MIT OpenCourseWare: New Courses in Linguistics and Philosophy

24.04J Justice (MIT)

Stanczyk, Lucas — 2012-12-13T15:01:29+05:00

This course explores the ideal of social justice. What makes a society just? We will approach this question by studying three opposing theories of justice—utilitarianism, libertarianism, and egalitarian liberalism—each foundational to contemporary political thought and discourse.

24.235J Philosophy of Law (MIT)

Markovits, Julia — 2012-09-21T13:28:46+05:00

This course examines fundamental issues in the philosophy of law, including the nature and content of law, its relation to morality, theories of legal interpretation, and the obligation to obey the law, as well as philosophical issues and problems associated with punishment and responsibility, liberty, and legal ethics.

24.09 Minds and Machines (MIT)

Byrne, Alex — 2012-07-24T14:51:57+05:00

This course is an introduction to many of the central issues in a branch of philosophy called philosophy of mind.

24.251 Introduction to Philosophy of Language (MIT)

Yablo, Stephen — 2012-06-27T15:45:42+05:00

This course explores the nature of meaning and truth, and their bearing on the use of language in communication. No knowledge of logic or linguistics is presupposed.

24.00 Problems in Philosophy (MIT)

Holton, Richard — 2011-07-22T13:54:40+05:00

The course has two goals. First, to give you a sense of what philosophers think about and why. Here we look at a number of perennial philosophical problems, including some or all of: how knowledge differs from "mere opinion," the objectivity (or not) of moral judgment, logical paradoxes, mind/body relations, the nature and possibility of free will, and how a person remains the same over time, as their bodily and psychological traits change. The second goal is to get you thinking philosophically yourself. This will help you develop your critical and argumentative skills more generally. Readings will be from late, great classical authors and influential contemporary figures.

24.901 Language and Its Structure I: Phonology (MIT)

Kenstowicz, Michael — 2011-06-22T16:12:59+05:00

24.901 is designed to give you a preliminary understanding of how the sound systems of different languages are structured, how and why they may differ from each other. The course also aims to provide you with analytical tools in phonology, enough to allow you to sketch the analysis of an entire phonological system by the end of the term. On a non-linguistic level, the course aims to teach you by example the virtues of formulating precise and explicit descriptive statements; and to develop your skills in making and evaluating arguments.

24.954 Pragmatics in Linguistic Theory (MIT)

Fox, Danny — 2010-12-08T13:43:41+05:00

This course is the third and final part of our graduate introduction to semantics. The other two classes are 24.970 Introduction to Semantics and 24.973 Advanced Semantics. The semester will be divided into somewhat independent units. One unit will be devoted to conversational implicatures (mainly scalar implicatures) and another to presupposition. In each unit, we will discuss basic concepts and technical tools and then devote some time to recent work which illustrates their application.

24.241 Logic I (MIT)

Glick, Ephraim — 2010-10-18T07:44:00+05:00

In this course we will cover central aspects of modern formal logic, beginning with an explanation of what constitutes good reasoning. Topics will include validity and soundness of arguments, formal derivations, truth-functions, translations to and from a formal language, and truth-tables. We will thoroughly cover sentential calculus and predicate logic, including soundness and completeness results.

24.244 Modal Logic (MIT)

Stalnaker, Robert — 2010-06-16T13:57:30+05:00

This course covers sentential and quantified modal logic, with emphasis on the model theory ("possible worlds semantics"). Topics include soundness, completeness, characterization results for alternative systems, sense and dynamic logics, epistemic logics, as well as logics of necessity and possibility. Course material applies to philosophy, theoretical computer science, and linguistics.

24.964 Topics in Phonology: Phonetic Realization (MIT)

Flemming, Edward — 2010-06-16T13:46:50+05:00

Many details of phonetic realization cannot be predicted from standard phonological representations on a language-independent basis, so phonetic realization must be specified in grammar. In this seminar we will investigate phonetic realization as a component of grammar. The basic questions that we will address are: What is the form of the phonetic realization component? What is its relationship to phonology?

24.231 Ethics (MIT)

Markovits, Julia — 2010-03-03T14:54:03+05:00

This will be a seminar on classic and contemporary work on central topics in ethics. The first third of the course will focus on metaethics: we will examine the meaning of moral claims and ask whether there is any sense in which moral principles are objectively valid. The second third of the course will focus on normative ethics: what makes our lives worth living, what makes our actions right or wrong, and what do we owe to others? The final third of the course will focus on moral character: what is virtue, and how important is it? Can we be held responsible for what we do? When and why?

24.06J Bioethics (MIT)

Hare, Caspar — 2009-12-11T16:25:20+05:00

This course does not seek to provide answers to ethical questions. Instead, the course hopes to teach students two things. First, how do you recognize ethical or moral problems in science and medicine? When something does not feel right (whether cloning, or failing to clone) — what exactly is the nature of the discomfort? What kind of tensions and conflicts exist within biomedicine? Second, how can you think productively about ethical and moral problems? What processes create them? Why do people disagree about them? How can an understanding of philosophy or history help resolve them? By the end of the course students will hopefully have sophisticated and nuanced ideas about problems in bioethics, even if they do not have comfortable answers.

24.08J Philosophical Issues in Brain Science (MIT)

Byrne, Alex — 2009-11-18T13:13:42+05:00

This course provides an introduction to important philosophical questions about the mind, specifically those that are intimately connected with contemporary psychology and neuroscience. Are our concepts innate or are they acquired by experience? And what does it even mean to call a concept 'innate'? Are 'mental images' pictures in the head? Is color in the mind or in the world? Is the mind nothing more than the brain? Can there be a science of consciousness? The course includes guest lectures by philosophers and cognitive scientists.

24.120 Moral Psychology (MIT)

Holton, Richard — 2009-11-09T13:21:04+05:00

This course is an examination of philosophical theories of action and motivation in the light of empirical findings from social psychology, sociology, and neuroscience. Topics include belief, desire, and moral motivation; sympathy and empathy; intentions and other committing states; strength of will and weakness of will; free will; addiction and compulsion; guilt, shame and regret; evil; self-knowledge and self-deception; and, virtues and character traits. This course is a CI-M course.

24.973 Advanced Semantics (MIT)

von Fintel, Kai — 2009-11-09T13:20:56+05:00

This course is the second of the three parts of our graduate introduction to semantics. The others are 24.970 Introduction to Semantics and 24.954 Pragmatics in Linguistic Theory. Like the other courses, this one is not meant as an overview of the field and its current developments. Our aim is to help you to develop the ability for semantic analysis, and we think that exploring a few topics in detail together with hands-on practical work is more effective than offering a bird's-eye view of everything. Once you have gained some experience in doing semantic analysis, reading around in the many recent handbooks and in current issues of major journals and attending our seminars and colloquia will give you all you need to prosper. Because we want to focus, we need to make difficult choices as to which topics to cover. This year, we will focus on topics having to do with modality, conditionals, tense, and aspect.

24.729 Topics in Philosophy of Language: Modeling Representation (MIT)

Rayo, Agustín — 2009-10-29T00:14:01+05:00

The seminar will be devoted to understanding what we're up to when we ascribe contents to a person's assertions and mental attitudes. We seek to make clear the rules of the game for the philosophy of language. We'll survey classic discussions of the issue by Field, Lewis and Stalnaker. But much of the emphasis of the class will be on getting clear about the limitations of our theoretical tools. I'd like to focus on places where our theorizing runs into trouble, or breaks down altogether.

24.910 Topics in Linguistic Theory: Propositional Attitudes (MIT)

Stephenson, Tamina — 2009-10-29T00:09:43+05:00

This course explores topics related to the representation and expression of propositional attitudes (e.g. belief, knowledge, and desires) and speech acts (e.g. saying and asking) in natural language. The main focus will be on semantics of predicates such as believe, know, want, say, ask, etc. Other topics will include the syntax of main and embedded clauses and formal representation of the pragmatics of conversation. The course provides practice in written and oral communication.

24.260 Topics in Philosophy: David Lewis (MIT)

Rayo, Agustín — 2009-06-16T16:26:13+05:00

The class will be devoted to the work of David Lewis, one of the most exciting and influential philosophers of the late twentieth century. We will have seminar-style discussions about his work on counterfactuals, time, causation, probability, and decision-theory.

24.02 Moral Problems and the Good Life (MIT)

Haslanger, Sally — 2009-06-15T15:18:46+05:00

This course will focus on issues that arise in contemporary public debate concerning matters of social justice. Topics will likely include: euthanasia, gay marriage, racism and racial profiling, free speech, hunger and global inequality. Students will be exposed to multiple points of view on the topics and will be given guidance in analyzing the moral frameworks informing opposing positions. The goal will be to provide the basis for respectful and informed discussion of matters of common moral concern.

24.941J The Lexicon and Its Features (MIT)

Gow, David — 2008-11-25T10:40:30+05:00

This course provides an overview of the distinctive features which distinguish sound categories of languages of the world. Theories which relate these categories to their acoustic and articulatory correlates, both universally and in particular languages, are covered. Models of word recognition by listeners, features, and phonological structure are also discussed. In addition, the course offers a variety of perspectives on these issues, drawn from Electrical Engineering, Linguistics and Cognitive Science.