophy. We shall start with the question of necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge, the Gettier problem and its consequences. Next we look into theories of justification, and discuss the merits and shortcomings of foundationalism and reliabilism. Next we will consider various sceptical arguments against the possibility of knowledge, and investigate some responses to the sceptical arguments. In the rest of the course, we study the nature of different forms of knowledge: a priori knowledge, perceptual knowledge and self-knowledge. The

In many areas of philosophy it is common to distinguish ‘categorical’ terms and properties from ‘dispositional’ ones. Often used examples for the latter are physical properties like fragility, solubility, conductivity, but also mental properties like having desires or being irascible. Dispositions are metaphysically interesting primarily because their ascription involves modal considerations: dispositional terms express how things or persons would behave if they were in certain circumstances. Some philosophers think that, exactly for this reason, dispositional terms cannot refer to objects’ real properties. Others think that they can do so only if they can be reduced to objects’ non-

This is an introduction into ethical theory. It will address the main problems and the alternative theoretical conceptions of ethics. The course belongs to the moral and political philosophy track of the 2-year philosophy M.A. program.
An ethical theory is a set of general principles and other propositions that together serve to justify our ordinary moral judgments, and also to criticize them. It is supposed to answer four types of question: what is the good, i.e. what values we have reason to promote and/or respect; what is the right, i.e. how we should assess human action from the moral point of view; what kind of character and virtues we have reason to aim to have; and on what

Kant (MA Elective, 2 credits). The focus of this course will be
Kant's epistemology and metaphysics as it presented in the Critique of
Pure Reason and the Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics. We will
also aim to put Kant's views into context by comparing them with his
influential predecessors, especially Descartes, Leibniz, Berkeley and
Hume. Course requirements include regular attendance and
participation and a 2000 word term paper on a topic of your choice. A
preliminary draft of the paper will be due around the tenth week of
the term.

In this course we will first be pre-occupied with the question as to what Jewish philosophy is or can be (as distinct from Jewish theology) including the view that there can be no such thing.We will read some contemporary and older texts on this subject. We will then turn to Buber’s work, especially his I and Thou, and in the context of Buber also have a look at texts by Franz Rosenzweig and Emanuel Levinas. This is a new course for me. I hope to include two guest lecturers.

We will engage in a close reading of key Nietzsche texts with focus on this critique of truth, his theory of perspectivalism, the notion of genealogy and his views on metaethics and normative ethics. Depending on students’ interests we might also examine certain other questions such as Nietzsche’s philosophy of art or the relation between Nietzsche and certain other problems and/or figures in philosophy.

Our words, sentences are about—refer to—things in the world: objects, people, events. Plausibly, the meanings of expressions play a central role in explaining this referential feature: for example, it is in virtue of the meaning of the word ’horse’ that it refers to horses. But what exactly does this role played by meaning consist in? The answer is not at all straightforward. Consider these two sentences:

Mark Twain was a famous novelist.
Samuel Clemens was a famous novelist.

How does the meaning of the first sentence differ from the meaning of the second? After all, both are about the same individual: who was called Samuel Clemens but became famous under the

States claim to have a right to issue binding directives to those within their jurisdiction. This claim entails that the addressees have a moral obligation to obey those directives provided certain conditions obtain. The obligation to obey is said to be defeasible but general: it is said to hold with regard to (almost) all directives, (almost) all subjects, on (almost) all occasions. This is the claim of political obligation. It needs to be justified. Can a justification be given to it? Anarchists and classical Marxists answer the question in the negative. Liberals, traditionally, defend a positive answer for a subclass of states (constitutionally limited democracies). The traditional

The Philosophy of mind, and especially the ‘mind-body problem’ have been at the centre of philosophical discussion at least since Descartes, and, arguably, ever since Plato. The main purpose of this course is to get to grips with the most contemporary attempts to solve the ‘problem’. Most of the course will concern contemporary attempts to form an adequate materialist theory of the mind. We will then look at attempts to provide alternatives to such theories provided by those who are not satisfied with mainstream forms of physicalism, including ‘naturalist non-physicalism’ and dualism.

This course is a survey of 17th and 18th-century philosophy meant to
fulfill a core requirement in the 2-year MA program. However, those
who would like to attain a broad knowledge of this area of philosophy
may enroll, with instructor’s permission. Topics will include
knowledge and skepticism, the mind-body problem, the nature of
substance, necessity and contingency, causation, primary and secondary
qualities and personal identity.

To what extent can policies foster human cooperation? What tools do recent developments in the cognitive and behavioural sciences provide to improve human sociality? Why is social cooperation difficult to secure? We will investigate the ways in which a deeper understanding of the cognitive foundations of social cooperation could inform policy-making.