The University of Utah Philosophy
 

Required textbooks:

  • John Stuart Mill, On Liberty and Other Essays (ed. Gray) [includes: On Liberty, Utilitarianism, Considerations on Representative Government, and The Subjection of Women]
  • John Stuart Mill, Autobiography
  • John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic (2 vols.)
  • James Mill, Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (course reader, available at the Copy Center in the basement of the Student Union)
  • Charles Dickens, Hard Times
  • Oscar Wilde, Complete Works
  • Neil Bartlett, Who Was That Man?

Most of these books have been in print for quite a while, and you can save money by finding them used.

For Mill, it pretty much doesn't matter which edition you use; they're more or less all respectable. The Liberty Fund hosts the online Mill's Collected Works.

Optional textbooks:

  • Richard Ellmann, Oscar Wilde

Further readings will be made available as photocopies and on reserve. (For the reserve page, log in, using your uNID and CIS password.)

Reading Assignments:

  1. Aug. 24: Introduction. Optional prereading: David Wiggins, "Truth, Invention, and the Meaning of Life" (online reserve; this is a very difficult reading -- don't be daunted if you get lost midway thru). Nagel, "The Absurd" (JSTOR).

  2. Aug. 26: The Principle of Utility. Reading: Mill, Utilitarianism, ch. 1, ch. 2 through para. 2, ch. 5, third from last para., starting "That first of judicial virtues... (p. 198 in Gray, start paying attention towards the bottom of the page, with "It is involved in the very meaning..."); Mill, Autobiography, ch. 1; Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (excerpt, online reserve). If you haven't had time to get to the bookstore, you can read the Mill in the Collected Works online -- see the link above, and look in vols. I and X.

    Optional reading: Susan Wolf, "Meaningful Lives in a Meaningless World" (online reserve).

  3. Aug. 28: Benthamite Utilitarianism and its Moral Psychology. Reading: Mill, Autobiography, ch. 2; James Mill, Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, vol. i, pp. 1-3, 51-53, 68-69 (note 24), 70-102; vol. ii, pp. 184-195. (In the Analysis, footnotes ending in "Ed." are John Stuart Mill's; pay close attention. But notes ending in "B." are Alexander Bain's (and likewise for other initials); you can ignore these.)

    Optional reading: Paul Thagard, "Explanatory Coherence" (online reserve).

  4. Aug. 31: The Utilitarian Project, Mark I. Reading: Analysis, vol. 1, pp. 103-126. Mill, On Liberty, ch. 2.

    Optional reading: Jeremy Bentham, "The Auto-Icon" (online reserve); FAQs on the Auto-Icon.

  5. Sept. 2: Objections to the Principle. Reading: Utilitarianism, ch. 2.

    Optional reading: Bernard Williams, "A Critique of Utilitarianism," in Smart and Williams, Utilitarianism: For and Against.

  6. Sept. 4: Objections to the Principle. Reading: Utilitarianism, ch. 5. Analysis, vol. 2, pp. 206-255, 265-266 (thru first full para.).

    Optional reading: James Gunn, The Joy Makers (on reserve in Marriott Library).

  7. Sept. 7: LABOR DAY. Take Dorian Gray to the beach!

  8. Sept. 9: Objections to the Utilitarians. Reading: Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (in Wilde, Complete Works).

    Optional viewing: Stanley Kubrick, A Clockwork Orange; Danny Boyle, Trainspotting (available from the Marriott Media desk).

    Further reading, for the very ambitious: J. K. Huysmans, Against Nature (available from the Marriott reserve desk).

  9. Sept. 11: Mill's Epiphany. Reading: Autobiography, ch. 3. Utilitarianism, ch. 4, through third para.

    Optional reading (to orient you for writing your paper): Heather Douglas, "The Irreducible Complexity of Objectivity" (online reserve); George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language" (online reserve).

    TOPICS FOR THE FIRST PAPER HAVE BEEN DISTRIBUTED -- MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A COPY.

    You can find a model paper through the online reserve (Tim Simmons, "Association of Ideas and the Joy of Ability"), and there are further model papers available in the reserve bin in the Philosophy Department reception area. (Please copy and return.)

  10. Sept. 14: Owning Your Project. Review Analysis, note 48, at vol. ii, pp. 252-255. Start reading Hard Times.

    Optional reading: Normann Kretzmann, "Desire as Proof of Desirability" (online reserve); Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, "Mill's 'Proof': A More than Half-Hearted Defense".

  11. Sept. 16: Mill's Postdoc. Reading: Autobiography, ch. 4. Dickens, Hard Times.

    Optional reading: Bentham, Rationale of Judicial Evidence (excerpts; online reserve). Mill's TAship: Bentham, Chrestomathia (excerpts, online reserve).

  12. Sept. 18: Mill's Mental Crisis. Reading: Autobiography, ch. 5. Candace Vogler, "Means, Ends, and Mill" (online reserve).

    Optional reading: Janice Carlisle, "Vocation" (online reserve).

  13. Sept. 21: Mill's Authority Figures. Reading: Autobiography, ch. 6. Rose, ch. from Parallel Lives (online reserve).

    Further reading, for the ambitious: Jo Ellen Jacobs, The Complete Works of Harriet Taylor Mill; F. A. Hayek, John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor.

  14. Sept. 23: Poetry as Prozac. Reading: Wordsworth, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" (Bartleby). (Please come to class prepared to read this out loud; this means practicing reading it aloud at home. Please also be prepared to paraphrase the poem in ordinary English; this means paying attention to the sense as you read.)

    Optional reading: Mill, "On Genius," "Thoughts on Poetry and Its Varieties," "Tennyson's Poems" (in Collected Works, vol. I, available at the Liberty Fund website). Laurie Paul, "The Worm at the Root of the Passions" (online reserve). And further viewing (a model for your recitation): Wordsworth courtesy of MC Nuts and Cumbria Tourism.

  15. Sept. 25: Moral Freedom. Reading: System of Logic, Book VI, ch. 2 ("Of Liberty and Necessity"; pp. 836-843).

    Optional reading: Bernard Williams, "Moral Incapacity" (online reserve).

  16. Sept. 28: The Problem of Hedonic Drift. Optional reading: Millgram, Mill's Incubus.

  17. Sept. 30: Upgrading the Project: Liberty. Reading: OL chs 1, 3.

    Optional reading: OL chs. 4-5.

  18. Oct. 2: Upgrading the Project: The Father of Feminism. Reading: SW chs. 1-2.

    Optional reading: Mill, "On Marriage", "Statement on Marriage" (both in Collected Works, vol. XXI, available at the Liberty Fund website).

  19. Oct. 5: What Was Mill's Feminism Really About? Reading: SW chs. 3-4.

    Optional reading: Gertrude Himmelfarb, On Liberty and Liberalism: The Case of John Stuart Mill.

  20. Oct. 7: Upgrading the Project: Plural Voting, Getting Rid of the Secret Ballot, and Other Hare-Brained Schemes. Reading: RG chs. 7, 8, 10.

    Optional reading: Bruce Kinzer, "Mill and the Secret Ballot" (online reserve).

  21. Oct. 9: Is There Such a Thing as Deductive Logic? Reading: System of Logic, Book II, chs. 1-3. (You can skim ch. 2 -- you just need to get a sense for what a syllogism is.)

    Optional reading: Is Mathematics an Empirical Science? Mill, System of Logic, Book II, chs. 4-5; Frege, The Foundations of Arithmetic, pp. 9-17 (online reserve); Philip Kitcher, "Arithmetic for the Millian" (online reserve).

    FALL BREAK! Print out "Auguste Comte and Positivism" (in Collected Works, vol. X, available at the Liberty Fund website), and take it to the beach!

  22. Oct. 19: Wilde Times! Salome will screen at 11:00 sharp in Marriott 1009.

    Optional reading: Wilde, "Salome" (in Complete Works); Phillip Hoare, Oscar Wilde's Last Stand.

  23. Oct. 21: The Problem of Induction. Reading: System of Logic, Book III, chs. 1, 3.

    Optional reading: System, Book III, ch. 2. William Whewell, Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Book XI, ch. iv ("Of the Colligation of Facts"). Geoffrey Scarre, Logic and Reality in the Philosophy of John Stuart Mill, ch. 4 (online reserve). R. B. Braithwaite, "The Predictionist Justification of Induction" (online reserve).

  24. Oct. 23: Proof Positive. "Auguste Comte and Positivism" (in Collected Works, vol. X, available at the Liberty Fund website).

    Optional reading: Auguste Comte, Introduction to Positive Philosophy (available shortly).

  25. Oct. 26: Free Will (with $4.95 to cover shipping and handling);
    Mental Chemistry.     Mill, System of Logic, Book III, ch. 6 ("Of the Composition of Causes"). (See also p. 442 [in the Collected Works pagination], first full paragraph.) Analysis, vol. i, para. bridging pp. 90-91.

    Optional reading: Hilary Bok, Freedom and Responsibility, ch. 1. Vogler, John Stuart Mill's Deliberative Landscape, chs. 4-5 (on reserve in the Philosophy Department).

  26. Oct. 28: On the Way to a Social Science. Reading: System of Logic, Book III, ch. xi ("Of the Deductive Method"), ch. xv ("Of Progressive Effects"), ch. xvi ("Of Empirical Laws"). Utilitarianism, ch. 3.

    Optional reading: System, Book III, ch. x ("Of the Plurality of Causes").

  27. Oct. 30: Mill's Missing Science of Ethnic Jokes. Reading: System of Logic, Book VI (all of it except ch. 2).

    Optional reading: Tocqueville, Democracy in America, excerpts (online reserve). Alexander Bain, "Genius" (online reserve).

  28. Nov. 2: Jeff Wall Syndrome. Williams, "The Makropulos Case" (online reserve).

    Optional viewing: Jeff Wall, "Overpass", "Destroyed Room", "Outburst".

  29. Nov. 4: A Perverse Life. Mill, Autobiography, ch. 7.

    Optional reading: Charles Larmore, "The Idea of a Life Plan".

  30. Nov. 6: Life as a Work of Art. Wilde, "The Decay of Lying"; Wilde, "Pen, Pencil and Poison" (in Wilde, Complete Works).

    Optional reading: Wilde, "The Birthday of the Infanta," "The Selfish Giant," "The Devoted Friend," "The Remarkable Rocket," "The Canterville Ghost," "Lord Arthur Saville's Crime."

  31. Nov. 9: Wilde Addresses the Knockoff Problem. Wilde, "The Critic as Artist."

    Optional reading: "The Truth of Masks".

  32. Nov. 11: Sexuality. Bartlett, Who Was That Man?, chs. 1-3.

    Optional reading, for your amusement: "Oscar Wilde," in Moss, Instant Lives (online reserve). Saki, "Reginald at the Carlton" (online reserve).

  33. Nov. 13: Wilde's Signature Style. Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest.

    Optional reading: Review Salome, Dorian Gray;

  34. Nov. 16: The Life and Letter. Wilde, "De Profundis"; "The Ballad of Reading Gaol."

    Optional reading: Gide, If It Die... (excerpts; online reserve). Warning: some readers may find the Gide material offensive. Wilde, "The Master" (CW p. 865).

  35. Nov. 18: How to Change the Past. Bartlett, pp. 126-162.

    Optional reading: Ellmann, Oscar Wilde, chs. 17-20. Further reading, for students with way too much time on their hands: Charles Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer.

  36. Nov. 20: How to Handle Scandal. Wilde, "Lady Windermere's Fan".

    Optional reading: Wilde, "An Ideal Husband".

  37. Nov. 23: The Paradox of Aestheticism. Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, chs. 1-8 (through p. 88).

    Optional reading: Colin McGinn, "The Picture: Dorian Gray" (online reserve).

  38. Nov. 25: From Aestheticism to Perversity. Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, through end.

    Optional reading: Adam Gopnik, "The Invention of Oscar Wilde" (available in the Philosophy Department reserve folders).     Happy Thanksgiving!

  39. Nov. 30: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. No new reading: think about Dorian Gray.

    Optional reading: "The Artist" (CW p. 863).

  40. Dec. 2: Reality Check: Could There Be an Aestheticist Politics? Wilde, "The Soul of Man Under Socialism"; "Sonnet to Liberty" (p. 709).

    Optional reading: Mill, Chapters on Socialism (in Collected Works, vol. V).

  41. Dec. 4: Paper Demo. We'll use Charles Larmore, "The Idea of a Life Plan".

  42. Dec. 7: The Paradox of Narcissism.

  43. Dec. 9: What's Wrong with Your Life Taking on a Life of Its Own? Wilde, "The Fisherman and His Soul".

    Optional reading: Candace Vogler, "Sex and Talk".

  44. Dec. 11: Lives and Shelf Lives. No new reading. Optional viewing: Cindy Sherman, "Untitled Film Still #21"; "Untitled (107)"; "Untitled"; "Untitled Film Still #56"; ""Untitled Film Still #63"; "Untitled Film Still #83"; "Untitled #71".

    Graded final papers are available for pickup in the Philosophy Department office.