http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/33992 Linguistics and Philosophy (24) http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/45584 17.007J / 17.006 / 24.237 / SP.601J / WGS.601J Feminist Political Thought, Spring 2006 Surkan, Kim This course is designed as a focused survey of feminist political thought and theory, exploring the various and often competing ways feminists have framed discussions about sex, gender, and oppression. Beginning with a consideration of key terms (sex, gender, oppression) and the meaning of social construction, we will move on to study three central feminist approaches to political thought (humanist, gynocentric, and dominance). The primary goal of this course is to familiarize students with key issues, questions and debates in feminist theory, both historical and contemporary. This semester you will become acquainted with many of the critical questions and concepts feminist scholars have developed as tools for thinking about gendered experience. In addition to the presentation of theoretical ideas, we will consider examples of practical political application of those concepts. The concluding weeks of the course address the many tensions between generalized theoretical approaches and localized political efforts, particularly as they relate to identity politics and issues of diversity within feminist groups and movements. Finally, we will consider the connections, commonalities, and differences between feminist political thought and other theoretical approaches to political movements, such as queer theory, postcolonial theory, and global and human rights organizing. Mon, 29 May 2006 22:58:59 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/41942 24.119 Mind and Machines, Spring 2005 Byrne, Alexander Examination of problems in the intersection of artificial intelligence, psychology, and philosophy. Issues discussed: whether people are Turing Machines, whether computers can be conscious, limitations on what computers can do, computation and neurophysiology, the Turing test, the analog/digital distinction, the Chinese Room argument, the causal efficacy of content, the inverted spectrum, mental representation, procedural semantics, connectionism, the relation between simulation and explanation, and whether some aspects of mentality are more resistant to programming than others. From the course home page: Course Description This course is an introduction to many of the central issues in a branch of philosophy called philosophy of mind. Some of the questions we will discuss include the following. Can computers think? Is the mind an immaterial thing? Or is the mind the brain? Or does the mind stand to the brain as a computer program stands to the hardware? How can creatures like ourselves think thoughts that are "about" things? (For example, we can all think that Aristotle is a philosopher, and in that sense think "about" Aristotle, but what is the explanation of this quite remarkable ability?) Can I know whether your experiences and my experiences when we look at raspberries, fire trucks and stop lights are the same? Can consciousness be given a scientific explanation? Sun, 29 May 2005 22:58:59 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/41937 24.954 Pragmatics in Linguistic Theory, Fall 2004 Von Fintel, Kai Formal theories of context-dependency, presupposition, implicature, context-change, focus and topic. Special emphasis on the division of labor between semantics and pragmatics. Applications to the analysis of quantification, definiteness, presupposition projection, conditionals and modality, anaphora, questions and answers. Sun, 28 Nov 2004 22:58:59 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/36365 24.973 Advanced Semantics, Spring 2003 Von Fintel, Kai Current work on semantics and questions of logic and meaning for syntactic systems in generative grammar. Thu, 29 May 2003 22:58:59 GMT