For the complete 2011 - 2012 Academic Year courses please see the section on Philosophy Courses in the Stanford Bulletin.
Courses offered by the Department of Philosophy are also listed under the subject code "PHIL" on the Stanford Bulletin's ExploreCourses web site.
2011-12 Mini-courses offered by Allen Wood and Rega Wood
11-13 June: "Topics in Kant's Moral Philosophy"
Instructor: Allen Wood
Guest Lecturer: Marcia Baron
This three day mini-course takes up some central topics in the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant: First, we look at the moral worth of acting from duty and how it differs from moral merit; then we consider J.O. Urmson’s charge that Kantian ethics cannot do justice to the concept of supererogation and look at two different Kantian responses to the charge; next we examine the Kantian foundations of right – the basis of social justice, enforceable law and the state – and its independence of ethical duty and the supreme principle of morality; finally, we look at Kant’s account of the moral duties incumbent on politicians and rulers as a condition of their rightful authority. Sessions will be led by Marcia Baron and Allen Wood. Brief presentations by the session leader will be followed by discussion.
Note: This course is for credit and is intended for Stanford graduate and undergraduate students. Taught as a reading course (Phil 240) for 1 unit or 2-3 units if students turn in written work.
*To download a copy of the reading materials, please click on the hyperlinks below
Materials:
READINGS FROM KANT FOR COURSE SESSIONS
Monday June 11
10am-noon: Allen Wood: Moral Worth, Moral Merit and Acting from Duty
Kant's Groundwork 4:393-398: Good will, moral worth and acting from duty
2pm-4pm: Marcia Baron: Duty and Supererogation I
J. O. Urmson - Saints and Heroes
Thomas Hill, Jr. - Kant on Imperfect Duty and Supererogation
Tuesday June 12
10 am-noon: Marcia Baron: Duty and Supererogation II
2pm-4 pm: Allen Wood: The Independence of Right from Ethics
Wednesday June 13
10am-noon: Allen Wood: The Moral Politician
2pm-3:30pm: A Discussion of Marcia Baron’s “Manipulativeness”
14-16 June: "Philosophy of St. Augustine"
Instructor: Rega Wood
Guest Lecturer: Peter King
Augustine's thought shaped the Western tradition for millennia, especially influential are the two works we will consider. On Free Choice postulates for the first time the human "will" as a self-moving, self-aware, self-defining, and ultimate source of human choices. It also provides the decisive Christian response to the Problem of Evil (the Free Will Defense). His Confessions outline Augustine's vision of "post-classical" philosophy: his attempt to rethink and reshape his philosophical inheritance from Antiquity. We owe to Augustine the preoccupation of Western thought with such themes as the centrality of a personal relation to the divine and the need for truth that exceeds reason's capacity.
Note: This course is for credit and is intended for Stanford graduate and undergraduate students. Taught as a reading course (Phil 240) for 1 unit or 2-3 units if students turn in written work.
SYLLABUS
Thursday, June 14
10am - 12pm: Peter King: Augustine's Life and Times
2pm - 4pm: Rega Wood: The Problem of Evil
Friday , June 15
10am - 12pm: Rega Wood: God's Goodness & Human Will
2pm - 4pm: Peter King: Will and Grace
Saturday, June 16
10am - 12pm: Peter King: Eudaimonism, God, and Confession
2pm - 4pm: Peter King: Neoplatonism and its Discontents
Required Materials:
Augustine, On the Free Choice of the Will, On Grace and Free Choice, and Other Writings, transl. by Peter King. Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 2010. ISBN 087220-188-0 (pb)
Augustine, Confessions, transl. by Henry Chadwick. Oxford: The World's Classics. Oxford University Press, 1992. ISBN 0-19-281774-4 (pb).