PHIL 422.001 – Empiricism

Instructor: Geoffrey Sayre-McCord. This course meets M 3:35 – 6:05 p.m. in CW 213.

The seminar will be exploring empiricism by looking specifically at David Hume’s work, focusing primarily on his seminal Treatise of Human Nature. We will be working through sections of Books I, II, and III (so engaging with his metaphysics and epistemology, his philosophy of mind, and his moral philosophy, though we will be leaning rather more into the philosophy of mind (especially his moral psychology) and his moral theory (especially its metaethical elements).

There will be short 1-2 page writing assignments most weeks, due on the Sunday before the seminar meeting (with the option of skipping one over the course of the semester) and a final, with students able to choose between writing a final seminar paper, or taking a final exam.

This is a graduate-level seminar and presupposes a background in philosophy (but not a background in empiricism or in the history of philosophy or in any particular area of philosophy).

The seminar satisfies part of the history of philosophy distribution requirement of the Philosophy PhD.