PHIL 350—Aristotle

This course is an introduction to the philosophy of Aristotle, who is perhaps the single most influential thinker in the European intellectual tradition. For two millennia after his death, Aristotle’s thought was foundational in virtually every theoretical discipline. Even today, long after many of his specific theories have been abandoned, Aristotelian ideas and assumptions continue to operate (often invisibly) within contemporary philosophy and science.

In order to appreciate Aristotle’s enduring influence, in this course my students and I focus our attention on his concept of nature (phusis). For Aristotle, to comprehend the nature of a thing is to understand it in the deepest and most meaningful way possible. As such, the idea of nature is crucial not only for his natural science, but also more generally for his metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and political theory. In this way, thematizing what “nature” and “natural” mean for Aristotle serves as our gateway to a broader appreciation of his philosophy as a whole. In particular, we examine Aristotle’s theories of natural causation and change, the nature of bodies as matter and form, the nature of living things as body and soul, essence as the nature of a substance, knowledge as the grasping of something’s essential nature, the structure and limits of the natural world and its relationship to the divine (i.e., the super-natural), the nature of animal life, and Aristotle’s vision of human nature as the foundation for his ethics.

To enhance our understanding of these topics, we read selected secondary sources in addition to the primary Aristotelian texts. Throughout the course we discuss nuances of Aristotle’s Ancient Greek terminology and compare various translations of his texts. No prior knowledge of Greek is required.

PHIL 426—What is Life? Ancient Greek Perspectives

What is life? How do living things differ from non-living things? Is it possible to define life? In this course, my students and I address these perennial philosophical and scientific questions by returning to their origins in Ancient Greek philosophy. Plato and Aristotle were among the first thinkers in the European tradition to ask—and systematically answer—questions about the nature of life. Understanding why these questions remain difficult today requires appreciating how Greek concepts continue to shape, inform, and perhaps limit contemporary debates about life. At the same time, we ask whether ancient Greek insights might still contribute to answering these questions today. In particular, my students and I bring Greek perspectives to bear on issues in contemporary philosophy of biology concerning:

• the limits of life (e.g., whether viruses and prions are living, inanimate, or some third category altogether)

• the possibility of artificial life (such as artificial general intelligence)

• the search for extraterrestrial life and the possibility of “shadow biospheres” already present on Earth

PHIL 216—Indian Philosophy

This course surveys the history of Indian philosophy from the Vedic period to the twentieth century. My students and I read texts from a range of Brahmanical and śramaṇic traditions, including the Ṛgveda, the Upaniṣads, the Bhagavad-Gītā, early Buddhist texts, Nāgārjuna, Nyāya philosophers, and Śaṅkara, before turning to modern figures such as Gandhi and K. C. Bhattacharyya. Along the way, we explore competing accounts of the self, reality, knowledge, action, suffering, liberation, and the role of violence in a virtuous life.

A question running throughout the course concerns the category of philosophy itself: what does it mean to call these traditions “philosophy,” and how have assumptions about the boundaries of philosophy shaped the study and reception of Indian thought? To address this question we examine points of contact between the Indian and European intellectual traditions across history. We also approach these traditions comparatively, placing Indian philosophers in conversation with figures from the European tradition such as Plotinus and Porphyry, who may have been influenced by Indian thought. The later part of the course then examines more clearly documented encounters between Indian and European thought, including the influence of Indian philosophy on European thinkers (such as Hegel and Schopenhauer) as well as the ways modern Indian philosophers responded to European philosophy and colonialism.

Examining this dialogic relationship helps students understand how philosophical traditions develop, influence one another, and change through cross-cultural encounters. It also challenges familiar distinctions between “Western” and “Eastern” thought, inviting students to reconsider what it means to study philosophy across cultures.

PHIL 309—Ethics

What makes an action morally right or wrong? What makes a person’s character morally upright or debased? How should one behave—what principles, guidelines, values, or rules ought one to follow or enact? What obligations or duties do we have to one another, both in our personal relationships and as members of society? How does the goal of living a morally upright life fit (or conflict) with the goal of living a pleasant, enjoyable, or fulfilling life? Are moral norms simply a matter of convention, or are they somehow woven into the fabric of reality?

In this course, my students and I follow an extended philosophical conversation about these questions. We begin with Plato’s Gorgias, where Callicles issues the challenge that conventional morality is merely a false constraint on human desire and power. We then examine how later philosophers confronted this challenge by rooting our moral obligations in strikingly different soils: John Stuart Mill in the promotion of happiness, Immanuel Kant in the demands of rational agency, Aristotle in the cultivation of virtue and human flourishing, and Philippa Foot (following Aristotle’s lead) in an account of natural goodness. Our primary focus is reading each of these authors closely and on their own terms. In addition, we read selected works of contemporary scholarship to understand how those authors continue to shape philosophical discussions of moral questions today.

PHIL 232—Business Ethics: The Philosophy of Work

This course fulfills a requirement for the Business minor at Sewanee.

In this course, my students and I examine the role of work in a fulfilling human life. The average American spends more than half of their waking life at work. Is spending so much time and energy at work an impediment to our happiness? Or can work be a means to fulfillment? How exactly does work figure in a good life? These are questions that everyone who works for a living can benefit from asking. But answering these questions requires us to think about the nature of work: what is work? How does work differ from leisure? Is work an intrinsic feature of human life, or is it imposed from outside? What makes some kinds of work fulfilling and others unfulfilling and alienating?

These questions may seem abstract, but how we answer them will directly affect our decision-making about concrete, practical issues in the real world: for example, how we think managers should treat their subordinates, how business owners should treat their employees, or how representatives should shape policy to serve their constituents. These ‘abstract’ philosophical questions thus show themselves to be practically important, while the ‘real world’ issues show themselves to be philosophically grounded.

My students and I draw together these two kinds of concerns—the abstract and the concrete, the theoretical and the practical—and examine how they are connected. To do so, we divide our time between (1) discussing philosophical texts about work and (2) discussing real-world case studies of business ethics scenarios. Through in-class discussions and out of class writing assignments, we reflect on how the ideas from these texts and the examples from those case studies mutually inform one another.

PHIL 205—Freedom, Justice, and Commerce

This course fulfills a requirement for the Business minor at Sewanee.

In this course my students and I examine key philosophical writings that have shaped our contemporary understanding of justice, equality, and freedom, tracing the development of these concepts from the ancient period to the present day. In particular, we examine the relationship between social justice and economic justice, asking whether and how it is possible to pursue justice within a capitalist system that promotes competition and economic inequality. Answering those questions requires us to think about the foundational ideas that underpin capitalism, including private property, labor, the origins of exchange value, self-interest, and the free market. My students and I read both proponents and critics of capitalism who thematize the questions of justice, equality, and freedom. We also assess several case studies about topics such as price gouging and Universal Basic Income that highlight the practical ramifications of our theoretical readings. Through class discussions and writing assignments, students develop and refine their own perspectives on how these theories and business practice can mutually inform one another.

PHIL 101—Introduction to Philosophy: Know Thyself

In this course, my students and I explore how philosophers across diverse intellectual traditions have posed questions about the nature of the self and about the value of self-knowledge. The topic of the self serves as our entry point into a variety of domains of philosophic inquiry, including ethics, political theory, epistemology, ontology, and aesthetics. Here we address a network of related questions about the self. What is the self? Is there a stable self that underlies our shifting perceptions, thoughts, emotions, and beliefs? What is our nature as human beings? Is it even possible to know ourselves? If so, how do we arrive at such knowledge? And what are the stakes of self-knowledge, or the consequences of ignorance of ourselves? How does our knowledge of ourselves affect our actions? How do art and artifice form, or distort, our conceptions of ourselves? How do different facets of our identity, such as race, gender, and sexual orientation, constitute our self-understanding and our ways of being in the world?

My students and I raise these questions through our engagement with primary sources in the history of European and South Asian philosophy, as well as with contemporary philosophy of the Black experience. Readings have included texts by Plato, Aristotle, René Descartes, Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, David Hume, John Locke, Catharine Trotter Cockburn, the authors of the Upaniṣads, the authors of the Buddhist Pāli canon, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Berger, Nancy Tuana, W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, and Audre Lorde.