Undergraduate Academics
Philosophy
At Sarah Lawrence College, the study of philosophy retains a centrality that helps students synthesize their educational experience with the discipline’s many connections to other humanities and to social science. Through conference work, students also find numerous ways to connect the study of philosophy with their interests in the arts and natural sciences. Stressing the great tradition of classical and contemporary philosophy, the College offers three types of philosophy courses: those organized around thematic topics, such as Philosophy of Science, Aesthetics, and Philosophy and Literature; those organized historically, such as Moral Philosophy, Political Philosophy, and 20th-Century Philosophy; and those that study the “systems” of philosophers such as Kant, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein.
Philosophy faculty use the latest technology in their teaching, including web boards for posting course material and promoting discussion. Yearlong courses make extensive textual work possible, enabling students to establish in-depth relationships with the thoughts of the great philosophers and to “do philosophy” to some degree—particularly valuable to students preparing for graduate work in philosophy. Conference work often consists of students thinking through and writing on single philosophic and literary works, ranging from Greek tragedy, comedy, or epic to Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Descartes, Shakespeare, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, or Heidegger.
Philosophy 2026-2027 Courses
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Open, Small Lecture—Fall | 5 credits
PHIL 2033
Does life have a purpose, a meaning? What does it mean “to be”? What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be a woman (or to be a man)? What does it mean to be black (or to be white)? What makes us into who we are? What distinguishes each of us, and what, if anything, is in common to all of us? These and other questions are raised by existentialist philosophy and literature, mostly through interrogation of real-life experiences, situations, and “fundamental emotions,” such as anxiety, boredom, loneliness, and shame. In the first half of this course, we will get acquainted with the core tenets of existentialist thought by reading two of its most influential figures: Jean-Paul Sartre (France, 1905-1980) and Martin Heidegger (Germany, 1889-1976). In the second half, we will analyze texts by authors who expand or challenge these core tenets on the grounds of their experiences of oppression. These authors are Simone de Beauvoir (France, 1908-1986), Frantz Fanon (Martinique, 1925-1961), Viktor Frankl (Austria, 1905-1997), and Jean Améry (Austria, 1912-1978). Group conference will meet weekly and play a central role in this course. In it, we will mostly read literary texts or watch films that are relevant to the work of the above-listed authors. Conference material will include stories by Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, and Ralph Ellison, and films such as The Battle of Algiers (1967) and Monsieur Klein (1977).
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Open, Seminar—Fall | 5 credits
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—Fall | 5 credits
PHIL 3154
This course will be an investigation of the many ways we find our orientation in the world and the many ways we find ourselves disoriented. Aristotle outlines how habits shape the way that we navigate our lives. Hegel theorizes that commitments to roles and practices separate us from nonhuman animals. Wittgenstein remarks that our lives are grounded in certainties that we cannot fully defend. However we achieve this orientation, the sense we have of the world is a certain kind of accomplishment that we effect, individually and collectively. And yet, this orientation is not impermeable. From time to time, we undergo experiences that shatter our sense of who we are and what we take the world, others, or ourselves to be. This course will investigate the meaning of such experiences of disorientation. Often, they are accompanied by uncertainty, anxiety, and an inability to articulate what exactly has gone wrong. We will track this phenomenon across various areas of our lives: disturbances to what we think we know (epistemology), ruptures in our assessment of what is good or the right thing to do (ethics), and interruptions prompted by works of art (aesthetics). We will draw on a variety of sources to make sense of these moments of disorientation and their significance. Philosophical readings will include Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, Wittgenstein, Kuhn, Plumwood, and Diamond, amongst others. We will also read literary works such as Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello and Sartre’s Nausea.
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Open, Seminar—Fall | 5 credits
PHIL 3053
Art seems to be an inextricable part of human life. The question that guides this course is seemingly simple: What is art? As will soon become clear, answering this question proves to be exceedingly difficult; for example: Are trees works of art? Is an iPhone a work of art? Is a movie a work of art? Are all movies works of art? Is a doodle in your notebook a work of art? It may turn out that no definitive answer to our guiding question is possible; however, without demarcating between what counts as art and what does not, art refers to everything and, consequently, to nothing special. This course will investigate how works of art become meaningful. The narrative of the course will trace the different frameworks used by philosophers over the last 2,500 years to pursue this question. We will follow a historical narrative, learning how these frameworks have responded both to each other and to the artworks of their time. We will read texts by Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Danto, Benjamin, and others, as well as analyze artworks from Sophocles, William Shakespeare, Édouard Manet, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, John Cage, Kara Walker, Jordan Peele, and many others. At the end of the semester, our aim will be to articulate what is so special about art and why we care about it.
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Sophomore and Above, Seminar—Fall | 5 credits
PHIL 3325
Note: Reserved for sophomores and above with experience reading philosophy in class, in conference, or independently, who have the capacity and enthusiasm for actively and independently participating in a rigorous process of reading and discussing philosophical texts.
Michel Foucault (1926-1984) is one of the most influential philosophers and historians of the second half of the 20th century, famous for developing Nietzsche’s thesis that knowledge is not a progressive quest for objective truth, but a historical construct produced in the service of socio-political power structures. Our readings will trace a gradual evolution in Foucault’s thinking on power, from perceiving it as a mechanism of control (confinement, exclusion, incarceration, and punishment, but also curing, disciplining, educating, and surveilling) to perceiving it as a mechanism of producing pleasure (through practices, regulations, and inhibitions of sexuality as well as their transgressions). Foucault’s special talent is his capacity to produce, through historical study and insight, new narratives and perspectives, which can alter our understanding of our history, our culture, our institutions, our upbringing, and ourselves in the deepest and most unexpected ways. When it works (and much of it depends on our own commitment to the reading process), his writing can liberate us from bonds and preconceptions we never even knew we had. This will be a guided reading and discussion-centered seminar, with weekly reading responses. For the conference component of the course—unless you have a well-defined and executable alternative in mind, which we would agree upon in advance—each student will conduct an independent study of one philosophical text of their choice out of a list of options. Options will include philosophers who influenced Foucault, such as Plato and Nietzsche, and ones whose thought was influenced by him, such as Giorgio Agamben and Judith Butler.
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Open, Small Lecture—Year | 10 credits
PHIL 2213
Philosophy is deeply entwined with comedy. In fall, we shall begin by studying their relation in the ancient world. Plato, like the comic playwright Aristophanes, saw the relation of philosophy to common sense as inherently comical. Plato and Aristophanes will be our main focus in fall, though we may take a look at other writers, such as Xenophon, Lucian, Apuleius, Terence, and the Roman satirists. In spring, our focus will be on the use of comedy to introduce modern science and on the use of comedy to oppose fanaticism, religious or otherwise. Some authors we may draw on are Kepler and Galileo, Shaftesbury, Kant, and Heine. In group conference, we will read selections from Montaigne’s Essays. Students will be expected to bring written questions on the reading to each class; they may also be asked to give short, informal presentations on the reading, possibly in groups. Logs of questions and notes for presentations will be submitted at the end of each semester. In addition, students will be asked to submit short responses to the readings for class and group conference, and at the end of the semester to submit a portfolio of these.
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Open, Small Lecture—Year | 10 credits
PHIL 2095
Note: Same as POLI 2095.
Many of us are struck by the growing irrationality of contemporary democratic politics to the point where we despair of our capacity to address problems like global climate change or pandemics that could pose existential threats to our species, to fashion constructive foreign policy as wars rage, or to face a whole range of urgent but more mundane policy issues. In this course, we will seek to understand disturbing trends like populism, polarization, disinformation, and self-injuring or -defeating politics, as well as the resurfacing of nativism, xenophobia, and racism in contemporary politics—in part on their own terms but also by asking whether they are deeply rooted in human nature, at least on our current best understandings of ourselves. More specifically, democracy seems to rely on at least a minimum degree of rationality, learning, openness to argument and difference, and self-control on the part of the citizens whose votes and opinions guide government policy. But is this reliance foolhardy in light of what recent history, psychology, evolutionary theory, philosophy, and cognitive science teach? Do aspects of our current social and technological circumstances make us less able to manifest these qualities of character today than our Enlightenment progenitors hoped in the era of democratic revolutions—the era from which many of the ideas and institutions that continue to inform our politics today emerged? In this course, we will survey aspects of the political history of recent centuries, as well as our own historical moment, to ask if they should temper confidence in the power of reason in politics. We will also examine recent research in cognitive science, psychology, and philosophy that conclude that it is hard to sustain a model of human behavior that places reason and rationality in the driver’s seat. What alternative accounts of human nature are emerging from recent research? And what are their political implications, especially for democratic societies? By bringing together political science, history, and theory with cognitive science, psychology, and philosophy, we should be able to occupy the intersection of distinct but equally relevant disciplines to ask whether the Enlightenment’s faith in democracy was misplaced. Or, instead, are there reasons to believe that democracy can maintain its claim to legitimacy, even after reason has been demoted in our understandings of human nature? To address this final question, we will also examine proposals for 21st-century democratic reforms that either seek to adjust downward the expectations on the capacity of citizens to engage in deliberative politics or to refashion political institutions to better summon the better angels of our nature.
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Sophomore and Above, Seminar—Year | 10 credits
PHIL 3016
Are we bodies? Are we souls? Are we some strange mixture of the two? In this seminar, we shall consider this problem by beginning with Plato’s Phaedo, which asks whether there is a soul that can separate from the body and live forever; Aristotle’s On the Soul, which denies that the individual soul can survive the body; Lucretius’ On the Nature of Things, which argues that we are just matter and that the soul cannot survive the death of the body. We shall then leap ahead to Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy, which seems to hold, first, that we are pure minds, second, that other people may just be machines, third, that we are souls intimately united with bodies—a very confusing combination of views—and ask why he puts forward all these apparently contradictory views. This will involve us in the objections to Descartes’ Meditations and his replies. Students will be expected to bring written questions on the reading to each class, and to present sections of the reading as assigned. Logs of questions and notes for presentations will be presented at the end of each semester. There will be two short papers assigned for the class in addition to the conference paper.
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Open, Small Lecture—Spring | 5 credits
PHIL 2524
If philosophy had a Dream Team, its starting line-up would feature Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the three great philosophers of Greek antiquity. Representing three consecutive generations (Socrates was Plato’s mentor and Plato was Aristotle’s teacher), these three thinkers were the first to use the term “philosophy” as we do today, as a distinct form of practice with its own history, subject matter, and methods. The schools that Plato and Aristotle established in Athens (the Academy and the Lyceum, respectively) form not only the foundation of philosophy but also of the modern university and science, and much of the vocabulary and methods we still use. Reading a variety of texts by these authors, we will get to know some of their most enduring contributions to the history of ideas. These include, among others, the Socratic method of education; Plato’s “theory of forms” and his ideas on love and beauty; Aristotle’s virtue ethics and his theories of nature and God. We will consider both how these theories continue to inform and influence how we think and learn, and the ways they might still challenge us to live and think differently. This course can serve as an introduction to philosophy, as well as an opportunity for students with experience in philosophy to broaden and strengthen their philosophical education. Certainly, no philosophical education is complete without studying these classics.
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Open, Seminar—Spring | 5 credits
PHIL 3350
What is the relationship between the words we use and the things we encounter in the world? Do words belong to things by nature, or only by agreement? Does language correspond to a world already laid out before us, or does it shape what we are able to think, perceive, and encounter? Where does meaning come from—a speaker who intends something by their words, or the rules governing how they are used? To broach these questions, this seminar will trace the history of philosophy of language from its origins in ancient Greek thought through its radical transformation in modern times. Texts will be drawn from seminal moments in that history, from Plato's Cratylus on the correctness of names, through Rousseau on the passionate origin of language and Nietzsche on language as metaphor, through Heidegger's treatment of language as the medium through which the world can be encountered at all, to the analytic tradition on naming, reference, and meaning. The seminar will close with the urgent question of how the history of philosophy can help us understand large language models (LLMs), which produce fluent speech with no speaker behind it. Do such systems really use language, or only simulate it? Does meaning require an understanding mind, or only the right patterns of use?
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Open, Lecture—Spring | 5 credits
PHIL 2021
Presumably, you care about movies. Why do you care about movies? Because they entertain you? Because they are beautiful? Because they are informative? Because they make you feel things? The guiding thought of this course will be that we care about movies because they participate in the practice of philosophy—or at least they have that potential. Of course, this also presumes that we care about philosophy—a claim that will take some time to defend. To test that hypothesis—that films have the potential to participate in the practice of philosophy—we first need to consider what the practice of philosophy is. Then, we will need to say something about what film is. And then, we can examine whether film can do philosophy. In the first part of the course, we will analyze the medium of film in order to clarify the characteristics of film that would allow it to be philosophical. In the second part of the course, we will explore how those characteristics of film contribute to how we think philosophically about our lives. In particular, students will explore problems pertaining to subjectivity (What it is to be a human being?) and to ethics (How do I know the right thing to do?). Each week, we will watch a film—including Jeanne Dielman, Psycho, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Get Out, and Spring Breakers—and read a philosophical text—including Aristotle, Cavell, Merleau-Ponty, Parfit, and Adorno—with the aim of placing the two in conversation.
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Intermediate, Seminar—Spring | 5 credits
PHIL 3623
Prerequisite: a prior philosophy course
Surveying the post-Holocaust world of late capitalism, Theodor W. Adorno writes that “Wrong life cannot be lived rightly.” We find ourselves in a world replete with strife, burdened with a disconcerting future, and so the possibility of living a good life seems not just illusive but altogether impossible. And yet, from this dire prognosis, Adorno offers a critical assessment of modern life in all of its minutiae that hints at the possibility of redemption. His analysis is boundless, ranging from a vehement takedown of astrology to a psychoanalytic reading of fascist propaganda, from reflections on the fiction of Franz Kafka to questioning our capacity to shut a door quietly. Adorno suggests that describing the ills of modern life—what he variously identifies as capitalism, fascism, consumerism, or, more pervasively, the hallowing of meaningful experience that resolves itself in loneliness and alienation—might offer the possibility to transform those stifling conditions. The seminar will begin with his diagnosis of our social reality, proceed to theorize about the metaphysical underpinnings of this reality, and conclude by considering the capacity of art to redeem our physical existence. Underlying the entirety of our investigation of Adorno’s work will be the imperative to overcome what he calls the “barbarity” of our time. Readings will be drawn from Adorno’s main works, Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944), Minima Moralia (1951), Negative Dialectics (1966), and Aesthetic Theory (1970), as well as various essays. Our ambition will be not only to understand Adorno’s assessment of the stultifying conditions of his time but also to consider how he supplies us with tools, methods, and arguments for addressing the challenges facing our own.
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Intermediate/Advanced, Seminar—Spring | 5 credits
PHIL 3360
Prerequisite: prior philosophy courses
This seminar will focus on the writings of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855). Widely considered the first existentialist philosopher, Kierkegaard’s work had an enduring impact on later existentialist thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus. He was an unusual man with a uniquely conflicted and multifaceted soul: a devout Christian, yet a fierce critic of Christianity; a Hegelian philosopher, yet a stern detractor of Hegelian system-building and philosophy in general; an incredibly funny, yet deeply melancholic man. Through close readings in a selection of texts from his major works, including Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, and Stages on Life’s Way, we will get to know his vision of human existence as unfolding through three “stages”—aesthetic, ethical, and religious. In the process, we will examine his analyses of irony, anxiety, despair, and humor, and the tensions between faith and reason, subjectivity and truth, sacrifice and freedom, which he experienced and wrote about. Kierkegaard is unique among philosophers for writing under a variety of names (pseudonyms), each with its own identity, way of thinking, and style of writing. We will pay special attention to this use of pseudonymous authorship as a philosophical method. Some of Kierkegaard's writings are notoriously intricate, making this an advanced seminar, which both presupposes and will help develop skills in philosophical reading, writing, and analysis. Experience in philosophy is therefore expected.
Faculty