Tyler M. John
Chinese Philosophy (Spring 2020)
Comparative Chinese philosophy course focused on Warring States Chinese philosophy and its relationship to contemporary Western philosophy. Texts drawn from Confucius, Mengzi, Mozi, Xunzi, Zhuangzi, and the Daodejing, along with texts in contemporary empirical psychology, moral philosophy, and philosophy of language.
Minds, Machines, and Persons (Fall 2019)
Course at the intersection of ethics and philosophy of mind. The first part of the course focuses on representation, intelligence, and consciousness in human, nonhuman, and digital minds. The second part of the course examines the implications of the first for the moral standing and legal rights of artificially intelligent entities.
Current Moral and Social Issues (Spring 2019)
Moral analysis of contemporary problems. Includes discussion of ethics and activism, civil disobedience, discrimination, reparations, constructivism, food ethics, wild animal suffering, the demandingness of morality, effective altruism, duties to future generations, digital sentience, and existential risks.
Introduction to Philosophy (Fall 2018)
Introduction to formal reasoning and argumentation and some of the big questions of philosophy. Course topics include theism and atheism, consciousness, personal identity, the ethics of eating animals, speciesism, effective altruism and the demandingness of morality, civil disobedience, disagreement, moral uncertainty, and social construction.