Here is a selection of courses I like to teach:
PH101: Introduction to Philosophy
In this introductory class we consider a number of core philosophical questions from a historical and contemporary perspective. Topics include the nature of knowledge and of the mind, the possibility of free will, the question of responsibility for one’s actions and of moral norms.
PH 103: Ultimate Questions
Nobody makes it through life without at some stage being confronted with the ultimate questions about human existence: Who am I? Why am I here? What do I know? These and related topics are at the heart of philosophical inquiry. This course explores some of these questions through a number of historical and contemporary philosophical texts. It is designed to help students organize and deepen their thinking about the human condition.
PH254: Groups, Minds, and Responsibility
We often employ mental terms to describe social phenomena. For instance, we might talk about a corporation’s intention to become a market leader, or we might explain supply and demand in the marketplace in terms of individuals’ preferences and choices. In this course, we ask what these assertions might mean by exploring the connection between group action and the mental lives of the individuals who constitute them. We start by reading texts in the philosophy of mind and social philosophy and then consider the issue of collective responsibility in their light.
PH270: Consciousness and Experience
Consciousness is utterly familiar to each of us and yet has proved elusive to any systematic study. We all seem to know intuitively what it is, but it turns out to be very hard to spell out or explain that knowledge. In this course, we address some key questions about the nature of consciousness. Topics include the character of experience, the question of whether consciousness can be naturalized, and non-Western views of consciousness. We conclude by asking what hallucinations, dreams, out-of-body experiences, and the possibility of artificially altered conscious states can tell us about consciousness and its place in nature.
PH271: Other Minds
When you see another person, you think of that person as having a mind. What, though, entitles you to that view? After all, you could have encountered a zombie. This problem has a long-standing history in philosophy. It is called the ‘Problem of Other Minds’. In recent years, it has seen renewed interest, partly because of psychological and neurophysiological work that sheds new empirical light on how we come to understand others as minded creatures, and their movements as actions, on the basis of perception. In the first part of the course, we read some historical texts on the problem. In the second part, we consider recent psychological and philosophical debates that attempt to explain how we come to understand the mental lives of others.
PH272: Perception and Perspectives
As soon as you open your eyes you take in an environment of meaningful objects and events. The apple on your table and the person sitting opposite you are given to you as complete objects, despite being seen from a particular perspective. This observation gives rise to two questions. The first question is how it can be that you appear to be in direct contact with the objects of perception if the information you receive from them is from a particular viewpoint and thus incomplete. The second question is how we can know to be in contact with the same objects, if each of us is perceiving them differently. How do we come to share a world, and know that we do, if what we perceive is perspective-dependent? The two questions are important for philosophical thinking about perception. But they also have a wider application. If perception is perspectival through and through, it may comprise not just objects and their properties but, also, values. For instance, you may say that members of a particular group of people are perceived to be dangerous. Are we merely metaphorically speaking, or can values enter perception itself? In this course, we consider some historical and contemporary texts in the philosophy of mind and of language, as well as in psychology, to explore the connection between perception and the perspectives we bring to bear on its objects.
PH 274: The Computational Mind
What does it mean to think? How are computers different from people? Is the mind a particular kind of computer? This course asks deep questions about intelligence and explores their far-reaching consequences. It begins with a survey of the history of approaches to the mechanical mind and examines core concepts in the philosophy of mind as well as related disciplines like psychology and cognitive science. We will cover concepts such as Turing Machines, computational functionalism, classic computationalism, representationalism, connectionism, computational neuroscience, and neural networks.
PH 275: Loneliness and the Self
Loneliness is a pervasive experience of our time. Ever more people report feeling lonely, to the extent that experts talk of a “loneliness epidemic”. Yet it is not obvious what it is that the lonely person experiences: it can’t just be the absence of others or even particular others. Not all hermits feel lonely but some socialites do; you can feel lonely in a crowd but not at all lonely in splendid isolation. In some sense, loneliness is a self-directed emotion. It is an awareness of yourself as being insufficiently connected with other people. This course explores the connection between the self as a social agent and other people. On this basis it then investigates loneliness from a philosophical and psychological perspective. It ends by considering the nexus between loneliness and the political and digital domains.
PhD1501: Philosophy of Social Science
This course is tailored to students in Bentley’s business doctoral programs. It introduces them to a range of concepts in the philosophy of social science, with the aim of enabling them to critically reflect upon their own applied research in the light of these concepts and the adjacent discussions. Topics include objectivity and values in social science research, individualism and holism in social ontology, causal and functional explanations in the social sciences, and the scope and limits of rational-choice explanation.
PH101: Introduction to Philosophy
In this introductory class we consider a number of core philosophical questions from a historical and contemporary perspective. Topics include the nature of knowledge and of the mind, the possibility of free will, the question of responsibility for one’s actions and of moral norms.
PH 103: Ultimate Questions
Nobody makes it through life without at some stage being confronted with the ultimate questions about human existence: Who am I? Why am I here? What do I know? These and related topics are at the heart of philosophical inquiry. This course explores some of these questions through a number of historical and contemporary philosophical texts. It is designed to help students organize and deepen their thinking about the human condition.
PH254: Groups, Minds, and Responsibility
We often employ mental terms to describe social phenomena. For instance, we might talk about a corporation’s intention to become a market leader, or we might explain supply and demand in the marketplace in terms of individuals’ preferences and choices. In this course, we ask what these assertions might mean by exploring the connection between group action and the mental lives of the individuals who constitute them. We start by reading texts in the philosophy of mind and social philosophy and then consider the issue of collective responsibility in their light.
PH270: Consciousness and Experience
Consciousness is utterly familiar to each of us and yet has proved elusive to any systematic study. We all seem to know intuitively what it is, but it turns out to be very hard to spell out or explain that knowledge. In this course, we address some key questions about the nature of consciousness. Topics include the character of experience, the question of whether consciousness can be naturalized, and non-Western views of consciousness. We conclude by asking what hallucinations, dreams, out-of-body experiences, and the possibility of artificially altered conscious states can tell us about consciousness and its place in nature.
PH271: Other Minds
When you see another person, you think of that person as having a mind. What, though, entitles you to that view? After all, you could have encountered a zombie. This problem has a long-standing history in philosophy. It is called the ‘Problem of Other Minds’. In recent years, it has seen renewed interest, partly because of psychological and neurophysiological work that sheds new empirical light on how we come to understand others as minded creatures, and their movements as actions, on the basis of perception. In the first part of the course, we read some historical texts on the problem. In the second part, we consider recent psychological and philosophical debates that attempt to explain how we come to understand the mental lives of others.
PH272: Perception and Perspectives
As soon as you open your eyes you take in an environment of meaningful objects and events. The apple on your table and the person sitting opposite you are given to you as complete objects, despite being seen from a particular perspective. This observation gives rise to two questions. The first question is how it can be that you appear to be in direct contact with the objects of perception if the information you receive from them is from a particular viewpoint and thus incomplete. The second question is how we can know to be in contact with the same objects, if each of us is perceiving them differently. How do we come to share a world, and know that we do, if what we perceive is perspective-dependent? The two questions are important for philosophical thinking about perception. But they also have a wider application. If perception is perspectival through and through, it may comprise not just objects and their properties but, also, values. For instance, you may say that members of a particular group of people are perceived to be dangerous. Are we merely metaphorically speaking, or can values enter perception itself? In this course, we consider some historical and contemporary texts in the philosophy of mind and of language, as well as in psychology, to explore the connection between perception and the perspectives we bring to bear on its objects.
PH 274: The Computational Mind
What does it mean to think? How are computers different from people? Is the mind a particular kind of computer? This course asks deep questions about intelligence and explores their far-reaching consequences. It begins with a survey of the history of approaches to the mechanical mind and examines core concepts in the philosophy of mind as well as related disciplines like psychology and cognitive science. We will cover concepts such as Turing Machines, computational functionalism, classic computationalism, representationalism, connectionism, computational neuroscience, and neural networks.
PH 275: Loneliness and the Self
Loneliness is a pervasive experience of our time. Ever more people report feeling lonely, to the extent that experts talk of a “loneliness epidemic”. Yet it is not obvious what it is that the lonely person experiences: it can’t just be the absence of others or even particular others. Not all hermits feel lonely but some socialites do; you can feel lonely in a crowd but not at all lonely in splendid isolation. In some sense, loneliness is a self-directed emotion. It is an awareness of yourself as being insufficiently connected with other people. This course explores the connection between the self as a social agent and other people. On this basis it then investigates loneliness from a philosophical and psychological perspective. It ends by considering the nexus between loneliness and the political and digital domains.
PhD1501: Philosophy of Social Science
This course is tailored to students in Bentley’s business doctoral programs. It introduces them to a range of concepts in the philosophy of social science, with the aim of enabling them to critically reflect upon their own applied research in the light of these concepts and the adjacent discussions. Topics include objectivity and values in social science research, individualism and holism in social ontology, causal and functional explanations in the social sciences, and the scope and limits of rational-choice explanation.