PHIL 101.001 – Introduction to Philosophy: Central Problems, Great Minds, Big Ideas

Instructor: Mariska Leunissen. This course meets TR 9:30 – 10:45 a.m. via remote synchronous (RS) instruction.

This course offers an introduction to philosophy in the western analytic tradition by combining traditional readings with contemporary media. We will discuss core problems in epistemology, philosophy of mind, and ethics (e.g. what is knowledge? What is the relation between our mind and our body? What constitutes a right action? Is morality connected to happiness?), but also issues that are of more recent concern in, for instance, feminist epistemology (e.g. is knowledge a social construct, and if so, do traditional accounts of knowledge hurt women or non-western-males?), in cognitive psychology (e.g. can the concept of alief introduced by Tamar Gendler help to make sense of and address phenomena such as implicit bias?) and in the intersections of animal ethics, philosophy of race, and feminist ethics (e.g. does speciesism lead to racism? Does the objectification of female bodies as meat make animal welfare a feminist issue?).