The disciplines of Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art are concerned with philosophical questions about beauty and art, respectively. This course will explore one of the primary questions that threads through both disciplines: what is art? Is art representation? Is art expression? Is art only art in virtue of its context? Maybe art is a social and political tool? This class will begin its exploration through the historical perspectives of some of the great philosophers of the Western World, such as Plato and Hume, and work our way towards more contemporary views by philosophers such Arthur Danto and bell hooks. Beyond the chronology of art, this course will cover perspectives on “not art” art, art that (some argue) has been wrongly excluded from the dominant Western canon, such as craft and folk art.

• Days/Times: MF 9:00AM - 11:00AM, W 1:00PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Campbell, Elsie A
• Room: Gilman 288
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 20/20
• PosTag(s): n/a

An introduction to philosophy through several central problems. This year’s topics are free will, death, time, and race.

• Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:20PM, F 1:30PM - 2:20PM
• Instructor: Taylor, Elanor Jane
• Room: Gilman 132
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 15/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

More than 500 federally-recognized Native tribes and many more who are not federally recognized live within the borders of the United States. Each of these communities has its own history, identity, traditions, relationship to the land, and story of survivance. This First-Year Seminar examines the views of Indigenous communities on topics such as truth, knowledge, identity and the self, causation, and ethics. It also investigates contemporary American Indian thought as it relates to colonialism and anti-colonialism, land, futurity, sovereignty, and resistance. Students will hear from guest lecturers working at the forefront of the discipline and enrich their learning through a trip to the Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Connolly, Patrick
• Room: Gilman 134
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 12/12
• PosTag(s): CES-LE

An introduction to philosophy through several central problems. This year’s topics are free will, death, time, and race.

• Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:20PM, F 1:30PM - 2:20PM
• Instructor: Taylor, Elanor Jane
• Room: Gilman 132
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 15/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

An introduction to philosophy through several central problems. This year’s topics are free will, death, time, and race.

• Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:20PM, F 12:00PM - 12:50PM
• Instructor: Taylor, Elanor Jane
• Room: Gilman 132
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 15/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

An introduction to philosophy through several central problems. This year’s topics are free will, death, time, and race.

• Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:20PM, F 12:00PM - 12:50PM
• Instructor: Taylor, Elanor Jane
• Room: Gilman 132
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 15/15
• PosTag(s): n/a

Philosophers and scientists raise important questions about the nature of the physical world, the mental world, the relationship between them, and the right methods to use in their investigations of these worlds. The answers they present are very different. Scientists are usually empiricists, and want to answer questions by experiment and observation. Philosophers don’t want to do this, but defend their views a priori. Why? Can both be right? Readings will present philosophical and scientific views about the world and our knowledge of it. They will include selections from major historical and contemporary figures in philosophy and science. The course has no prerequisites in philosophy or science.

• Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: Achinstein, Peter
• Room: Gilman 132
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 15/15
• PosTag(s): PHIL-LOGSCI, COGS-PHLMND, ARCH-RELATE, CES-TI

Philosophers and scientists raise important questions about the nature of the physical world, the mental world, the relationship between them, and the right methods to use in their investigations of these worlds. The answers they present are very different. Scientists are usually empiricists, and want to answer questions by experiment and observation. Philosophers don’t want to do this, but defend their views a priori. Why? Can both be right? Readings will present philosophical and scientific views about the world and our knowledge of it. They will include selections from major historical and contemporary figures in philosophy and science. The course has no prerequisites in philosophy or science.

• Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: Achinstein, Peter
• Room: Gilman 132
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 14/15
• PosTag(s): PHIL-LOGSCI, COGS-PHLMND, ARCH-RELATE, CES-TI

Philosophers and scientists raise important questions about the nature of the physical world, the mental world, the relationship between them, and the right methods to use in their investigations of these worlds. The answers they present are very different. Scientists are usually empiricists, and want to answer questions by experiment and observation. Philosophers don’t want to do this, but defend their views a priori. Why? Can both be right? Readings will present philosophical and scientific views about the world and our knowledge of it. They will include selections from major historical and contemporary figures in philosophy and science. The course has no prerequisites in philosophy or science.

• Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 12:00PM - 12:50PM
• Instructor: Achinstein, Peter
• Room: Gilman 132
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 15/15
• PosTag(s): PHIL-LOGSCI, COGS-PHLMND, ARCH-RELATE, CES-TI

A survey of the earlier phase of Greek philosophy. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle will be discussed, as well as two groups of thinkers who preceded them, usually known as the pre-Socratics and the Sophists.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 10:00AM - 10:50AM
• Instructor: Bett, Richard
• Room: Ames 218
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 20/20
• PosTag(s): PHIL-ANCIEN

Some of the most urgent moral issues arise from our impact on the environment, such as climate change and pollution. This course is an introduction to contemporary philosophical thinking about these issues. We will address questions like: What is the environment, and what role should humans play in it? What obligations, if any, do we have to future generations, other species, or ecosystems? In what ways, if any, does our impact on the environment constitute injustice? What should we do as individuals – should we just focus on political change or should we also make radical changes in our own lifestyles? What are appropriate forms of activism – is violent or destructive action ever justified to prevent disasters? Can environmental catastrophe be avoided within capitalism? This course does not assume any prior background in philosophy or environmental studies.

• Days/Times: MF 1:00PM - 3:00PM, W 1:00PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Torab, Kia Arash
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 18/18
• PosTag(s): PHIL-ETHICS

Philosophers and scientists raise important questions about the nature of the physical world, the mental world, the relationship between them, and the right methods to use in their investigations of these worlds. The answers they present are very different. Scientists are usually empiricists, and want to answer questions by experiment and observation. Philosophers don’t want to do this, but defend their views a priori. Why? Can both be right? Readings will present philosophical and scientific views about the world and our knowledge of it. They will include selections from major historical and contemporary figures in philosophy and science. The course has no prerequisites in philosophy or science.

• Days/Times: MW 11:00AM - 11:50AM, F 12:00PM - 12:50PM
• Instructor: Achinstein, Peter
• Room: Gilman 132
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 14/15
• PosTag(s): PHIL-LOGSCI, COGS-PHLMND, ARCH-RELATE, CES-TI

While stopping just short of the broadest philosophical question, “What is the meaning of life?”, some ethical theories start with a question almost as large: “What is the best way to live?” Others ask, more narrowly, “How must we treat other people, in the world that we share?” Still others examine the nature of moral requirement: when we say that doing or failing to do something would be immoral, or that something is morally required, what exactly are we saying? What is morality, that we should care about it? This course will examine various conflicting answers to these questions before utilizing them in answering a few narrower moral questions. Throughout, we will engage in the practice of philosophy: expositing, criticizing, and constructing arguments. Students will be asked to think through these issues in written assigments and through participation in lecture, sections, and working groups.

• Days/Times: MW 4:30PM - 5:20PM, F 3:00PM - 3:50PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Gilman 50
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 20/20
• PosTag(s): PHIL-ETHICS, CES-ELECT

A survey of the earlier phase of Greek philosophy. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle will be discussed, as well as two groups of thinkers who preceded them, usually known as the pre-Socratics and the Sophists.

• Days/Times: MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
• Instructor: Bett, Richard
• Room: Ames 218
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 20/20
• PosTag(s): PHIL-ANCIEN

Philosophers have been famously hostile to democracy as a form of government, yet in more recent times philosophers have generally sought to justify liberal democracy. This course examines why, historically, philosophy has been opposed to democratic government, and what, in the present, the prospects are of philosophy bolstering the cause of democracy. Readings will include Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, Nietzsche and Dewey.

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 3:50PM, F 3:00PM - 3:50PM
• Instructor: Moyar, Dean
• Room: Gilman 50
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 20/20
• PosTag(s): PHIL-ETHICS, CES-LSO

This course begins by reviewing canonical texts in modern political philosophy beginning with Thomas Hobbes and John Locke and ends by exploring classic questions in contemporary debates in race, gender, and identity.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 12:50PM, F 12:00PM - 12:50PM
• Instructor: Lebron, Christopher Joseph
• Room: Ames 218
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 20/20
• PosTag(s): PHIL-ETHICS, CES-GI, CES-RI, CES-LSO, INST-PT

Philosophers have been famously hostile to democracy as a form of government, yet in more recent times philosophers have generally sought to justify liberal democracy. This course examines why, historically, philosophy has been opposed to democratic government, and what, in the present, the prospects are of philosophy bolstering the cause of democracy. Readings will include Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, Nietzsche and Dewey.

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 3:50PM, F 3:00PM - 3:50PM
• Instructor: Moyar, Dean
• Room: Gilman 50
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 20/20
• PosTag(s): PHIL-ETHICS, CES-LSO

One of the greatest works of literature of all times, the Divine Comedy leads us down into the torture-pits of Hell, up the steep mountain terrain of Purgatory, through the “virtual” space of Paradise, and then back to where we began: our own earthly lives. We accompany Dante on his journey, building along the way knowledge of medieval Italian history, literature, philosophy, politics, and religion. The course also focuses on the arts of reading deeply, asking questions of a text, and interpreting literary and scholarly works through discussion and critical writing. Conducted in English.

• Days/Times: MW 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Saiber, Arielle
• Room: Gilman 119
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 29/30
• PosTag(s): n/a

Knowing who or what counts as a person seems straightforward, until we consider the many kinds of creatures, objects, and artificial beings that have been granted—or demanded or denied—that status. This course explores recent debates on being a person in culture, law, and philosophy. Questions examined will include: Should trees have standing? Can corporations have religious beliefs? Could a robot sign a contract? Materials examined will be wide-ranging, including essays, philosophy, novels, science fiction, television, film. No special background is required.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Siraganian, Lisa
• Room: Gilman 208
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 11/12
• PosTag(s): CES-LSO, CES-ELECT, MSCH-HUM

While stopping just short of the broadest philosophical question, “What is the meaning of life?”, some ethical theories start with a question almost as large: “What is the best way to live?” Others ask, more narrowly, “How must we treat other people, in the world that we share?” Still others examine the nature of moral requirement: when we say that doing or failing to do something would be immoral, or that something is morally required, what exactly are we saying? What is morality, that we should care about it? This course will examine various conflicting answers to these questions before utilizing them in answering a few narrower moral questions. Throughout, we will engage in the practice of philosophy: expositing, criticizing, and constructing arguments. Students will be asked to think through these issues in written assigments and through participation in lecture, sections, and working groups.

• Days/Times: MW 4:30PM - 5:20PM, F 4:30PM - 5:20PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Gilman 50
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 20/20
• PosTag(s): PHIL-ETHICS, CES-ELECT

While stopping just short of the broadest philosophical question, “What is the meaning of life?”, some ethical theories start with a question almost as large: “What is the best way to live?” Others ask, more narrowly, “How must we treat other people, in the world that we share?” Still others examine the nature of moral requirement: when we say that doing or failing to do something would be immoral, or that something is morally required, what exactly are we saying? What is morality, that we should care about it? This course will examine various conflicting answers to these questions before utilizing them in answering a few narrower moral questions. Throughout, we will engage in the practice of philosophy: expositing, criticizing, and constructing arguments. Students will be asked to think through these issues in written assigments and through participation in lecture, sections, and working groups.

• Days/Times: MW 4:30PM - 5:20PM, F 4:30PM - 5:20PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Gilman 50
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 20/20
• PosTag(s): PHIL-ETHICS, CES-ELECT

While stopping just short of the broadest philosophical question, “What is the meaning of life?”, some ethical theories start with a question almost as large: “What is the best way to live?” Others ask, more narrowly, “How must we treat other people, in the world that we share?” Still others examine the nature of moral requirement: when we say that doing or failing to do something would be immoral, or that something is morally required, what exactly are we saying? What is morality, that we should care about it? This course will examine various conflicting answers to these questions before utilizing them in answering a few narrower moral questions. Throughout, we will engage in the practice of philosophy: expositing, criticizing, and constructing arguments. Students will be asked to think through these issues in written assigments and through participation in lecture, sections, and working groups.

• Days/Times: MW 4:30PM - 5:20PM, F 3:00PM - 3:50PM
• Instructor: Staff
• Room: Gilman 50
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 20/20
• PosTag(s): PHIL-ETHICS, CES-ELECT

Prometheus is Johns Hopkins' undergraduate philosophical society. The society organizes a conference and publishes a journal each year and more generally provides a community for philosophically-minded students. The Prometheus workshop facilitates this through open philosophical discussion; interaction with faculty, graduate students, and other members of the Philosophy Department; and other activities. For more information, please visit . Prerequisite: MUST have taken one philosophy course

• Days/Times: W 7:00PM - 7:50PM
• Instructor: Taylor, Elanor Jane
• Room: Gilman 219
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 25/25
• PosTag(s): n/a

This introductory course will explore the intersections between literary texts, scientific discoveries, and art. We will study Geometry, Calculus, Probability Theory, Philosophy, Cognitive Science, Physics, Medicine, and Ecology in Russian Literature. We will read novels, poems, and plays by Goethe, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Akhmatova, and Nabokov, among others, with relevant chapters from Hegel, Literature, and the Problem of Agency by Allen Speight; The Mathematical Mind of F. M. Dostoevsky: Imaginary Numbers, Non-Euclidean Geometry, and Infinity by Michael Marsh-Soloway; Russian Literature and Cognitive Science edited by Tom Dolack, “which applies the newest insights from cognitive psychology to the study of Russian literature;” Medical Storyworlds: Health, Illness, and Bodies in Russian and European Literature at the Turn of the Twentieth Century by Elena Fratto; Jeff Love’s studies on Tolstoy’s use of calculus for the development of his philosophy of history, “Tolstoy’s Integration Metaphor from War and Peace” by Stephen T. Ahearn as well as other scientific studies that engage with literature such as Yuri Manin’s Mathematics as Metaphor, Sarah Hart’s Once Upon a Prime: The Wondrous Connections Between Mathematics and Literature, and Carlo Rovelli’s Seven Brief Lessons in Physics. In addition to the reading materials, assignments will include expository writings as well as philosophical games and illustrations of the connections between science and art, mind and matter. We will also have guest lecturers from the departments of philosophy, mathematics, and cognitive science as we consider philosophy as science and science as art and explore multidisciplinarity and the many ways in which sciences can transform our understanding of art and literature and vice versa. No prerequisites either in humanities or sciences.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: Juharyan, Victoria
• Room: Krieger 180
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 47/48
• PosTag(s): n/a

Philosophers have been famously hostile to democracy as a form of government, yet in more recent times philosophers have generally sought to justify liberal democracy. This course examines why, historically, philosophy has been opposed to democratic government, and what, in the present, the prospects are of philosophy bolstering the cause of democracy. Readings will include Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, Nietzsche and Dewey.

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 3:50PM, F 4:30PM - 5:20PM
• Instructor: Moyar, Dean
• Room: Gilman 50
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 20/20
• PosTag(s): PHIL-ETHICS, CES-LSO

This course will consider philosophical topics in the foundations of physics, with an emphasis on cosmological issues. Entropy and the arrow of time -- why time has a direction, whether it can be explained in terms of entropy, and what role the arrow of time plays in causation and emergence. Anthropics and indexical uncertainty -- approaches to probability, reference classes, the cosmological multiverse, Boltzmann brains, simulation and doomsday arguments. Foundations of quantum mechanics -- the measurement problem, many-worlds, probability and structure, alternative approaches.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Carroll, Sean Michael
• Room: Gilman 55
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 40/40
• PosTag(s): PHIL-LOGSCI, MSCH-HUM

The seminar is a study of Hasdai Crescas' major work: The Light of the Lord. Topics to be discussed include: Crescas' defense of actual infinity; determinism; plurality of (possible) worlds; the nature of belief; the infinity of God's attributes; Crescas' influence on Spinoza.

• Days/Times: W 4:30PM - 7:00PM
• Instructor: Melamed, Yitzhak Yohanan
• Room: Gilman 288
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 15/15
• PosTag(s): PHIL-MODERN

Mathematical Logic I (H,Q) is the first semester of a year long course studying the logical methods used in mathematical reasoning. The first semester explores the construction of formal languages in which to cast mathematical discourse, introduces systems of proof for deriving propositions from assumptions, and develops a formal semantics that provides a precise criterion of logical consequence. We expect a system of proof to allow the derivation only of propositions that are logical consequences of the assumptions (soundness). A principal result establishes the converse: these systems of proof are such that any logical consequence is derivable (completeness). This provides us with a purely mathematical characterization of logic within which mathematical theories can be formulated and their properties studied (decidability, axiomatizability, consistency, completeness), a pursuit commonly known as metamathematics.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Rynasiewicz, Robert
• Room: Gilman 288
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 15/15
• PosTag(s): PHIL-LOGSCI

Philosophers have been famously hostile to democracy as a form of government, yet in more recent times philosophers have generally sought to justify liberal democracy. This course examines why, historically, philosophy has been opposed to democratic government, and what, in the present, the prospects are of philosophy bolstering the cause of democracy. Readings will include Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, Nietzsche and Dewey.

• Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 3:50PM, F 4:30PM - 5:20PM
• Instructor: Moyar, Dean
• Room: Gilman 50
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 20/20
• PosTag(s): PHIL-ETHICS, CES-LSO

This course begins by reviewing canonical texts in modern political philosophy beginning with Thomas Hobbes and John Locke and ends by exploring classic questions in contemporary debates in race, gender, and identity.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 12:50PM, F 1:30PM - 2:20PM
• Instructor: Lebron, Christopher Joseph
• Room: Ames 218
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 20/20
• PosTag(s): PHIL-ETHICS, CES-GI, CES-RI, CES-LSO, INST-PT

In this course, we will examine philosophical debates concerning the moral permissibility of developing, distributing, and/or using certain controversial technologies. Candidate technologies for consideration include, but are not limited to, nootropics (smart drugs), moral bioenhancement, so-called “ultraviolent” video games, memory-alteration technologies, the development of drugs that aim to create, sustain, or eliminate love, and AI intended to function as therapists, romantic interests, or interactive representations of deceased loved ones

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Wonderly, Monique Lisa
• Room: Gilman 288
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 15/15
• PosTag(s): PHIL-ETHICS, PHIL-BIOETH

In this course we will do a close reading of Locke's Essay along with Leibniz's New Essays, which is a point-by-point critique of the former. The aim of this course is to clarify the main differences between the two philosophers and how they relate to the two philosophical systems as a whole. Since Locke and Leibniz are widely regarded as champions of empiricism and rationalism respectively, this course will give the students a deep grasp of pre-Kantian European philosophy.

• Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Connolly, Patrick; Dong, Hao
• Room: Gilman 288
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 15/15
• PosTag(s): PHIL-MODERN

This course explores philosophical issues raised by developments in Artificial Intelligence. For example, can a machine be conscious? (What is consciousness?) Who is responsible for a bad decision made by AI? What light, if any, do developments in AI shed on age-old debates about nature vs. nurture?

• Days/Times: Th 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Gross, Steven
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 15/15
• PosTag(s): PHIL-MIND, CES-TI

Catastrophe Ethics explores the question, “how do you live a morally decent life in an era of massive, structural catastrophes?” Most of what we do contributes to harm and injustice as a result of climate change, ecological devastation, child labor and exploitation in the global supply chain, the spread of infectious diseases like Covid-19, animal welfare issues, and much more. And yet, as individuals with incredibly little power, most of us can’t make a difference to any of these problems no matter what we choose. So our actions seem to matter morally (Recycle! Boycott bad companies! Go vegan!), and yet also to matter not at all (You don’t make a difference!). In attempting to address this problem—the puzzle of individual responsibility amidst collective threats—this course takes students on a tour of both traditional moral philosophy, and newer, disruptive moral concepts. By the end of the semester, students will be provided with tools to think more clearly about living in our chaotic world and hopefully, to do better and feel better about the mark that they’re leaving on the planet and on society.

• Days/Times: F 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Rieder, Travis N
• Room: Gilman 277
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 15/15
• PosTag(s): PHIL-BIOETH, PHIL-ETHICS, CES-LC, MSCH-HUM

The seminar will focus on Spinoza's philosophy of mind and pyschology (Ethics, Parts II-III) Topics to be discussed include: the nature of the mind; mind-body parallelism; imagination and temporality; the three kinds of cognition; the conatus doctrine; emotions. No previous knowledge will be assumed.

• Days/Times: M 4:30PM - 7:00PM
• Instructor: Melamed, Yitzhak Yohanan
• Room: Gilman 288
• Status: Reserved Open
• Seats Available: 15/15
• PosTag(s): PHIL-MODERN