Department of

0410 Einstein
Norton, John D. & Butterfield, Jeremy
Monday & Wednesday 12:00-12:50
Do astronauts age more slowly? Can a finite universe have no edge? Is time travel possible? Can time have a beginning? Does the moon change because a mouse looks at it? Surprisingly, modern science answers yes to all these questions. This course provides simple-to-understand explanations of these and other related questions, their broader philosophical significance and their histories. The course is suitable for students with no science background but with an interest in the world of modern science.

0427 / CLASS 0330 Myth and Science
Hatleback, Eric
Tuesday 6:00-8:30
How can we understand our world? In western culture, science dominates all our answers to this question. But there are other ways. They can be found in the mythologies of ancient and modern peoples. This course will compare the scientific and mythological ways of seeing the world and their more subtle connections. In particular, we will turn to the remarkable events in Ancient Greece of 800-400 B.C. and discover how the scientific approach actually grew slowly out of mythological thought itself.

0430 Galileo & the Creation of Modern Science
Palmieri, Paolo
Tuesday & Thursday 9:30-10:45
The Italian physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was the decisive figure in the rise of modern science. First, he ushered in a new era in astronomy when he aimed a 30-powered telescope at the sky in 1610. Second, he revolutionized the concept of science when he argued that the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics. Finally, he astounded the theologians, who eventually condemned him to life imprisonment, when he claimed that the scientist's search for the truth cannot be constrained by religious authority. This course will study Galileo in the broader intellectual, social, and religious context of early modern Europe.

0515 / HIST 0089 Magic, Medicine and Science
Bemer, Keith
Monday 12:00-2:25
This course is a partial survey of some important strands in the Western intellectual history. We will start with ancient Greek speculations in cosmology, philosophy, and medicine. Then we will look at some important subsequent developments in these areas and how they were influenced by the Greek tradition. These include, among other topics, the magical tradition that flourished during the Renaissance period. The latter half of the course will focus on the profound intellectual transformations in the 17th century which constitute what we often call The Scientific Revolution. The great scientific achievements of figures such as Descartes, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton will be discussed in detail. Overall, this course is meant to provide a broad picture of some of the most important elements in the Western intellectual tradition and their interactions in history.

0605 Nature of Emotions
Lennox, James
Monday & Wednesday 10:00-10:50
This course will examine selected historically important theories and portrayals of the human emotions or passions. The course will examine different accounts of love, hate, desire, anger, jealousy, pride, grief, etc. It will look at how philosophers and scientists have portrayed the relationship between emotions and reason, control, the will, decorum, and morality. A number of questions will guide the readings and discussions. Which emotions or passions are primitive? In what are the emotions grounded: the body, the mind, the spirit? Can these even be usefully distinguished? What is the structure of human emotions and how do they function? What are the relations among emotions, personality types and behavior? Can one learn to recognize emotions, control emotions, change the way emotions affect behavior? How can one test or validate theories about emotions? And finally, since theories and beliefs about human emotions change over time and from culture to culture, does this mean that the nature of, say, anger, has changes as well? The course will rely mostly on primary source material, written by persons who have had a recognized intellectual and social impact.

0611 Principles of Scientific Reasoning
Stinson, Catherine
Monday 6:00-8:30
The course will provide students with elementary logic skills and an understanding of scientific arguments. Ours is an increasingly scientific and technical society. In both our personal life decisions and in our work we are daily confronted by scientific results which influence what we do and how we do it. Basic skills in analyzing the structure of arguments in terms of truth and evidence are required to make this type of information accessible and useful. We hear, for example, that drinking alcoholic beverages reduces the chances of heart disease. We might well ask what sorts of tests were done to reach this conclusion and do the tests really justify the claim? We read that certain geographical configurations in South America "prove" that this planet was visited by aliens from outer space. Does this argument differ from other, accepted scientific arguments? This course is designed to aid the student in making sense of a variety of elementary logic skills in conjunction with the application of those skills to actual cases.

0613 Morality and Medicine
Schaffner, Kenneth
Monday & Wednesday 1:00-1:50
Ethical dilemmas in the practice of health care continue to proliferate and receive increasing attention from members of the health care profession, ethicists, policy makers, and the general public as health care consumers. In this course we will examine a number of ethical issues that arise in the context of contemporary medical practice and research by analyzing articles and classic cases. Topics to be covered include euthanasia (together with the recent Schiavo case); the nature of reasoning in medical ethics; new technologies and ethics at the beginning of life, including cloning and stem cells and modern genetics; resource allocation; and health care reform. Students who successfully complete this course will be able to identify and analyze different philosophical approaches to selected issues in medical ethics; have gained insight into how to read and critically interpret philosophical arguments; and have developed skills that will enable them to think clearly about ethical questions as future or current health care providers, policy makers, and consumers. This course is also part of a core sequence leading to certification in the Conceptual Foundations of Medicine Certificate Program, and is a companion course to HPS 0612 (Mind and Medicine) but may be taken independently. The course is of particular interest to pre-medical and pre-health care students.
Recitation: One hour a week.

0613 Morality and Medicine
Cunningham, Thomas
Saturday 1:00-3:30
Ethical dilemmas in the practice of health care continue to proliferate and receive increasing attention from members of the health care profession, ethicists, policy makers, and the general public as health care consumers. In this course we will examine a number of ethical issues that arise in the context of contemporary medical practice and research by analyzing articles and decision scenarios. Topics to be covered typically include the physician-patient relationship; informed consent; medical experimentation; termination of treatment; genetics; reproductive technologies; euthanasia; resource allocation; and health care reform. Students who successfully complete this course will be able to identify and analyze different philosophical approaches to selected issues in medical ethics; have gained insight into how to read and critically interpret philosophical arguments; and have developed skills that will enable them to think clearly about ethical questions as future or current health care providers, policy makers, and consumers. This course is part of a core sequence leading to certification in the Conceptual Foundations of Medicine Certificate Program, and is a companion course to HPS 0612 (Mind and Medicine) but may be taken independently. The course is of particular interest to pre-medical and pre-health care students.

0613 Morality and Medicine
Sytsma, Justin
Monday 6:00-8:30
Ethical dilemmas in the practice of health care continue to proliferate and receive increasing attention from members of the health care profession, ethicists, policy makers, and the general public as health care consumers. In this course we will examine a number of ethical issues that arise in the context of contemporary medical practice and research by analyzing articles and decision scenarios. Topics to be covered typically include the physician-patient relationship; informed consent; medical experimentation; termination of treatment; genetics; reproductive technologies; euthanasia; resource allocation; and health care reform. Students who successfully complete this course will be able to identify and analyze different philosophical approaches to selected issues in medical ethics; have gained insight into how to read and critically interpret philosophical arguments; and have developed skills that will enable them to think clearly about ethical questions as future or current health care providers, policy makers, and consumers. This course is part of a core sequence leading to certification in the Conceptual Foundations of Medicine Certificate Program, and is a companion course to HPS 0612 (Mind and Medicine) but may be taken independently. The course is of particular interest to pre-medical and pre-health care students.

0621 Problem Solving
Pozega, Dennis
Wednesday 7:00-9:30
A scientist announces that the sun contains a new, so-far unknown chemical element, even though there is no hope of getting a sample. Another is sure that a famous predecessor has faked his data, even though he has seen nothing but the perfect, published results. Astonishingly, both claims prove to be sober and sound. We will explore the approaches and methods that make such miracles part of the routine of everyday science. This course is intended for students with little or no background in science.

1625 / PHIL 1625 Philosophy of Medicine
Schaffner, Kenneth
Tuesday & Thursday 2:30-3:45
This course is an introduction to philosophical issues in medicine. We will engage in critical reflection and discussion on the practice, methodologies, and science of medicine, in order to shed light both on the philosophy of medicine as well as broader issues in the philosophy of science. The topics to be covered include (1) the nature of the doctor-patient relationship in the context of the biopsychosocial model, (2) the question whether diseases are objective or socially-constructed entities, (3) clinical reasoning using some simple examples from medical diagnosis and tests, (4) scientific progress and revolutions in biology and medicine, (5) reduction and holism in medicine; and non-orthodox medicine, (6) various issues raised by the AIDS epidemic, including a number of its ethical and social problems. Students will be required to attend at least one out-of-class medically-related educational activity, such as a Medical Grand Rounds.
Prerequisites: None, though students who have taken HPS 0612 and HPS 0613 and a year of basic biology will be able to follow the course material better.

1682 / PHIL 1682 Freedom and Determination
Boxer, Karen
Monday & Wednesday 4:30-5:45
The free will debate is as old as philosophy itself; despite this, it is no closer to resolution today than it was 2500 years ago. This course will examine some of the central questions in that debate: Is free will compatible with determinism? Does it require the ability to have done otherwise than what we actually did? How are we to understand this ability? Must we be the ultimate sources of our own actions? Is this notion even coherent? If not, where does this leave us? Related questions concerning the topic of moral responsibility will also be explored.

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