Courses in English in Spring 2015

FLFI.02.117 Social and Ethical Aspects of Engineering
Kadri Simm

Social and value dimensions of technologies. Overview of ethical theories. Environmental ethics and engineering. Research ethics and professional ethics.Moral relativism and cultural context of engineering.

FLFI.02.126 Ethics and Philosophy of Sex
Francesco Orsi

This course examines philosophical questions related to sex. We will begin by analyzing the nature of sex, discussing a range of theories of sex including sex as essentially connected to reproduction, sex as a language or expression of love, and "plain sex" theories that emphasise sexual pleasure and desire. Then, we will consider more closely the ethics of sexual behaviour, discussing issues such as perversion, objectification, sexual consent, prostitution, pornography. We will examine some of the most relevant ethico-philosophical traditions for these issues: natural law theory, Kantianism, and feminism.

FLFI.02.136 J.S. Mill, "The Subjection of Women"
Francesco Orsi, Kadri Simm

The aim is to analyze Mill's views on gender equality both within his philosophical context (utilitarianism, liberalism) and in the light of contemporary feminism. The reading group includes close reading and discussion of The Subjection of Women, written by J. S. Mill and, unofficially, Harriet Taylor (1869). This will be followed by a selection of contemporary literature on Mill and feminism.

FLFI.03.036 Introduction to Philosophy of Language
Uku Tooming

Introduction to contemporary theories of reference and meaning, the basic concepts of formal semantics, and its central problems. The course also covers influential historical positions: Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Quine, Davidson, Grice, Austin, Kripke, Kaplan, and Stalnaker.

FLFI.04.013 Introduction to Epistemology
Alexander Stewart Davies

An introduction to contemporary epistemology. The course introduces the main topics in epistemology: the concepts and accounts of knowledge and justification, accounts of perception, scepticism, amongst others.

FLFI.04.047 Power and Language
Alexander Stewart Davies

Analytic philosophers have identified various features of our epistemic and linguistic practices which can be manipulated for political gain. The course will introduce students to a range of ways in which language-use interacts with exertions of power, as identified by analytic philosophers. The central ideas derive from work by Miranda Fricker on epistemic injustice and Rae Langton on illocutionary silencing. The course will certainly cover illocutionary silencing and epistemic injustice. The course may also cover hate speech and pornography as speech.

FLFI.04.048 Introduction to Epistemology II
Alexander Stewart Davies

This course builds on the knowledge students gain of contemporary epistemology from Introduction to Epistemology. The aim is to develop student's capacity to critically engage with, rather than merely learn facts about, contemporary epistemology.

FLFI.04.050 The Ethics of Belief
Alexander Stewart Davies

The aim is to acquaint ourselves with some topics in the ethics of belief literature in analytic philosophy. We'll focus on two debates in the literature: the debate between evidentialists and non-evidentialists. And, the debate over relation between doxastic voluntarism (the view that you have control over what you believe) and norms of belief.

FLFI.04.051 The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence
Daniel Cohnitz

The aim is to introduce the basic concepts and arguments from the philosophy of AI. Unfortunately, the philosophy of AI seems to have cooled down a lot after long and rather fruitless discussions of various versions of Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment in the last century. In this reading group, we want to see what philosophical problems current research in AI gives rise to or might perhaps even be able to contribute to. Last term we started by getting ourselves an overview of current AI by reading K. Frankish and W. M. Ramsey's book The Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence, Cambridge University Press 2014. Students who would like to join the seminar, but have no background in AI, might want to read this book beforehand.