PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT

 COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

2006 SPRING SEMESTER

(Click here for the "general" (i.e., catalogue) descriptions of all Philosophy undergrad courses.  You can also contact the instructor for information if the course description you are looking for does not appear here.)


PHIL 106.01 (Philosophical Texts)
Instructor: Murat Baç
Description: click here


PHIL 222.01 (Philosophy of Science)
Instructor: Gürol Irzık
Description:

This course is an introduction to the main issues and approaches in philosophy of science. Topics to be covered are the origins, the nature and the aims of science; the problems of meaningfulness, demarcation, and induction; scientific method, theories and their testing; scientific revolutions; realism and anti-realism; science, technology and society; science, interest, gender, and ideology


PHIL 301.01 (Problems of Contemporary Philosophy)
Instructor: Murat Baç
Description: click here


PHIL 314.01 (History of Philosophy IV)
Instructor: Yıldız Silier
Description:

This is a survey course mainly on the history of 19th century philosophy. We will make a comparative evaluation of the central ideas of Rousseau, Kant, Mill, Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Sartre. The relationship between morality and politics, freedom and happiness, alienation and authenticity will be the main themes.


PHIL 401.01 (The Soul)
Instructor: Stephen Voss
Description:

Philosophical examination of the soul according to tradition, myth, spiritual discipline, physics, metaphysics, art, blues, and life. Why the soul falls into time. The architecture of life. Love, crisis, work, cosmos, destiny.


PHIL 461.01 (Aesthetics)
Instructor: Yıldız Silier
Description:

This course will focus on philosophy of art, by discussing selected texts of prominent figures such as Aristotle, Hegel, Tolstoy, Collingwood, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Adorno, as well as surveying some of the contemporary debates in aesthetics. What is art? Is art created by the artist or the audience? Are there universal criteria to distinguish between good and bad art? How does the social function of art change historically? Is beauty in the eye of the beholder? How is the phenomenon of art related to our world? Does postmodernism signal the end of art?

NOTE: Group presentations constitute an important part of the grading, and attendance will be required.

REMARK: Since this course is designed only for 18 students, students who wish for a consent should come to my office (TB 528) on 15th February Wednesday, at 2 pm, for a brief interview.


PHIL 473.01 (Philosophy as a Way of Life)
Instructor: Stephen Voss
Description:

Can philosophy help ground an excellent life? Critical and practical examination of answers by philosophers such as Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Epicurus, Marcus Aurelius, Plotinus, Montaigne, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Foucault


PHIL 501.01 (Metaphysics of Material Objects)
Instructor: Sun Demirli
Description: click here


PHIL 58-A (Special Topics: Curiosity)
Instructor: İlhan İnan
Description:

“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”

The topic of this course is curiosity. Here are some of the questions that we will concentrate on: What is curiosity? How is curiosity possible? Why are we curious beings? Are we curious because of our “nature” or is it socially acquired? Is curiosity a moral virtue, is it intrinsically valuable or is it an instrument for us to reach what is good in itself? How do we satisfy our curiosity? How does being curious relate to asking a question? What is a question? What is an answer? Are there things of which we cannot be curious about? Are there questions that cannot be asked? Are there things of which we cannot satisfy our curiosity? Are there questions that cannot be answered?. As it is evident from the contents of such questions, our discussion will be in area in which epistemology, ontology, ethics, value theory, philosophy of language and philosophy of logic overlap. Our goal is to contemplate on such issues to get a better understanding of the nature of curiosity, an issue significantly ignored within the history of philosophy.

REQUIREMENTS: Ones who wish to take this seminar should be genuinely curious about what curiosity is. If you then decide to enroll, you will be asked to participate in the class discussion (this is vital given that major portion of the discussion in the seminar will not be based on any texts), to do a presentation, and to write a term paper. The term paper could be on any philosophical topic related to curiosity; ones who wish to do historical research could take up an important figure within the history of philosophy and critically discuss his/her views in relation to curiosity.


PHIL 58-B (Special Topics: Tractatus)
Instructor: Ali Karatay
Description:

Note: Qualified students other than philosophy graduates need consent

Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is one of the most intriguing works of twentieth century analytical philosophy. Intriguing, both in its staggering content and its enigmatic style. Our aim in this course is to make a first approach towards an understanding of this difficult text. We shall attend closely to various arguments Wittgenstein offered for the many famous theses he advanced in this work. We shall start with a quick look at Frege's and Russell's contributions to logic at the turn of the century. I shall expect active participation of the students, and a substantial term paper of about 15-20 pages, with sustained engagement in a Tractarian theme.

Texts:
Wittgenstein. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Routledge, 2001.
Wittgenstein. Notebooks 1914-1916. The Univ. of Chicago Press, 1984.


PHIL 538.01 (Special Topics in Political Philosophy)
Instructor: Zeynep Davran
Description:

The central philosopher to be studied in this course is Karl Marx. His earlier works will be studied in detail and they will be related to the philosophies of Aristotle and Hegel. The second part of the course will be devoted to an examination of the Frankfurt School’s interpretation of Marx.


PHIL 586.01 (Special Topics: The Metaphysics of Mind)
Instructor: Güven Güzeldere
Description:

This seminar will be structured around central metaphysical themes in philosophy of mind, such as physicalism, reduction, mental causation, supervenience, and emergence.  The first half of the course will review major ontological positions in philosophy of mind, such as substance and property dualism, behaviorism, identity theory, and varieties of functionalism.  The second half of the course will pursue an in-depth examination of various contemporary contentious debates on the plausibility of physicalism in light of discussions centered around phenomenal consciousness, the causal role of mental properties, and recently proposed solutions to the mind-body problem. While the emphasis in the seminar will be on metaphysical questions in the study of the mind, there will be several points of contact with issues in the foundations of cognitive science, such as the status of explanation in the psychological and neural sciences, the nature of mentation in non-human animals, and the possibility of artificial intelligence.
    Seminar books:
  1. Jaegwon Kim: Philosophy of Mind. Westview Press (revised ed., 2005).
  2. Jaegwon Kim: Physicalism or Something Near Enough. Princeton Univ. Press (2005).
  3. David Chalmers: The Conscious Mind. Oxford Univ. Press (1996).
  4. Ned Block, Owen Flanagan, Guven Guzeldere (eds.): The Nature of Consciousness. MIT Press (1997).
    Additional Readings:
  5. John Searle: The Rediscovery of the Mind. MIT Press (1992).
  6. Daniel Dennett: Consciousness Explained. Little and Brown Publishers (1991).
  7. Fred Dretske: Naturalizing the Mind. MIT Press (1995).
  8. Course Reader.


PHIL 593.01 (Special Topics: Post-Hegelianism)
Instructor: Pınar Canevi
Description:

The aim of this course is to inquire into the impact of Hegel's thought on the subsequent development of the Western philosophical tradition and to assess the difficulties with which philosophical undertaking has now come to be confronted.  Feuerbach, Stirner and Marx are some of the thinkers to be considered.  Students will be required to make a class presentation and to present a term paper at the end of the semester.


PHIL 595.01 (Special Topics: Social and Political Studies of Science)
Instructor: Gürol Irzık
Description:

How do, and to what extent, interests, ideologies, gender, and money influence the practice and the very content of science? Has knowledge become a commodity? What does it mean to say that it has? Is there a relationship between scientific development and social order?   This course aims to study scientific practice and knowledge as well as the institution of science as a social phenomenon broadly understood by investigating the answers to such questions. To this end we will critically examine the contributions of the following: Bacon, Marx, Foucault, Meinheim, Bernal, Needham, Merton, the Strong Programme (Bloor), Shapin and Schaffer, feminist critics (Harding, Keller, Longino), and Polanyi.