
Lecture Notes
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Throughout my years of teaching, I have developed lecture notes on a variety of topics, for the variety of classes which I taught. Here is a list of some of these topics. I hope to upload all the notes here in the near future.
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I. Intro to Philosophy
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What is Philosophy?
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From Mythos to Logos: the Origins of Western Philosophy
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Eastern Philosophical Traditions
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Plato on the Nature of Philosophy: The Theory of Forms & Allegory of the Cave
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Stoicism and Neoplatonic Philosophy
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II. Critical Thinking
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Identifying Arguments
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Deductive Arguments
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Non-Deductive Arguments
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Consistency and Inconsistency
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Evaluating Definitions
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Fallacies of Reasoning
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Cognitive Biases
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Writing an Argumentative Essay
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Moral Reasoning
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The Role of Reason in Grounding Moral Judgments
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III. Moral & Political Philosophy
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The Trial and Death of Socrates
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Plato’s Theory of Justice
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The Individual vs the State: A Study of Socrates and Antigone
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Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics
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The Ring of Gyges and the Possibility of Altruism
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Nietzsche's Critique of Judaeo-Christian Morality
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Plato & Aristotle’s Critique of Democracy
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Direct vs. Representative Democracy
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The Social Contract Approach to Justice
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Tolerance and its Limits
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Freedom of Speech
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Utilitarian vs. Rights-Based Ethics
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Utilitarians vs Libertarians on Taxation
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Sources of Unethical Behavior in the Corporate World
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Critique of Laissez-Faire Capitalism
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Critique of Cost-Benefit Analysis in Environmental Policy-Making
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Responsibilities to Posterity
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Responsibilities to the Natural World
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Pollution
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Overpopulation
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The Voice of the Earth: Ethics for a Living Planet
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IV. Language, Mind, and World
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On the Existence of God
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What is Art?
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Art and Morality in Aristotle’s Poetics
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The Philosophy of Love: From Plato to the Present
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Freedom and Responsibility
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Creating a Self
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Philosophical Perspectives on the Meaning of Life
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Happiness and Human Flourishing
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The Self as Mental Matter
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The Self as Body
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The Self and the Cosmos
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Knowledge and Reality
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Wittgenstein on the Limits of Language