PHLA11H3: Introduction to Ethics
Instructor: Hamish Russell
Lecture Mode: In-person
Tutorial Mode: In-person
Description: Ethics is about how to live. It is about how we ought to treat one another, about the difference between right and wrong, about the elements of a good and meaningful life. It is also about the kind of world we want to live in and our responsibilities to help build that world. These are big, weighty questions, and no one has the authority to simply tell us the answers. What we can do is read, ponder, and discuss the ideas of people who have thought hard about ethics—people whose ideas can broaden and deepen our own ethical outlook. We’ll begin this course by studying three of the great thinkers of Western philosophy: Aristotle, Kant, and Camus. We’ll then turn to some scholars from our own time: Peter Singer, Martha Nussbaum, and Uma Narayan. But ethics is not merely an academic subject, explored only at universities, so we will also hear from leaders of struggles against white supremacy and settler colonialism: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. We’ll end by engaging with the surrealist film of Boots Riley and the science fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin, whose imagined societies bring into question the ethics of our own.
PHLB09H3: Biomedical Ethics
Instructor: Eric Mathison
Lecture Mode: In-person
Tutorial Mode: In-person
Description: This course will introduce students to some of the main topics in bioethics, including informed consent, truth telling, privacy, medical assistance in dying, abortion, and emerging technologies. We will consider both theoretical questions (e.g., What is death? What are the goals of medicine?) as well as some applied and policy questions (e.g., When should vaccinations be mandatory? How do we ethically distribute scarce resources such as organs?).
PHLB02H3: Environmental Ethics
Instructor: Rowan Mellor
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: This course examines ethical issues raised by our actions and our policies for the environment. Do human beings stand in a moral relationship to the environment? Does the environment have moral value and do non-human animals have moral status? These fundamental questions underlie more specific contemporary issues such as sustainable development, alternative energy, and animal rights.
PHLB05H3: Social Issues
Instructor: Rachel Bryant
Lecture Mode: In-person
Tutorial Mode: In-person
Description: The theme of this course is boundaries. Boundaries demarcate who or what belongs within them from who or what belongs outside. They separate the familiar from the strange, the safe from the dangerous, the welcome from the unwanted. In this course, we will identify and critique the philosophical bases and ethical implications of the boundaries we construct around states, neighbourhoods, ecological communities, and Indigenous lands, as well as of those we draw between humans and the rest of nature.
PHLB20H3: Belief, Knowledge and Truth
Instructor: Benj Hellie
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: An examination of the nature of knowledge, and our ability to achieve it. Topics may include the question of whether any of our beliefs can be certain, the problem of scepticism, the scope and limits of human knowledge, the nature of perception, rationality, and theories of truth.
PHLB31H3: Introduction to Ancient Philosophy
Instructor: Christian Pfeiffer
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: In this course, I will present a thematic overview of Ancient philosophy, centered around the following questions: 1. Happiness: Is there an answer to the question of what the best life is for humans? 2. Freedom and Determinism: In what sense are our actions free? Are freedom and determinism mutually exclusive? 3. Knowledge and Belief: How does knowledge differ from true belief? Can we ever attain knowledge? 4. Plato’s Metaphysics: What are Plato’s Forms? What epistemological and ontological role do they have? We will study how Socrates, Plato, Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics answer these questions.
PHLB35H3: Introduction to Early Modern Philosophy
Instructor: Michael Blezy
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: The aim of this course is to introduce students to the issues in early modern philosophy, with an emphasis on the philosophical contributions of three underrepresented thinkers in particular: Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia (1618-1680), Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673), and Anne Conway (1631-1679). We will begin the course with an in-depth study of René Descartes’ (1596-1650) Discourse on Method (1637) and Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), focusing on Descartes’ arguments for mind-body dualism, the existence of God, and the founding of a system of knowledge on the certainty of the thinking subject. After acquainting ourselves with these core tenants of Descartes’ philosophy, we will then use the criticisms of Cartesian philosophy made by Elisabeth, Cavendish and Conway as a launching off point for a study of the latter three thinkers. Through a close reading of the Descartes-Elisabeth correspondence, selections from Cavendish’s Observations on Experimental Philosophy (1668), and Conway’s treatise The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy(1690), students will not only be familiarized with some of the most famous arguments made against Descartes’ dualism, but also an appreciation of the metaphysical positions known as “vitalism” and “panpsychism.” By the end of the course, students should be familiar with such philosophical concepts and topics as: the scientific revolution, experimental and speculative methods of explanation, the nature of substance and matter, the mind-body problem, the ontological argument for God’s existence, and the distinctiveness of living things.
PHLB50H3: Symbolic Logic I
Instructor: Eamon Darnell
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: An introduction to formal, symbolic techniques of reasoning. Sentential logic and quantification theory (or predicate logic), including identity will be covered. The emphasis is on appreciation of and practice in techniques, for example, the formal analysis of English statements and arguments, and for construction of clear and rigorous proofs.
PHLB81H3: Theories of Mind
Instructor: Elliot Carter
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: This course is an introduction to philosophical thinking about the mind-body problem: the problem of explaining how mental things (like thoughts, experiences, sensations, desires, and so on) are related to physical things (like your body, your brain, and their physical parts). Here are some of the questions we will consider: is the mind separate from the physical world? If so, how can mental events and physical events causally interact (as they seem to when, for example, stubbing your toe causes pain)? If minds are not separate from the physical world, what sort of physical thing are they? Could mental phenomena like the ‘aboutness’ of thoughts, the painfulness of pains, or our subjective perspective on the world really be nothing more than certain arrangements of physical things?
PHLB99H3: Philosophical Writing and Methodology
Instructor: Jessica Wilson
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: In this writing-intensive course, students will become familiar with tools and techniques that will enable them to competently philosophize, on paper and in person. Students will learn how to write an introduction, how to appropriately structure philosophy papers, how to accurately present someone else's position or argumentation, how to critically assess someone else's view or argumentation, and how to present and defend their own positive proposal or argumentation. Students will also learn many specific skills, such as how to 'signpost', how to identify and charitably interpret ambiguities in another discussion, and how to recognize and apply various argumentative strategies. Last but not least, the course will have a significant grammar and style component.
PHLC05H3: Ethical Theory
Instructor: Doug Campbell
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: This course will be on the ethics of social media. We will cover such topics as privacy, friendships online vs offline, polarization, threats to our democracy, online shaming, the rapid spread of misinformation, and much more. This course is well-suited to both those who have done other ethics courses and those who are new to the discipline; no prerequisites will be enforced.
PHLC07H3: Death and Dying
Instructor: Eric Mathison
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: We are all going to die (probably). Given this, there is value in trying to figure out what death is and how we should feel about it. In this course, we will tackle some of these questions. What does it mean to die? Why, if at all, is death a bad thing for the person who dies? Would it be better to live forever? We will also investigate some of the applied and policy questions about death, including what the legal definition of death should be, whether assisted dying should remain legal (and in what circumstances), and whether we can ever have a duty to die.
PHLC09H3: Topics in Continental Philosophy (Race and Racism)
Instructor: Michael Blezy
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: How are we to understand the notion of “race”? What is it to belong to a “racial group”? Why does racism exist? What are the root causes of racism? What is it to “be racist”? Is racism simply a matter of certain individuals or groups holding racist views or attitudes? Or is racism bound up with (and perpetuated by) particular legal, educational, economic and cultural institutions and practices? In what sense is racism “systematically generated”? What is meant by “structural racism,” and by what avenues does structural racism operate? Do our ideas about race shape how we perceive and experience the world? Where do these ideas about race come from? What role does language, ideology, and mythical thinking play in the formation of racist worldviews? This course aims to introduce students to the philosophy of race through a familiarity with contemporary scholarly work on race and racism that specially draws on the tradition of Continental philosophy and its various movements and schools. By the end of the course, students will not only be acquainted with the unique theoretical contributions made to our understanding of race and racism by Marxism, phenomenology, existentialism, critical theory, post-structuralism, and post-colonial theory, but gain a deeper appreciation of the injustices that presently define our society, as well as the broader global community in which we live.
PHLC43H3: History of Analytic Philosophy
Instructor: Benj Hellie
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: This course explores the foundation of Analytic Philosophy in the late 19th and early 20th century, concentrating on Frege, Russell, and Moore. Special attention paid to the discovery of mathematical logic, its motivations from and consequences for metaphysics and the philosophy of mind.
PHLC60H3: Metaphysics
Instructor: Jessica Wilson
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: In this seminar-style course, we consider one or two metaphysical topics in depth, with an emphasis on class discussion. This semester we will explore the philosophically foundational topics of fundamentality and metaphysical dependence. We will assess a representative range of available accounts of these notions; along the way we will consider a number of salient questions on the topic, including whether there is a generic notion of metaphysical dependence or rather just many specific notions, and whether fundamentality should be characterized as primitive or rather in terms of (an absence of) metaphysical dependence.
PHLC92H3: Political Philosophy
Instructor: Hamish Russell
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: This course examines three political ideals: liberty (or freedom), equality (or equity), and solidarity (or community). The first half discusses John Rawls’s theory of these ideals and the debate that he inspired, with a focus on the use of competitions (for good jobs, high grades, a decent living) to encourage people to work hard. The second half applies these big themes to specific public issues: free speech and its limits; the politics of anger; and the morality of lawbreaking.
PHLC95H3: Topics in the Philosophy of Mind
Instructor: Rory Harder
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: Advanced topics in the Philosophy of mind, such as an exploration of philosophical problems and theories of consciousness. Topics to be examined may include: the nature of consciousness and 'qualitative experience', the existence and nature of animal consciousness, the relation between consciousness and intentionality, as well as various philosophical theories of consciousness.
PHLD05H3: Advanced Seminar in Ethics
Instructor: Hamish Russell
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: Lawyers bend the truth, politicians use ruthless tactics, and business managers put profits before people. Does the fact that they are doing their job make their conduct any better, morally speaking? In this course, we examine the concept of role, asking whether roles introduce special obligations and permissions that change what’s ethically acceptable. Some of our discussions will think about roles in the abstract, asking whether the concept has any real moral significance; other discussions will hone in on specific dilemmas in law, politics, business, policing, and medicine. We’ll focus, for the most part, on public and professional roles, but we’ll also touch on the obligations owed to friends and family.
PHLD20H3: Advanced Seminar in Theory of Knowledge
Instructor: Elliot Carter
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: This courses addresses core issues in the theory of knowledge at an advanced level. Topics to be discussed may include The Nature of Knowledge, Scepticism, Epistemic Justification, Rationality and Rational Belief Formation.
PHLD31H3: Advanced Seminar in Ancient Philosophy
Instructor: Christian Pfeiffer
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: This class is dedicated to the philosophy of Stoicism (with a focus on the early Stoics Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus). The Stoics divided philosophy into three parts: logic (which for the Stoics also includes epistemology), physics (which includes metaphysics and theology), and ethics (which includes political philosophy). The Stoics were innovators and defended distinctive positions in all of these fields: For example, they were the first to come up with a propositional logic; they defended, against the Skeptics, the idea that there are “graspable impressions,” which serve as the foundation of knowledge; they argued that there is divine providence in the world; they held that the only real good is what is morally good and that being virtuous is necessary and sufficient for happiness; and finally, that our actions are free, even though determinism is true.
The main task of this class is to understand how the Stoics defended these claims and, since Stoic philosophy is highly systematic, how they are interrelated. This will not only involve thinking critically about the philosophical issues that the Stoics raised but, since the works of the older Stoics have been lost, also learning how to reconstruct their philosophy from different pieces of evidence (citations, testimonia, reports, and criticism by other philosophers).
PHLD88Y3: Advanced Seminar in Philosophy: Socrates Project
Instructor: Rachel Bryant
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: The Socrates Project Seminar is a full-year seminar course that provides experiential learning in philosophy in conjunction with a teaching assignment to lead tutorials and mark assignments in PHLA10H3 and PHLA11H3. Roughly 75% of the seminar will be devoted to more in-depth study of the topics taken up in PHLA10H3 and PHLA11H3. Students will write a seminar paper on one of these topics under the supervision of a UTSC Philosophy faculty member working in the relevant area, and they will give an oral presentation on their research topic each semester. The remaining 25% of the seminar will focus on the methods and challenges of teaching philosophy, benchmark grading, and grading generally.
PHLD89Y3: Advanced Seminar in Philosophy: The Socrates Project for Applied Ethics
Instructor: Eric Mathison
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: The Socrates Project for Applied Ethics is a seminar course which occurs over two terms that provides experiential learning in philosophy in conjunction with a teaching assignment to lead tutorials and mark assignments in PHLB09H3. Roughly 75% of the seminar will be devoted to a more in-depth study of the topics taken up in PHLB09H3. Students will write a seminar paper on one of these topics under the supervision of a UTSC Philosophy faculty member working in the relevant area, and they will give an oral presentation on their research topic each semester. The remaining 25% of the seminar will focus on the methods and challenges of teaching philosophy, benchmark grading, and grading generally.