If you are looking for the 2006 course web page, click here. For the 2005 course web page, click here.

This course introduces the central problems of philosophy. It considers solutions proposed by the greatest thinkers of the Western philosophical tradition (and some from non-Western traditions as well).

We will begin by asking what it is to be human, and reflect on the importance of this question for how we live our own lives. Are we minds and bodies? Just minds? Just bodies? What difference does it make? What is it to lead a good human life?

We will then move on to questions in the theory of knowledge: What is knowledge? How do we get it? What can we know?

Finally, we will raise some of the basic questions of metaphysics: What is there? What is a thing? Do things have essences? Is reality independent of our minds? Is there a God?