Philosophy 2007-2008
Overview
What philosophy students share is an interest in reading and talking about philosophy, both in and out of the classroom, in the undergraduate philosophy club, in informal student-faculty lunches, at the philosophical cafes, and at departmental colloquia.
There are three levels of philosophy courses: introductory, intermediate, and advanced. Most classes are relatively small (between 10 and 25 students). Many are taught using either a seminar or a lecture-discussion format. Students can take as their first course either a Freshman Seminar (in which they discuss a different issue each week) or one of the lecture-discussion courses: Ethics, Logic and Critical Thinking, or Art, Media and Society.
Alternatively, the department offers a three-term sequence of courses that surveys the history of Western philosophy from the Pre-Socratics to the Post-Moderns. These courses engage students in discussions of the basic texts of the Western philosophical tradition from its origins in the ancient and medieval world, through its development as the basis of modern thought in the 16th and 17th centuries, to the Enlightenment in the 18th century, and to Romanticism and Post-Modernism in the 19th and 20th centuries. Historical introductions to American and to Asian philosophy are also offered.
Students entering in the Fall of 2007 might want to conisder taking Phl 120, a small, discussion-oriented first-year seminar in philosophy. Another choice would be Phl 105, Professor Davis’ Introduction to Ethics. Either course would be a good introduction to philosophy.
Students who have completed an introductory course are welcome to take more advanced courses, including those involving the philosophical studies of art, biomedical ethics, education, environmental ethics, language, law, medicine, mind, politics, religion, and science. Intermediate and advanced courses and seminars are regularly offered in the history of various eras and movements in Eastern and Western Philosophy — including analytic philosophy, existentialism, phenomenology, and post-modernism. Advanced courses and seminars are also offered in epistemology, ethical theory, logic, and metaphysics.
The Philosophy Department offers a minor (five courses), an interdisciplinary major (seven courses), and a major (11 courses). All majors and interdepartmental majors participate in the seminar on new directions in philosophy, which develops their skills in researching and writing philosophy and prepares them to participate in departmental colloquia. Every year several majors and interdepartmental majors present papers at Union’s Steinmetz Symposium and at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research. All students are encouraged to contribute to the independent and student-run philosophy journal, Ephemeris. The department also sends a team to compete in the Ethics Bowl, a national competition focused on moral issues.
Philosophy is not only intrinsically interesting and important, but, contrary to common opinion, practical too. Nationwide studies show that majors do exceptionally well on the GRE, the LSAT, and the GMAT. On the GRE, philosophy majors tend to have the highest mean verbal score of students in all majors. The mean LSAT for philosophy majors tends to be higher than it is for both political science and pre-law majors and is among the highest for all humanities and social science majors. Even on the GMAT, philosophy majors scored higher on recently administered tests than any type of business major (accounting, finance, management, etc.) with mean scores in first or second place if you exclude science majors, fourth or fifth if you include science majors. The study of philosophy conveys skills that make for success. Philosophy graduates regularly go on to careers in law, medicine and government.
FACULTY
Professor Robert Baker graduated with honors from C.C.N.Y., earned a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, and had a one-year postdoctoral fellowship at Albany Medical College. His areas of specialization are ethics, medical ethics, and the history of medical ethics. He has written, co-written, or co-edited more than 40 books, articles, and government reports - including Legislating Medical Ethics (with M. Strosberg) and The American Medical Ethics Revolution (with A. Caplan, L. Emanuel, and S. Latham).
Associate Professor Felmon John Davis, received his B.A. (cum laude) from Haverford College and his Ph.D. from Princeton University. His research centers on contemporary moral theory, philosophy of mind and action, metaphysics, and social theory. He is working on analytical approaches to the concepts of truth and validity in “discourse ethics” as developed by Juergen Habermas.
The department chair, Professor Raymond Martin received his B.A. from Ohio State University and his Ph. D. from the University of Rochester, He is the author of numerous books and articles, including The Naturalization of the Soul (2000), Self-Concern (1998), and The Rise and Fall of Soul and Self (2006). His interests are primarily in personal identity theory, philosophy of history, and the history of philosophy. He has a secondary interest in philosophy of religion.
Professor Linda E. Patrik graduated cum laude from Carleton College and received her doctorate from Northwestern University, specializing in European philosophy. She has studied phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics, Sanskrit at the universities in Freiburg and Tuebingen, and the philosophy of archaeology in Athens. Her research on meditation has taken her to India and her research on archaeology led her to work on a dig in Tunisia. She has published papers on eastern philosophy, phenomenology, and the philosophy of archaeology.
Visiting Assistant Professor Michael Mathias received his B.A. (magna cum laude) from West Virginia University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Rochester. His philosophical interests include ethical theory, the history of ethics, moral psychology, and the history of modern philosophy. His special interests are the role of feeling, e.g., sympathy, in ethical reasoning, and the place of ethics in the world of business.
Visiting Assistant Professor James Walker received his B.A. from the University of Rochester and his Ph.D. from the University at Albany. A specialist in epistemology, and the history of early modern and 19th-century German, his main focus of research is on Hegel’s response to the meta-critical Skepticism in The Phenomenology of Spirit.
Assistant Professor Lisa Warenski received her B.A. (cum laude) from Wellesley College, her M.A. from New York University, and her Ph.D. (with honors) from The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. A former dancer and choreographer, Professor Warenski’s teaching and research interests are concentrated in epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of science. She is working on several projects in the epistemology of logic.
GUEST SPEAKERS
Under the aegis of the Spencer-Leavitt Visiting Professorship, the department regularly hosts visits by leading philosophers. Recently these speakers have included Professors Anthony Appiah (Harvard) and Laurence Thomas (Syracuse) speaking on personal, ethnic and racial identity; Professor David Gauthier (Pittsburgh) speaking on ethics and rationality; and the late Professor Robert Nozick (Harvard) speaking on objectivity. Other speakers in recent years have included Kristin Schrader-Frenchette and Holmes Rolston III, founders of environmental ethics; Bruce Aune (on Kant’s ethics); Arthur Danto (on the artist’s world); Jay Garfield (on cognitive science); Philip Quinn (on proofs of God’s existence); and Richard Taylor (on metaphysics and the meaning of life). In 1997, the department welcomed Professor Juergen Habermas (Frankfurt); in 1998, Professors Will Kymlicka and Jeremy Waldron; in 1999, Professor Susan Haack; in 2000, Professor Hilary Putnam; in 2001, Robert Audi; in 2002, Richard Sorabji; in 2003, Sydney Shoemaker and Dan Garber; in 2004, Jerry Fodor and Christine Korsgaard; and in 2005, Galen Strawson.
DEPARTMENT WEB SITE For more information on the Department of Philosophy’s programs and activities, see the Philosophy Department Homepage.