Honours Seminars in the Department of Philosophy for 2010

Semester 1

Advanced Philosophy of Science
Prof Paul Griffiths
The focus of this seminar is epistemic analysis of the various processes that might be thought to make up science: explaining phenomena, reducing one class of phenomena to another, formulating laws and theories and confirming those laws and theories. The seminar assumes familiarity with the classic philosophies of science of Popper and Lakatos, Kuhn and Feyerabend taught in most introductory philosophy of science courses (see e.g. Chalmers, A. F. (1999). What is This Thing Called Science (Third Edition). Queensland: University of Queensland Press.) Texts: Salmon, M. H., Earman, J., Glymour, C., Lennox, J. G., Machamer, P., McGuire, J. E., et al. (1992). Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, plus selected articles and chapters from the research literature for each topic.

Cosmopolitanism and Community
Dr Thomas Besch
Should we think of our moral and political obligations as limited by our membership in particular communities? Should we define our conceptions of moral and political community according to particular cultural or national characteristics, or in terms of of a shared common humanity? Do we have special obligations to our compatriots or general obligations to humanity as a whole? What is the relation between universal principles and local practices, and what are the consequences for our conceptions of practical reason? We shall explore these questions, and others, through an engagement with the arguments of leading contemporary moral and political philosophers.

Metaphilosophy
Dr Adrian Heathcote
The purpose of this seminar is to examine certain logical problems that permeate philosophy, but examine them at a higher level than is usually done. So this year I will be looking at use-mention problems that affect the theory of truth, identity and modal logic. A set of readings will be provided, starting with Quine's discussion of use-mention in his Mathematical Logic. Another important paper that students may wish to look at before the course begins is Quine's "The Problem of Interpreting Modal Logic" in the Journal of Symbolic Logic, 1947, pp. 43-8.

The Later Wittgenstein
Dr David Macarthur
Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations (1953) is one of the classic works of philosophy in the twentieth century and yet, in many ways, it remains unavailable to contemporary philosophy. In this course we shall provide a reading of this work through three interesting and tempting misreadings: Peter Hacker's reading of Wittgenstein as a logical grammarian; Simon Blackburn's quasi-realist reading of the text; and Saul Kripke's treatment of Wittgenstein as a meaning skeptic. Topics covered include Wittgenstein's vision of language, rules, logic, metaphysics, understanding and meaning; as well as issues of the privacy and community. A central preoccupation will be to understand the power of Wittgenstein's therapeutic conception of philosophy.

Conceiving Responsibility
Dr Justine McGill
How shall we conceptualise moral responsibilities that individuals and institutions bear in relation to structural social and political problems to which they contribute by their actions, but which cannot be causally traced directly to these actions? We will investigate this question by comparing and contrasting several theories and concepts of moral and legal responsibility: philosophical theories of personal and collective responsibility, concepts of responsibility in tort and criminal law, and theories of shared, orgainsational and institutional responsibility.

Sympathy
Dr Anik Waldow
This unit will pursue the question of how it is possible for us to understand other persons' thoughts, desires and beliefs and how we connect emotionally with them. We will look at the early modern theories of Francis Hutcheson, David Hume and Adam Smith and examine the moral implications related to our ability to sympathise with one another. We will thereby gain valuable conceptual resources to create a better understanding of the contemporary debate about empathy. (Literature: Francis Hutcheson, An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections. With Illustrations on the Moral Sense. Dublin, 1728, edited by Aaron Garrett, Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2003; David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge. 2nd ed. revised by P. H. Nidditch. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978; Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, London, 1790, edited by Knud Haakonssen, Cambridge: University Press, 2007.)

Semester 2

Kant's Moral Philosophy
Prof Paul Redding
In this seminar we closely examine Immanuel Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Issues to be pursued will include: the place of this account of practical philosophy within the project of Kant's "transcendental idealism" as a whole; its relation to competing accounts of practical reason, both naturalistic and those of later idealists; and the problems facing a Kantian "moral psychology". Text: Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals, trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge UP, 1998).

The Philosophy of "Mere" Life
Dr John Grumley
The 21st century sees a profound reassessment of the meaning and value of life. As biomedical research and objectifying scientific and technical appropriation of nature grows; with the political and social crises attending processes of globalisation that question former international guarantees of human rights, conventions for the treatment of prisoners of war and asylum seekers, philosophers have been compelled to readdress the question of life and the right thereto: its cultural definition, value and meaning. The concepts of "corporeal" and "bare life" serve a range of thinkers to express the exclusions and human suffering that attend the dominant humanist discourse and signal resistance to its alleged illusions and crimes. This course will examine a range of thinkers both literary and philosophical - Coetzee, Sebald, Benjamin, Agamben, Foucault and Todorov - to fully explore the concept of "mere" life and its critique of humanism.

Ayer & Quine
Dr Michael McDermott
Analytic philosophy in the first half of the twentieth century was dominated by "Logical Positivism". Its main doctrine was the "Verification Principle", which (roughly speaking) identified the meaning of a statement with its consequences for experience. Analytic philosophy in the second half of the century was dominated by Quine. This seminar examines Quine's philosophy, especially his attack on the concept of meaning presupposed by the Positivists.

Scepticism
Dr Anik Waldow
This unit will consider ancient, Renaissance and early-modern forms of scepticism and investigate the connections with modern scepticism. We shall be particularly concerned to discover the anti-dogmatic, belief-reconciling and moral implications of sceptical arguments. Our discussion will be centred around the question of whether and to which extent our ordinary epistemic practices rest on something we might call 'rational faith' and we will examine how this sort of belief can be distinguished from other species of (religious, dogmatic and superstitious) faith. (Literature: Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Scepticism, ed. Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes, Cambridge: University Press, 2007; Michele de Montaigne, An Apology for Raymond Sebond, Penguin, 1993; Rene Descartes, Meditations and Other Metaphysical Writings, trans. D. Clarke, Penguin)

Venue details for all of these units will be posted on the philosophy notice board, outside the Philosophy Common Room S413, Main Quad A14, at the beginning of semester.