Fall 2022
Introduction to Philosophy
Benjamin Roth PhD, Preceptor in Expository Writing, Harvard University
What is happiness? Should we fear death? Does ethics depend on god's existence? Do we have free will? What should we do when we think a law is immoral? This course introduces students to Western philosophy through fundamental questions about how we should live. Beginning with Plato's account of his teacher Socrates' trial and execution for impiety in ancient Athens, we read central historical thinkers such as Aristotle, Augustine, Montaigne, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Thoreau, Nietzsche, Sartre, Beauvoir, and King, Jr., as well as a number of influential contemporary philosophers who show why these questions remain pressing today.
Fall 2022
The Meaning of Life
Mathias Risse PhD, Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights, Global Affairs and Philosophy, Harvard Kennedy School
Many of us have good reasons for doing this or that, making this decision rather than that, choosing this path over another. There is often a point to these choices that we can identify and sometimes have thought hard about. But is there a point to life as a whole? That is the question about the meaning of life. Though the question is notoriously hard to make precise, one way or another it has animated much literature and art, and also much philosophy. Some philosophers have provided very disheartening answers to the questions of whether life has meaning, including that life is suffering and then it ends; life is absurd and never gains any meaning; life is all about creating hell for each other and we cannot escape. But other philosophers have provided more uplifting answers. Both kinds of answers deserve serious scrutiny. Such scrutiny should be of interest to anybody who wishes to make reflection on their life as a whole part of their education. After reviewing a number of pessimistic and more optimistic approaches to the meaning of life we also turn to the subject of death. We all die eventually. We normally encounter death among family and friends before we have to deal with our own. These themes too are the subject of philosophical reflection. The course finishes with a discussion of an important set of lectures on the topics of this course by a contemporary philosopher. This course is quite wide-ranging and integrates historical figures and references to art and literature as appropriate, but its main focus is on contributions by relatively recent thinkers in the Anglo-American analytical tradition of philosophy. The methodology of this course is philosophical. Some of the topics may touch you quite personally and you should take this into account before enrolling.
Prerequisites: None, but prior exposure to philosophy is a plus.
Fall 2022
The Good Life: Learning from Classical India
Parimal G. Patil PhD, Professor of Religion and Indian Philosophy, Harvard University
What is a good life? How does it relate to personal happiness, or to being a good ruler, citizen, friend, or lover? What is the relative value of justice, citizenship, loyalty, friendship, personal profit, and pleasure? How do we make reasoned choices when these values are in conflict? What are our sources and models for such reasoning? When is such reasoning ethical? Are we all subject to the same ethical norms? Should we be? Is the good life the same for everyone? Questions such as these were of enduring concern for philosophers, political theorists, literary theorists, and theorists of pleasure in classical India. This course is devoted to investigating how classical South Asian intellectuals wrestled with such questions and to thinking critically about their responses to them in the context of our own lives.
Spring 2023
Buddhist Philosophers and their Critics: Mind, Matter, and Meditation
Parimal G. Patil PhD, Professor of Religion and Indian Philosophy, Harvard University
Buddhist theories in epistemology, metaphysics, and mind were contested by a broad range of philosophers, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist. In this course, we discuss rival views on the epistemology of perception, the metaphysics of momentariness, and the nature of consciousness. In addition to understanding these arguments in their historical contexts, we ask what we can learn from them today and, when relevant, investigate how they are being used in contemporary philosophy.
Prerequisites: Previous coursework in philosophy.
Fall 2022
Camus, Sartre, Beauvoir, and Current Social Debates
Raymond F. Comeau PhD, Lecturer in Extension, Harvard University
The writings of Albert Camus (1913-1960), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), and Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986), representative of French existentialism, have made a lasting impact, resonating today in a number of issues that still cause lively debate, among them anti-semitism, epidemics, terrorism, suicide, feminism, capital punishment, authoritarianism, and ageism. Just as important, these writers are artists and masters of thought and expression. We study their creative works aesthetically and follow their thinking closely as they develop such concepts as freedom, revolt, justice, individual responsibility, authenticity, committed writing and action, and the appeal to the conscience. Among works to be studied by Camus are The Myth of Sisyphus, The Guest, Reflections on the Guillotine, The Plague, and The Fall; by Sartre, Existentialism and Human Emotions, No Exit, Anti-Semite and Jew, and What is Literature?; and by Beauvoir, The Second Sex and The Coming of Age. They are truly writers of our times. Some works are read in their entirety, some in excerpts. All of the works are available on the internet. Students write reflection papers and, following the lead of these writers, they practice committed writing applied to current social arenas.
Spring 2023
Economic Justice
Mathias Risse PhD, Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights, Global Affairs and Philosophy, Harvard Kennedy School
Capitalism organizes society around individual pursuits of material gain. Capitalism seems to have won the great ideological struggle with other ways of organizing society, but there is much discontent. The occupy movement made clear that Americans now care about excessive inequality and many worry about the future in an increasingly economically divided society where access to technology richly rewards some to the exclusion of many others. Capitalism is also closely associated with what is arguably the biggest policy problem of the twenty-first century, climate change. So how can we justify capitalism? And what are feasible alternative ways of organizing society? This course begins with an assessment of the current crisis and explores a range of influential arguments for capitalism. Then we turn to socialist and communist approaches, focusing on some of the more influential writings of Karl Marx. Finally, we explore the liberal egalitarianism of John Rawls. The debate about capitalism and its alternatives (and about what capitalism might learn from those) addresses the central political and social concerns of our times. This course offers an in-depth encounter with the major positions in that debate and thereby prepares students to participate in that debate in an informed way. While the first three lectures explore the current predicament and focus on social-scientific readings, the methodological outlook of the course is philosophical. Nonetheless, our concern is always with questions that shape political agendas now and in the foreseeable future.
Spring 2023
Introduction to Ethics
Benjamin Roth PhD, Preceptor in Expository Writing, Harvard University
What does morality require us to do? Minimize suffering? Act in a way that everyone can, never making exceptions or excuses for ourselves? Develop character traits like courage and generosity? Is morality objective, relative, dependent on god, or created by humans? This course introduces students to the main theories of ethics in Western philosophy. We read major historical texts such as John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, Immanuel Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, and other influential philosophers and contemporary thinkers on the moral permissibility of eating animals and abortion, and other concrete issues like if we should, or are even obligated to, give a significant portion of our incomes to charity.