Below is a list of upcoming graduate courses with full descriptions and other specific information. Below that is a list of all graduate-level courses offered by the Department. A full listing of graduate level courses is also available at the OSU Course Catalog. For a complete listing of courses offered in recent, current, and upcoming semesters, see the OSU Master Schedule.
Upcoming Graduate Courses
Autumn Semester 2023
5400 - Advanced Political and Social Philosophy
Instructor: Piers Turner
TR 9:35 AM - 10:55 AM
In person
This course will address disagreement, diversity, and tolerance in an open society. Voltaire wrote: “Dissension is the great evil of [hu]mankind, and toleration is its only remedy.” What are the costs and benefits of living in a pluralistic society? Is tolerance enough to overcome its challenges? And are there principled limits to reasonable disagreement and tolerance? We will explore philosophical challenges facing attempts to justify and sustain a shared life in a fractured social and political world.
Prereq: 2400, or 6 cr hrs in Philos at or above 2000-level; or enrollment in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Major; or Grad standing in Philos; or permission of instructor.
5460 - Philosophy in Literature
Instructor: Tamar Rudavsky
WF 9:35 AM - 10:55 AM
In person
An introduction to some of the most interesting points of intersection between philosophy and literature. In this course we will explore two kinds of connections between them, most notably: Philosophy on literature – philosophical approaches to understanding literary texts (truth; authorship; selfhood) and Philosophy in literature – literary texts that explicitly invoke philosophical problems or approaches. Specific topics and authors will be chosen from the following list: a) What is time; can we travel forward or backward in time? Is time even real? (Augustine; Borges; Lightman; McTaggart; Lewis; LeGuin); b) How can we, if at all, account for personal identity over time? (Kafka; Dostoyevsky; Parfit; Hume); c) Do we actually have free will – do we make free choices? (Sophocles; Borges; Chisholm; Taylor); d) Reality, Truth and Illusion (Plato; Borges; Baudrillard; Rashomon (film)); e) If something is conceivable, is it possible?; f) Is there a meaning to life? (Sartre; Tolstoy; Calvino; Yablo); and g) The fine line between literary philosophy and philosophical literature (Kundera).
Prereq: 6 cr hrs in Philos at or above 3000-level, or Grad standing, or permission of instructor.
5750 - Advanced Theory of Knowledge
Instructor: Abe Roth
TR 12:45 PM - 2:05 PM
In person
The class starts by getting some epistemological concepts and concerns on the table with a look at several papers on internalist and externalist notions of epistemic warrant or justification. The main focus of the course, however, will be on epistemic issues as they arise in social situations where individuals relate to one another and with institutions. We will look at some literature on testimony, trust, and the epistemology of groups. A concern will be to reconcile practical and moral considerations regarding how to act with epistemic norms concerned with knowledge and truth. Recent literature in epistemology speaks of wronging, injustice, and accountability to one another. To what extent can properly epistemic sense be made of these notions? Or do they inevitably reflect a compromising of epistemic standards, something that must be done to get on with our (social) lives?
Prereq: 2500, and 6 cr hrs in Philos at or above 3000-level; or Grad standing; or permission of instructor.
5840 - Advanced Philosophy of Cog Science
Instructor: Richard Samuels
WF 2:20 PM - 3:40 PM
In person
Cognitive science is an exciting interdisciplinary field of enquiry that has, over the past few decades, exerted a profound influence on longstanding philosophical debates about the mind. In this course we focus on some of these debates. Topics include: Is consciousness amenable to scientific explanation? How is possible for us to represent world in thought? Is the human mind a computer of some sort? Although a background in cognitive science is not assumed, we will read papers by prominent psychologists and neuroscientists, as well as philosophers .
Prereq: 6 cr hrs in Philos at or above 2000-level; or Grad standing; or permission of instructor.
8001 - Training Seminar
Instructor: Declan Smithies
In person
This course is designed to provide professional training for all first- and second-year graduate students that will enable them to develop the skills required for success in research, teaching and service.
Prereq: Grad standing in Philos.
GE: None.
8100 - First-Year Seminar: The metaphysics and Ethics of Social Groups
Instructor: Tristram McPherson and Sahar Heydari Fard
T 12:40 PM - 3:25 PM
In person
Our ethical worlds are profoundly structured by social groups and our relations to them. This seminar examines recent work on the metaphysics of social groups, and on the implications of the nature and ubiquity of such groups for our understanding of oppression, injustice, and the reasons that individuals can have. We will be especially interested in what ethical implications might follow from competing accounts of the nature of certain types of social groups. Participants will hone essential skills in presenting and writing philosophy, and in giving and using constructive feedback on their work. The course will also discuss a range of topics related to success in graduate school and in the profession, from managing stress and mental health concerns to conferences, publications and networking.
Prereq: First year of Grad standing.
8200 - Seminar in History
Instructor: Lisa Downing
W 4:00 PM - 6:45 PM
In person
Philosophy 8200: du Châtelet’s Foundations of Physics in philosophical context
Émilie du Châtelet’s Foundations of Physics (Institutions de Physique) is a fascinating document in the history of physics and philosophy. One fairly standard, but not uncontroversial, understanding of the book is that it aims to supply a Newtonian (or somewhat Newtonian) physics with a metaphysical foundation that is broadly Leibnizian. This seminar will focus on the Institutions, while trying to provide adequate context to understand du Châtelet’s projects in this area. Thus we will also be looking at physics/metaphysics in Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, Voltaire, and perhaps others (some more briefly than others). The seminar will thus also constitute an investigation of aspects of the controversy surrounding the implications of Newtonianism in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
Prereq: Grad standing in Philos, or permission of instructor.
8700 - Seminar in Metaphysics - Pragmatism and the Ontology of Art
Instructor: Robert Kraut
T 4:00 PM - 6:45 PM
In person
Modern pragmatism is conditioned in large part by several dogmas. One is a belief in a fundamental bifurcation between sentences which are descriptive—their function is to state facts—and those which are expressive: their function is to express commitments or attitudes, or to manifest “stances” of praise, condemnation, endorsement, etc. Another dogma is that semantic notions (meaning, denotation, truth, etc.) play no explanatory role, and that “deflationary” accounts of such notions are to be embraced. Yet another dogma is a belief that traditional metaphysics is misguided, and that ontology, rather than constraining human practices, is itself a shadow cast by such practices and thus plays no explanatory or justificatory role. Our goal in this seminar is to explore these dogmas and determine their roots and plausibility. The case studies will derive primarily from aesthetic theory, wherein the ontology of art and aesthetic properties remains a target of controversy. Some attention will also be paid to the currently fashionable notion(s) of social construction and its utility (if any) in connection with proper understanding of art criticism and theory. Readings by Quine, Davidson, Rorty, Putnam, Misak, Price, Blackburn, Schroeder, Thomasson, Sibley, Walton, Brandom, Kraut, Joshua Gert, and various others.
Prereq: Grad standing in Philos, or permission of instructor.
8750 - Seminar in Theory of Knowledge
Instructor: Declan Smithies
M 12:40 PM - 3:25 PM
In person
This seminar will focus on the nature and possibility of moral knowledge. Can we know anything about what we morally ought to do? And, if so, how? We’ll explore whether our most basic moral knowledge comes from perception, emotion, intuition, reasoning, or understanding. We’ll also various skeptical challenges to our moral knowledge, including disagreement, debunking, and more.
Prereq: Grad standing in Philos, or permission of instructor.
Spring Semester 2023
5241 - Studies in 18th-Century Philosophy – Kant
Instructor: Lisa Shabel
F 12:40-3:25pm
Delivery Mode: In person
In this course, we will read and study as much of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason as we can during the semester. We will discuss the problem of synthetic a priori knowledge; Kant's theory of pure sensibility; Transcendental Idealism; the Deductions of the Categories; the System of Principles; the Antinomies; and more. Our study will be illuminated by related texts in Kant, and a commentary on the Critique, to be selected.
5440 - Philosophical Perspectives on Race, Education & Citizenship
Instructor: Winston Thompson
M 4:30-7:15pm
Delivery Mode: In person
| This course in philosophy of education presents its participants with a unique opportunity to engage in a close study of race and education within a political context. It takes seriously the large body of scholarship in philosophy and the social sciences that suggests that race functions within, across, and through educational institutions to confer dis/advantage of various sorts. This course will focus on the consequences of this idea, carefully investigating some of the underlying claims, implications, and normative obligations that accompany them. This course will allow participants to pursue many of the practical and conceptual questions that rest at the intersection of race and education. Among these are the following: How does education play a specific role in racialized patterns of benefit and detriment? What role, if any, should race play in our understanding of educational policy and practice? How does race affect our understanding of the ways that education might prepare persons for the complex work of citizenship (and what might this mean for you, at a university with the motto” Education for Citizenship”)? How does race impact the ways that educational experiences shape the persons that students are able to become? How does a historical study of approaches to these questions prepare us to deal well with race and education in our increasingly complicated present – and future? In what ways does a philosophical study of race and citizenship offer any clarity regarding other identity categories and their impact on education? How, if at all, does race intersect with other identity categories (gender, class, sexuality, etc.) in educationally significant ways? How does race present special challenges to abiding concerns within the field of philosophy of education? |
5500 - Advanced Symbolic Logic
Instructor: Stewart Shapiro
TR 3:55-5:15pm
Delivery Mode: DL
An introduction to the meta-theory of first-order languages. The proof theory and model-theoretic semantics for a standard formal language will be developed. The course will include proofs of the completeness, compactness, and Löwenheim-Skolem theorems. The purpose of the course is to provide an introduction to mathematical logic, and to provide some of the logical background presupposed by many contemporary philosophical authors. Occasionally, issues in the philosophy of logic will be raised. There will be a midterm exam, a final exam, and several quizzes over homework exercises. Prerequisite: Philosophy 2500 or equivalent.
5800 - Advanced Philosophy of Mind
Instructor: Declan Smithies
WF 11:10am-12:30pm
Delivery Mode: In person
In this course, we will discuss the moral significance of consciousness. Can we have any moral obligations to “Zombies” who lack any capacity for conscious experience? Or to “Vulcans” who are conscious but lack any capacity for pleasure, pain, or affectively valenced experience? To answer these questions, we will examine various theories of wellbeing and moral status in order to assess what kinds of mental capacities you need in order to fall within their purview. In particular, we will examine the nature of desire, pleasure, and pain
8300 - Seminar in Value Theory
Instructor: Sahar Heydari Fard
W 3:55-6:40pm
Delivery Mode: In person
The main focus of this class is explaining the emergence of various social problems and theorizing the proper social, moral, and political response to them. We will borrow insights from evolutionary game theory, Complexity theory, and various liberatory philosophies around social and moral progress. We will discuss issues such as race, class, and gender inequality as well as oppression, polarization, and diversity. We examine the barriers to change and the role social movements play in bringing about meaningful progress.
8650 - Seminar in Philosophy of Science
Instructor: Chris Pincock
W 12:40-3:25
Delivery Mode: In person
Scientific Knowledge
In The Fate of Knowledge (2001), Helen Longino summarizes an influential worry about scientific knowledge that arises from the history and sociology of science: the crucial and varying influence of social context on claims to scientific knowledge entails that “science fails the tests of good epistemic practice”. This seminar considers three different responses to this worry. First, Longino’s own response is that our best epistemic practices involve our social context, and that this context may enable genuine scientific knowledge. Second, Alexander Bird’s Knowing Science (2022) also puts knowledge at the center of scientific progress, but argues for an anti-empiricist epistemology for science and understands the social structure of science in a quite different way than what we find in Longino. Finally, we turn to Peter Vickers’ Identifying Future-Proof Science (2023). Vickers aims to address historical worries about scientific knowledge by providing sufficient criteria for identifying current scientific claims that will be maintained in the future. Throughout we will consider how scientific knowledge might be approached as a kind of social knowledge as well as how epistemology can help to address problems in the philosophy of science.
8800 - Seminar in Philosophy of Mind
Instructor: Richard Samuels
R 6:00-8:45pm
Delivery Mode: In person
Number Concepts & Numerical Thought
This seminar will focus primarily on issues regarding numerical thought and number concepts – especially thoughts and concepts concerning the natural numbers 1, 2, 3... Here are three such issues:
1. Number Concepts and their Possession Conditions: What conditions must be met for anagent to possess a concept, such as TWO or TEN, or NATURAL NUMBER?
2. Acquisition: How are such number concepts learned? Indeed, how is it so much aspossible to learn number concepts?
3. Content Determination: In virtue of what are we able to have thoughts with numericalcontent?
In discussing these issues, we will consider research from a variety of distinct fields. First, since issues 1-3 are not the sole preserve of Philosophy, we will have cause to consider research from other relevant disciplines – especially developmental psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and linguistics. Second, since issues 1-3 arise within the context of broader philosophical concerns – regarding, for example, intentionality, the nature of concepts, and the viability of empiricist models of concept learning – we will also have cause to discuss responses to these more general concerns from different philosophical subfields, including the philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of cognitive science.Readings for the course will include work by Burge, Carey, Dehaene, Dummett, Field, Fodor, Frege, J. Kim, J.S. Mill, Russell, Wright, and many others.
8999 - Dissertation Research in Philosophy
Instructor: Eden Lin
R 12:40-3:25
Delivery Mode: In person
Research for dissertation purposes only.
Prereq: Repeatable to a maximum of 30 cr hrs or 30 completions. This course is graded S/U.
Complete Listing of Philosophy Graduate Courses
5010S Teaching Philosophy
3 Credit Hours
Design a set of philosophy lessons and team-teach some of these lessons to secondary school students.
5210 (601.03)--Ancient Philosophy: Studies in Ancient Philosophy
3 Credit Hours
Variable content; special topics in ancient Greek philosophy, including value theory, logic, metaphysics and natural science in pre-Socratics, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle the Hellenistic schools or neo-Platonism.
Prereq: 301 or 10 cr hrs of Philos at the 200 level; or above; or grad standing in Philos; or permission of instructor. Repeatable to a maximum of 10 cr hrs.
5211 (601.01)--Ancient Philosophy: Plato
3 Credit Hours
A survey of central philosophical themes in one or more Platonic dialogues.
Prereq: 301 or 10 cr hrs of Philos at the 200 level; or above; or grad standing in Philos; or permission of instructor.
5212 (601.02)--Ancient Philosophy: Aristotle
3 Credit Hours
A survey of central philosophical themes in one or more Aristotelian treatises.
Prereq: 301 or 10 cr hrs of Philos at the 200 level; or above; or grad standing in Philos; or permission of instructor.
5220 (602)--Studies in Medieval Philosophy
3 Credit Hours
An intensive examination of a major philosopher, school or philosophical problem of the medieval period; topics vary.
Prereq: 302 and 10 cr hrs of Philos course work at the 200 level or above; or grad standing in Philos; or permission of instructor. Repeatable to a maximum of 15 cr hrs.
5230 (603)--Studies in 17th-Century Philosophy
3 Credit Hours
An intensive examination of a major philosopher or philosophical problem of the rationalist period; topics vary from quarter to quarter.
Prereq: 303 and 10 cr hrs of Philos course work at the 200 level or above; or grad standing in Philos; or written of instructor. Repeatable to a maximum of 15 cr hrs.
5240 (604.02)--Studies in 18th Century Philosophy: Selected Problems or Topics
3 Credit Hours
An intensive examination of one or more important themes in Kant's philosophical writings.
Prereq: 303, or 304, and 10 cr hrs of Philos course work at the 200 level or above; or grad standing in Philos; or permission of instructor
5241 (604.01)--Studies in 18th Century Philosophy: Kant
3 Credit Hours
An intensive examination of one or more important themes in Kant's philosophical writings.
Prereq: 303, or 304, and 10 cr hrs of Philos course work at the 200 level or above; or grad standing in Philos; or permission of instructor.
5260 (606)--Studies in 20th-Century Philosophy
3 Credit Hours
An intensive examination of one or more central movement in 20th-century philosophy; topics vary.
Prereq: 15 cr hrs of Philos course work at the 200 level or above, or grad standing in Philos or permission of instructor. Repeatable to a maximum of 15 cr hrs.
5261 Phenomenology and Existentialism
3 Credit Hours
Early existentialist ideas of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche; Husserl's phenomenological method and critical analysis of works of philosophers such as Heidegger, Jaspers, Sartre, Beauvoir, and others.
5300 (631)--Advanced Moral Philosophy
3 Credit Hours
An intensive examination of major issues within moral philosophy such as: the foundations of morality; objectivity in ethics; morality, reason and sentiment; virtues and vices.
Prereq: 431 and 10 cr hrs of Philos course work at the 200 level or above or grad standing in Philos or permission of instructor.
5400 (630)--Advanced Political and Social Philosophy
3 Credit Hours
An intensive examination of issues in political and social philosophy, including democracy, civil disobedience, anarchism, totalitarianism, nature of the state, etc.
Prereq: 230 and 10 cr hrs of Philos course work at the 200 level or above; or grad standing in Philos; or permission of instructor, and English 110 or 111 or equiv.
5410 (638)--Advanced Philosophy of Law
3 Credit Hours
An examination of the nature and function of law and of such problems as the relation of law to morality and the justification of punishment.
Prereq: 338 and 10 cr hrs of Philos coursework at the 200 level or above; or grad standing; or equiv or permission of instructor.
5420 (625)--Philosophical Topics in Feminist Theory
3 Credit Hours
An analytical study of selected philosophical issues arising out of feminist theory, such as the nature of autonomy, or the relation between gender and knowledge.
Prereq: 10 cr hrs of Philos course work at the 300 level or above; or grad standing; or permission of instructor. Repeatable to a maximum of 10 cr hrs.
5450 (640)--Advanced Aesthetic Theory
3 Credit Hours
Basic issues in philosophy of art: the definition of art; meaning, truth, and representation in art; the nature and basis of criticism; the criteria of interpretation of works of art.
Prereq: 15 cr hrs of Philos course work at 200 level or above; grad standing in Philos; or permission of instructor. Not open to students with credit for 641.
5500 (650)--Advanced Symbolic Logic
3 Credit Hours
Introduction to the metatheory of first-order logics and languages: axiomatic development of propositional and predicate logic; model theory; soundness, completeness, and Lowenheim-Skolem theorems.
Prereq: 250
5510 (652)--Nonclassical Logic
3 Credit Hours
Study of selected systems of nonclassical logic, such as entailment systems, modal, many-valued, epistemic, deontic, imperative, erotetic, tense, and free logics.
Prereq: 650. Repeatable to a maximum of 10 cr hrs.
5550 (750)--Advanced Logical Theory
3 Credit Hours
Topics include formal arithmetic, recursive functions, Turing machines, Godel's incompleteness theorems, Church's thesis, arithmetical truth, logical paradoxes, and higher-order logic.
Preq: 250 and 650. Repeatable to a maximum of 15 hours.
5600 (673) - Advanced Philosophy of Language
3 Credit Hours
Basic problems and results in the philosophy of language, concentrating on theories of reference, theories of meaning, and theories of language-use (speech-acts, implicature, etc.).
Prereq: 250 and 10 credit hrs of Philos course work at the 300 level or above (preferably 473); or grad standing in Philos; or permission of instructor.
5650 (655)--Advanced Philosophy of Science
3 Credit Hours
A study of the nature and structure of scientific concepts, laws, and theories; appraisal of methodologies, presuppositions, and frames of reference in science.
Prereq: 250 and 10 cr hrs of Philos course work at the 300 level or above (preferably 455); or 250 and grad standing in Philos; or permission of instructor.
5700 (663)--Advanced Metaphysics
3 Credit Hours
An intensive examination of major metaphysical problems: categories, universals, substance and process, causality and law, space and time, metaphysical presuppositions of knowledge.
Prereq: 250 or 10 cr hrs of Philos course work at the 300 level or above (preferably 463); or grad standing; or permission of instructor.
5750 (660)--Advanced Theory of Knowledge
3 Credit Hours
An intensive examination of major epistemological problems: the possibility, origin, foundation, structure, methods, limits, types, and validity of knowledge.
Prereq: 250 and 10 cr hrs of Philos course work at the 300 level or above (preferably 460); or grad standing; or permission of instructor.
5800 (667) - Advanced Philosophy of Mind
3 Credit Hours
Classical and contemporary approaches to the nature of mind, mind-body, other minds, intentionality, and other problems.
Prereq: 15 cr hrs of Philos course work at the 300 level or above (preferably 467); or grad standing in Philos; or permission of instructor. Not open to students with credit for 767.
5830 (612)--Introduction to Cognitive Science
3 Credit Hours
Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary study of the nature of human thought; psychological, philosophical, linguistic, and artificial intelligence approaches to knowledge representation.
Prereq: Permission of instructor or a total of 12 cr hrs from at least two of the following areas: Cptr Inf, Linguist, Philos, and Psych. Not open to students with credit for CptrInf 612, Linguist 612, or Psych 612 or 794 (Sp Qtr 1989) or 794A (Wi Qtr 1990). Cross-listed in Computer and Information Science, Linguistics, and Psychology.
5840 (620)--Advanced Philosophy of Cognitive Science
3 Credit Hours
In-depth examination of the influence of results in cognitive science upon the way in which philosophers approach fundamental issues about the nature of the mind.
Prereq: 467 or permission of instructor.
5850 (670) - Philosophy of Religion
3 Credit Hours
A study of religious concepts and problems; the idea and nature of God, of humans, their relation to the world and human destiny.
Prereq: 10 cr hrs of Philos course work at the 300 level or above; or grad standing; or permission of instructor.
8001 --Graduate Training Seminar
1-3 Credit Hours
This course is designed to provide professional training for all first- and second-year graduate students that will enable them to develop the skills required for success in research, teaching and service.
Prereq: Grad standing in Philos. Repeatable to a maximum of 5 cr hrs or 2 completions. This course is graded S/U.
8100 (700) - First-Year Seminar
4 Credit Hours
A topically variable introduction to advanced philosophical methodology.
Open only to first-year philosophy grad students.
8200 (801)--Seminar in the History of Philosophy
1-4 Credit Hours
Preq: Grad standing in Philos or permission of instructor. Repeatable to a maximum of 30 cr hrs.
8300 (830)--Seminar in Value Theory
1-4 Credit Hours
Preq: Grad standing in Philos or permission of instructor. Repeatable to a maximum of 30 cr hrs.
8500 (850)--Seminar in Logic
1-4 Credit Hours
Preq: Grad standing in Philos or permission of instructor. Repeatable to a maximum of 30 cr hrs.
8600 (873)--Seminar in Philosophy of Language
1-4 Credit Hours
Preq: Grad standing in Philos or permission of instructor. Repeatable to a maximum of 30 cr hrs.
8650 (855)--Seminar in Philosophy of Science
1-4 Credit Hours
Preq: Grad standing in Philos or permission of instructor. Repeatable to a maximum of 30 cr hrs.
8700 (863)--Seminar in Metaphysics
1-4 Credit Hours
Preq: Grad standing in Philos or permission of instructor. Repeatable to a maximum of 30 cr hrs.
8750 (860)--Seminar in Theory of Knowledge
1-4 Credit Hours
Preq: Grad standing in Philos or permission of instructor. Repeatable to a maximum of 30 cr hrs.
8800--Seminar in Philosophy of Mind
1-4 Credit Hours
Preq: Grad standing in Philos or permission of instructor. Repeatable to a maximum of 30 cr hrs.
8900--Placement Seminar
1-3 Credit Hours
Prereq: Grad standing in Philos. Repeatable to a maximum of 9 cr hrs or 3 completions. This course is graded S/U.
8999 --Dissertation Research in Philosophy
1-9 Credit Hours
Research for dissertation purposes only.
Prereq: Repeatable to a maximum of 30 cr hrs or 30 completions. This course is graded S/U.
