Philosophy

At 6:30 a person looks at their watch, not knowing that the watch broke 12 hours earlier; does the person know that it is 6:30? Can you trust your senses? Perhaps you are dreaming right now? Could you be just a brain floating in a vat? If you wake up tomorrow without any of your memories, is it still you? If your brain with all your memories were transplanted into another body, and their brain put into your body – which of these two is you?

A patient dies in the hospital with five good organs available for transplants. The next person on the transplant list needs precisely these five organs; the following five people on the list each need one of the five available organs; do you skip the person next in line and instead of saving that one person, save five other people? What if the patient with the five good organs didn’t die; would it be best to let them die so five other lives can be saved?

What is philosophy? It is the inquiry into issues of epistemology (how we know things), of identity, of ethics, politics and more. Philo = ‘lover,’ of Sophos = ‘wisdom.’ This elective will give students a sense of the development of Western Thought, introducing some of the major ideas and thinkers from Ancient Greece and on into Modernity. It will challenge you to think.