What is the ideal form of a state? Is it democracy? Should there be a state at all? What is justice? These questions that different thinkers have answered in various ways. We will use philosophical analysis and argument to understand the theoretical grounding for different theories of government, views of the state, and ideals of justice. We will examine skeptics about the state, consequentialists, feminist, libertarian, communitarian, and egalitarian answers to these questions.

As a writing intensive course, you will gain experience in exegetical analysis, critical writing, and formulating novel arguments. Evaluation will be based upon written assignments, including revised work, as well as in class exams (midterm and final).

Textbook: Matt Zwolinski, ed. Arguing about Political Philosophy, 2nd ed. ISBN: 9780415535823

We will also use iClicker2 - available in the UMN bookstore

What is the ideal form of a state? Is it democracy? Should there be a state at all? What is justice? These questions that different thinkers have answered in various ways. We will use philosophical analysis and argument to understand the theoretical grounding for different theories of government, views of the state, and ideals of justice. We will examine skeptics about the state, consequentialists, feminist, libertarian, communitarian, and egalitarian answers to these questions.

As a writing intensive course, you will gain experience in exegetical analysis, critical writing, and formulating novel arguments. Evaluation will be based upon written assignments, including revised work, as well as in class exams (midterm and final).

Textbook: Matt Zwolinski, ed. Arguing about Political Philosophy, 2nd ed. ISBN: 9780415535823

We will also use iClicker2 - available in the UMN bookstore

What is the ideal form of a state? Is it democracy? Should there be a state at all? What is justice? These questions that different thinkers have answered in various ways. We will use philosophical analysis and argument to understand the theoretical grounding for different theories of government, views of the state, and ideals of justice. We will examine skeptics about the state, consequentialists, feminist, libertarian, communitarian, and egalitarian answers to these questions.

As a writing intensive course, you will gain experience in exegetical analysis, critical writing, and formulating novel arguments. Evaluation will be based upon written assignments, including revised work, as well as in class exams (midterm and final).

Textbook: Matt Zwolinski, ed. Arguing about Political Philosophy, 2nd ed. ISBN: 9780415535823

We will also use iClicker2 - available in the UMN bookstore

What is the ideal form of a state? Is it democracy? Should there be a state at all? What is justice? These questions that different thinkers have answered in various ways. We will use philosophical analysis and argument to understand the theoretical grounding for different theories of government, views of the state, and ideals of justice. We will examine skeptics about the state, consequentialists, feminist, libertarian, communitarian, and egalitarian answers to these questions.

As a writing intensive course, you will gain experience in exegetical analysis, critical writing, and formulating novel arguments. Evaluation will be based upon written assignments, including revised work, as well as in class exams (midterm and final).

Textbook: Matt Zwolinski, ed. Arguing about Political Philosophy, 2nd ed. ISBN: 9780415535823

We will also use iClicker2 - available in the UMN bookstore

In this course, we will consider some of the numerous questions long-debated within the history of philosophy, in addition to some questions raised only recently. These include: What can we know? How do we know it? Is there a God? How ought we to act? What is gender?
What is race? How do gender and race shape our lives? To think through these questions, we will read texts authored by a diverse cross-section of philosophers, with the express purpose of regularly engaging students with perspectives relevantly unlike their own.

The goal of this course is not for students to come to steadfast conclusions about these important philosophical topics, but to leave with an understanding of, and appreciation for, both the kinds of questions asked, and the range of answers given, within the discipline of philosophy. The expectation is that students will have a safe space to consider critically topics they might not have had the chance to ponder before. The hope is that students will see this brief introduction to philosophy as just the beginning of philosophical exploration.

In this course, we will consider some of the numerous questions long-debated within the history of philosophy, in addition to some questions raised only recently. These include: What can we know? How do we know it? Is there a God? How ought we to act? What is gender?
What is race? How do gender and race shape our lives? To think through these questions, we will read texts authored by a diverse cross-section of philosophers, with the express purpose of regularly engaging students with perspectives relevantly unlike their own.

The goal of this course is not for students to come to steadfast conclusions about these important philosophical topics, but to leave with an understanding of, and appreciation for, both the kinds of questions asked, and the range of answers given, within the discipline of philosophy. The expectation is that students will have a safe space to consider critically topics they might not have had the chance to ponder before. The hope is that students will see this brief introduction to philosophy as just the beginning of philosophical exploration.

Think about a word, for example, ‘Obama'. That word, in English, refers to or is about or represents a certain individual, namely the 44^th president of the united states. How does it do this? What makes it the case that when I use the word, here and now, I somehow manage to talk about Obama, in Washington D.C., rather than someone else or nothing at all? Relatedly, how does this referential fact about ‘Obama' relate to the meaning of the word? Does a word have a meaning over and above what it refers to? For that matter, what is it for a word to mean something in the first place? Do there actually exist things called meanings that somehow "attach" to words? How do words get their meanings? And how does the meaning of a sentence like ‘Obama is tall' relate to our thought that Obama is tall? Is one in some sense more fundamental? Which? Language or thought? And what is it for such a sentence to be true?

These are all foundational questions in the philosophy of language. The philosophy of language is intimately related to virtually every other area of contemporary theoretical philosophy: metaphysics, philosophy of mind, epistemology, philosophy of logic, meta-ethics, and so on.

In this course we will survey a number of topics and questions, such as those above, that have occupied 20^th-century and contemporary analytic philosophers. Topics to be covered include: the nature of reference, linguistic meaning, and truth; synonymy and translation; propositional attitude reports; and the relationship between language, thought, and world.

Our English word "ethics" derives from the Greek word for character (ethos) and Aristotle's central concern in the Nicomachean Ethics is with the question "What kind of character should an education cultivate?" For Aristotle, the cultivation of a good character was related to human well-being. As a treatise on character, the Nicomachean Ethics thus is no less a treatise on how one should live in order to live well, where "living well" connotes both an ethical ideal and a happy life.

2. Have communicated effectively

3. Have acquired skills for effective citizenship and life-long learning

According to University policy:

"one credit represents, for the average University undergraduate student, three hours of academic work per week (including lectures, laboratories, recitations, discussion groups, field work, study, and so on), averaged over the semester, in order to complete the work of the course to achieve an average grade. One credit equals 42 to 45 hours of work over the course of the semester (1 credit x 3 hours of work per week x 14 or 15 weeks in a semester equals 42 to 45 hours of academic work). Thus, enrollment for 15 credits in a semester represents approximately 45 hours of work per week, on average, over the course of the semester."

Therefore, this 3-credit course should require an average of 9 hours of work per week to achieve an average grade: 2.5 classroom hours and 6.5 hours of out-of-class hours each week in a 15-week term. This makes for a total of 135 hours of work for this class over the course of the semester. You should not take this course if you cannot make this time commitment.

Our English word "ethics" derives from the Greek word for character (ethos) and Aristotle's central concern in the Nicomachean Ethics is with the question "What kind of character should an education cultivate?" For Aristotle, the cultivation of a good character was related to human well-being. As a treatise on character, the Nicomachean Ethics thus is no less a treatise on how one should live in order to live well, where "living well" connotes both an ethical ideal and a happy life.

2. Have communicated effectively

3. Have acquired skills for effective citizenship and life-long learning

According to University policy:

"one credit represents, for the average University undergraduate student, three hours of academic work per week (including lectures, laboratories, recitations, discussion groups, field work, study, and so on), averaged over the semester, in order to complete the work of the course to achieve an average grade. One credit equals 42 to 45 hours of work over the course of the semester (1 credit x 3 hours of work per week x 14 or 15 weeks in a semester equals 42 to 45 hours of academic work). Thus, enrollment for 15 credits in a semester represents approximately 45 hours of work per week, on average, over the course of the semester."

Therefore, this 3-credit course should require an average of 9 hours of work per week to achieve an average grade: 2.5 classroom hours and 6.5 hours of out-of-class hours each week in a 15-week term. This makes for a total of 135 hours of work for this class over the course of the semester. You should not take this course if you cannot make this time commitment.

The early modern debate over personal identity is one of the most vibrant and important debates within the history of philosophy. Almost every philosopher of the period asked, what is a person? What makes a person different from other kinds of beings? And what makes anyone the same person over time? Nevertheless, many who contributed to this debate are left out of our contemporary discussions of it. In this course, we will consider not only the canonical thinkers, including Descartes, Locke, and Hume, but also the often-ignored figures, including Conway, Cavendish, and Amo. The goal of this course is to bring women, and philosophers of color back into the fold, to recover an accurate understanding of the early modern debate over personal identity, and the different ontological, metaphysical, epistemological, theological, political, and scientific considerations that shaped it.