PHLA10H3: Reason and Truth
Instructor: Andrew Lee
Lecture Mode: In-person
Tutorial Mode: In-person & Online synchronous
Description: An introduction to philosophy focusing on issues of rationality, metaphysics and the theory of knowledge. Topics may include: the nature of mind, freedom, the existence of God, the nature and knowability of reality. These topics will generally be introduced through the study of key texts from the history of philosophy.
PHLB02H3: Environmental Ethics
Instructor: TBC
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: This course examines ethical issues raised by our actions and our policies for the environment. Do human beings stand in a moral relationship to the environment? Does the environment have moral value and do non-human animals have moral status? These fundamental questions underlie more specific contemporary issues such as sustainable development, alternative energy, and animal rights.
PHLB07H3: Ethics
Instructor: TBC
Lecture Mode: In-person
Tutorial Mode: In-person
Description: What is the difference between right and wrong? What is 'the good life'? What is well-being? What is autonomy? These notions are central in ethical theory, law, bioethics, and in the popular imagination. In this course we will explore these concepts in greater depth, and then consider how our views about them shape our views about ethics.
PHLB09H3: Biomedical Ethics
Instructor: Eric Mathison
Lecture Mode: In-person
Tutorial Mode: In-person
Description: This course will introduce students to some of the main topics in bioethics, including informed consent, truth telling, privacy, medical assistance in dying, abortion, and emerging technologies. We will consider both theoretical questions (e.g., What is death? What are the goals of medicine?) as well as some applied and policy questions (e.g., When should vaccinations be mandatory? How do we ethically distribute scarce resources such as organs?).
PHLB17H3: Introduction to Political Philosophy
Instructor: Avia Pasternak
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: Do citizens have a duty to obey the law? Is democracy the only legitimate form of political authority? Do citizens have a right to civil disobedience, even in democratic societies? Under what circumstances might the resort to violent political action be justified? In this course we will investigate such questions, by reading and thinking about core texts in political philosophy. We will examine several accounts of political obligations, and investigate whether they apply to states as we know them, and to circumstances of racial and social oppression. We will also examine what is democracy and why it is valuable as a form of political authority, and examine the range of duties citizens in democracies have to resist state injustice.
PHLB18H3: Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
Instructor: TBC
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: This course will provide an accessible understanding of AI systems, such as ChatGPT, focusing on the ethical issues raised by ongoing advances in AI. These issues include the collection and use of big data, the use of AI to manipulate human beliefs and behaviour, its application in the workplace and its impact on the future of employment, as well as the ethical standing of autonomous AI systems.
PHLB55H3: Puzzles and Paradoxes
Instructor: Andrew Lee
Lecture Mode: In-person
Tutorial Mode: In-person
Description: Time travel, free will, infinity, consciousness: puzzling and paradoxical issues like these, brought under control with logic, are the essence of philosophy. Through new approaches to logic, we will find new prospects for understanding philosophical paradoxes.
PHLB81H3: Theories of Mind
Instructor: TBC
Lecture Mode: In-person
Tutorial Mode: In-person
Description: An examination of questions concerning the nature of mind. Philosophical questions considered may include: what is consciousness, what is the relation between the mind and the brain, how did the mind evolve and do animals have minds, what is thinking, what are feelings and emotions, and can machines have minds.
PHLC06H3: Topics in Ethical Theory
Instructor: TBC
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: Philosophical ethics simultaneously aims to explain what ethics is, why it matters, and what it tells us to do. This is what is meant by the phrase 'ethical theory.' In this class we will explore specific topics in ethical theory in some depth. Specific topics may vary with the instructor.
PHLC09H3: Topics in Continental Philosophy
Instructor: TBC
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: This course is a reading and discussion intensive course in 20th century German and French European Philosophy. Among the movements we shall study will be phenomenology, existentialism, and structuralism. We will look at the writings of Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Michel Foucault, and Gilles Deleuze, among others.
PHLC10H3: Topics in Bioethics
Instructor: Nathan Howard
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: This course will be an intermediate-level study of the goals and scope of medicine. New technologies (e.g., gene editing) and new laws (e.g., legalized assisted dying) are changing medicine. Some healthcare professionals argue that this is for the worse and that these changes represent a departure from the true purpose of medicine. We will assess these claims by exploring some of the following questions. What are the goals of medicine? To what extent should patients be able to decide which treatments they receive? What happens when healthcare providers disagree with these requests? Should they be allowed to conscientiously object? We will apply these questions to a variety of practical problems, including assisted dying, abortion, and enhancement technologies such as gene editing.
PHLC14H3: Topics in Non-Western Philosophy
Instructor: TBC
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: Contemporary Philosophy, as taught in North America, tends to focus on texts and problematics associated with certain modes of philosophical investigation originating in Greece and developed in Europe and North America. There are rich alternative modes of metaphysical investigation, however, associated with Arabic, Indian, East Asian, and African philosophers and philosophizing. In this course, we will explore one or more topics drawn from metaphysics, epistemology, or value theory, from the points of view of these alternative philosophical traditions.
PHLC22H3: Topics in Theory of Knowledge
Instructor: Benj Hellie
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: This course addresses particular issues in the theory of knowledge in detail. Topics will vary from year to year but may typically include such topics as The Nature of Knowledge, Scepticism, Epistemic Justification, Rationality and Rational Belief Formation.
PHLC35H3: Topics in Early Modern Philosophy: Rationalism
Instructor: Jessica Wilson
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: In this course we study the major figures of early modern rationalism, Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, with a particular emphasis on topics such as substance, knowledge and sense perception, the mind-body problem, and the existence and nature of God.
PHLC51H3: Symbolic Logic II
Instructor: Phil Kremer
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: After consolidating the material from Symbolic Logic I, we will introduce necessary background for metalogic, the study of the properties of logical systems. We will introduce set theory, historically developed in parallel to logic. We conclude with some basic metatheory of the propositional logic learned in Symbolic Logic I.
PHLC89H3: Topics in Analytic Philosophy
Instructor: Sonia Sedivy
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: Advanced topic(s) in Analytic Philosophy. Sample contemporary topics: realism/antirealism; truth; interrelations among metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind and of science.
PHLD09H3: Advanced Seminar in Bioethics
Instructor: Eric Mathison
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: This advanced seminar will focus on consent in both sexual and medical contexts to get a clearer picture of what makes valid consent informed in each case, with a view to getting clearer on why consent matters in general.
PHLD31H3: Advanced Seminar in Ancient Philosophy: Plato's Republic
Instructor: TBC
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: This seminar will be devoted to reading and contemplating Plato's Republic in its entirety. In working through this most comprehensive and influential work of ancient philosophy, we will try to understand and think critically about Plato’s views on various philosophical topics, his arguments and modes of argumentation, and his overarching vision. We will also consider to what extent these things are of enduring interest for us today.
PHLD78H3: Advanced Seminar in Political Philosophy
Instructor: Avia Pasternak
Lecture Mode: In-person
What is Global justice? Do former colonizing states have obligations of reparations to their former colonies? May the rich states of the world close their borders to migrants from developing countries? Who owns the natural resources of the world? Under what circumstances may states engage in violence against each other? In this course we will investigate such questions, but reading and thinking about texts in recent global justice and international political philosophy. The course will be organized around four core units: (1) Global justice: contemporary and historical (2) territory and natural resources (3) borders and migration (4) conflict and war . In each of these units we will explore the rights and duties of citizens and states in an increasingly globalized world.
PHLD88Y3: Advanced Seminar in Philosophy: Socrates Project
Instructor: TBC
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: The Socrates Project Seminar is a full-year seminar course that provides experiential learning in philosophy in conjunction with a teaching assignment to lead tutorials and mark assignments in PHLA10H3 and PHLA11H3. Roughly 75% of the seminar will be devoted to more in-depth study of the topics taken up in PHLA10H3 and PHLA11H3. Students will write a seminar paper on one of these topics under the supervision of a UTSC Philosophy faculty member working in the relevant area, and they will give an oral presentation on their research topic each semester. The remaining 25% of the seminar will focus on the methods and challenges of teaching philosophy, benchmark grading, and grading generally.
PHLD89Y3: Advanced Seminar in Philosophy: Socrates Project for Applied Ethics
Instructor: Eric Mathison
Lecture Mode: In-person
Description: The Socrates Project for Applied Ethics is a seminar course which occurs over two terms that provides experiential learning in philosophy in conjunction with a teaching assignment to lead tutorials and mark assignments in PHLB09H3. Roughly 75% of the seminar will be devoted to a more in-depth study of the topics taken up in PHLB09H3. Students will write a seminar paper on one of these topics under the supervision of a UTSC Philosophy faculty member working in the relevant area, and they will give an oral presentation on their research topic each semester. The remaining 25% of the seminar will focus on the methods and challenges of teaching philosophy, benchmark grading, and grading generally.