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Interaction between a reversible engine (A) and a reversible ideal gas Carnot cycle (B). (Illustration courtesy of MIT OpenCourseWare.)

Thermodynamics & Kinetics

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This subject deals primarily with equilibrium properties of macroscopic systems, basic thermodynamics, chemical equilibrium of reactions in gas and solution phase, and rates of chemical reactions.
A neutrophil (a type of white blood cell, shown in blue-gray) interacting with Klebsiella pneumoniae bacteria (shown in pink). This is one example of the types of functions that Systems Biology seeks to understand and describe. Watch Lecture 1 to see a video of a neutrophil chasing and engulfing a bacterium. (Image by NIAID, CC-BY.)

Systems Biology

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This course provides an introduction to cellular and population-level systems biology with an emphasis on synthetic biology, modeling of genetic networks, cell-cell interactions, and evolutionary dynamics. Cellular systems include genetic switches and oscillators, network motifs, genetic network evolution, and cellular decision-making. Population-level systems include models of pattern formation, cell-cell communication, and evolutionary systems biology.
Celebrating Scientific Advances by African Americans: The Negro's Contribution in the Social and Cultural Development of America: Science by Millard Owen Sheets, 1939. (Image courtesy of the U.S. Department of the Interior.)

Feeling and Imagination in Art, Science, and Technology

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This course is a seminar on creativity in art, science, and technology. We discuss how these pursuits are jointly dependent on affective as well as cognitive elements in human nature. We study feeling and imagination in relation to principles of idealization, consummation, and the aesthetic values that give meaning to science and technology as well as literature and the other arts. Readings in philosophy, psychology, and literature are part of the course.
A soul kiss. (Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [reproduction number, LC-USZ62-65700 (b&w film copy neg.)].)

Philosophy of Love in the Western World

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This course is a seminar on the nature of love and sex, approached as topics both in philosophy and in literature. Readings from recent philosophy as well as classic myths of love that occur in works of literature and lend themselves to philosophical analysis.
Nature's harmony from painting by E. Lamasure, circa 1910. (Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [reproduction number, LC-USZC4-6018 (color film copy transparency.)])

The Nature of Creativity

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This course is an introduction to problems about creativity as it pervades human experience and behavior. Questions about imagination and innovation are studied in relation to the history of philosophy as well as more recent work in philosophy, affective psychology, cognitive studies, and art theory. Readings and guidance are aligned with the student's focus of interest.
Logic & Proofs

Logic & Proofs

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Logic is a remarkable discipline. It is deeply tied to mathematics and philosophy, as correctness of argumentation is particularly crucial for these abstract disciplines. Logic systematizes and analyzes steps in reasoning: correct steps guarantee the truth of their conclusion given the truth of their premise(s); incorrect steps allow the formulation of counterexamples, i.e., of situations in which the premises are true, but the conclusion is false.Recognizing (and having conceptual tools for recognizing) the correctness or incorrectness of steps is crucial in order to critically evaluate arguments, not just in philosophy and mathematics, but also in ordinary life. This skill is honed by working in two virtual labs. In the ProofLab you learn to construct complex arguments in a strategically guided way, whereas in the TruthLab the emphasis is on finding counterexamples systematically.
Theory of Meaning

Theory of Meaning

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Language as social behavior. Language compared to other sign systems. The foundations of semantics, truth, meaning, reference. Issues of logical form in belief sentences, indirect discourse, sentences about causality, events, actions. Relations between thought and language.
The Nature of Mind

The Nature of Mind

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Introduction to the philosophy of mind. Topics to be considered may include the relation between mind and body; the structure of action; the nature of desires and beliefs; the role of the unconscious.
Death

Death

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There is one thing I can be sure of: I am going to die. But what am I to make of that fact? This course will examine a number of issues that arise once we begin to reflect on our mortality. The possibility that death may not actually be the end is considered. Are we, in some sense, immortal? Would immortality be desirable? Also a clearer notion of what it is to die is examined. What does it mean to say that a person has died? What kind of fact is that? And, finally, different attitudes to death are evaluated. Is death an evil? How? Why? Is suicide morally permissible? Is it rational? How should the knowledge that I am going to die affect the way I live my life?
Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature

Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature

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Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature pairs central texts from Western philosophical tradition (including works by Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus, Hobbes, Kant, Mill, Rawls, and Nozick) with recent findings in cognitive science and related fields. The course is structured around three intertwined sets of topics: Happiness and Flourishing; Morality and Justice; and Political Legitimacy and Social Structures.
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