Faculty
Alexander Montag
BA, University of Pennsylvania. MAPSS, University of Chicago. PhD, Tulane University. Interests in ancient philosophy, especially Plato, and its late-modern reception, especially Nietzsche and Heidegger, as well as critiques of rationalism throughout the history of philosophy, including Maimonides and Rousseau. Recent dissertation, Philosophy and Logos, examines the foundations of Socratic dialogue as a philosophical method distinct from scientific or technological modes of reasoning. SLC, 2026–
Previous Courses
Philosophy
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Open, Seminar—Fall
PHIL 3215
What does Silicon Valley take for granted that the great philosophers long ago called into question? What is technology—is it a form of knowledge, a relationship to nature, or something more fundamental to what it means to be human? How did the ancient Greek understanding of techne become the modern drive to master and remake the world? To approach these questions, this seminar will trace the philosophy of technology from its origins in ancient Greek thought through its radical transformations in modern times. We will ask, in the end, what the history of philosophy can tell us about where Silicon Valley's unexamined opinions lead. Texts will be drawn from major moments in the philosophy of technology, from Plato and Aristotle on the nature of craft and human artifice, through Bacon, Descartes, and Rousseau on the Enlightenment transformation of nature into a resource to be mastered, through Marx, Heidegger, and Arendt on the social and existential stakes of modern technology, to the manifestos of contemporary tech thinkers who, knowingly or not, are replaying arguments as old as philosophy itself.
Faculty
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Open, Seminar—Spring
PHIL 3350
Can a human being live by reason and by revelation at once, or must one choose between them? Is their quarrel a clash over competing claims to truth, to authority, or to the whole of how one ought to live? Does reason, pressed to its own foundations, turn out to rest on a faith of its own? To approach these questions, this seminar will trace the confrontation from its origins in the ancient world through its radical transformations in modern times. We will ask, in the end, whether reason can adjudicate the quarrel on its own—and if it cannot, what could. Texts will be drawn from major moments in that confrontation, from Plato’s philosophic treatment of the gods and the holy, through al-Farabi, Maimonides, Halevi, and Aquinas on the medieval contest over whether reason and revealed law can be reconciled, through Spinoza and Nietzsche on modern critiques of revelation and reason alike, to Heidegger and Levinas on whether revelation still has a place today—and Buddhist texts that compel us to ask whether the entire quarrel is one the West has mistaken for the human condition.
Faculty