COLLÈGE UNIVERSITAIRE DOMINICAIN
DOMINICAN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
PHILOSOPHIE / PHILOSOPHY
PROGRAMME DES ÉTUDES SUPÉRIEURES
GRADUATE STUDIES
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CONCERNING DESCARTES’
PHILOSOPHY
FALL TERM
TUESDAY, 1:30-4:30 PM
PROFESSOR: GRAEME HUNTER
The focus of this course will be Descartes’ first philosophical publication, the
Discourse on Method, published in 1637. We will spend one week on each of
its parts, paying special attention to the questions and difficulties it raises. The
following week, in each case, we will look at a selection from one of his earlier
or later writings, in which we will seek answers to the questions and difficulties
of the week before. The aim is to come away with a better understanding of the
roots, trunk and branches of Descartes’ philosophy than is normally reflected in
the secondary literature.
PLOTIN ET LA TRADITION NÉO-ARISTOTÉLICIENNE / PLOTINUS AND THE
NEO-ARISTOTELIAN TRADITION
SESSION D’AUTOMNE / FALL TERM
MERCREDI 13H30-16H30 / WEDNESDAY, 1:30-4:30 PM
PROFESSEUR / PROFESSOR: MARK NYVLT
Le séminaire étudiera principalement l’explication et la justification de Plotin
en ce qui concerne son affirmation de l’existence de l’Un comme principe
supérieur au Collectif, et plus précisément à l’Intelligence. La démarche
spéculative qui mène à cette conclusion, cependant, s’inspire d’une très riche
tradition aristotélicienne souvent ignorée. « Les doctrines des Stoïciens et des
Péripatéticiens sont secrètement mélangées dans ses écrits ; la Métaphysique
d’Aristote y est condensée tout entière “ (Porphyre, Sur la vie de Plotin et sur
l’ordre de ses traits, 14.6-8). Nous prêterons une attention particulière aux
enseignements ésotériques platoniciens, tels que compris par Aristote et
plusieurs autres témoins platoniciens. Après avoir étudié le moyen-platonisme,
notamment Alcinoos le Philosophe, nous nous consacrerons au Commentaire
sur le De anima d’Alexandre d’Aphrodisias, dont l’interprétation d’Aristote
par l’intermédiaire du moyen-platonisme a fortement influencé la lecture que
Plotin fait d’Aristote. Le tout nous aidera à comprendre les présuppositions
philosophiques qui on inspiré la doctrine de l’Un de Plotin et ses accents néoaristotéliciens.
This course will primarily focus on Plotinus’ explanation and justification for
the affirmation of the One over above the Many, or, more specifically, over
the Intellect. The speculative lead-up to this conclusion, however, draws on a
very rich and often ignored Aristotelian tradition. “His writings … are full of
concealed Stoic and Peripatetic doctrines. Aristotle’s Metaphysics, in particular,
is concentrated in them.” (Porphyry, On the Life of Plotinus and the Order
of his Books, 14.6-8) We will focus on the Platonic esoteric teachings, as it is
understood by Aristotle and several other Platonic witnesses. We will spend
time studying the Middle Platonists, notably, Alcinous, and then progress our
study into Alexander of Aphrodisias’ Commentary on the De Anima, whose
interpretation of Aristotle via the Middle Platonists significantly influenced
Plotinus’ reading of Aristotle. All this will help us understand the philosophical
presuppositions influencing Plotinus’ doctrine of the One and his Neoaristotelian accent.
LE RELATIVISME EN HISTOIRE DES IDÉES / RELATIVISM IN HISTORY OF
IDEAS
SESSION D’AUTOMNE / FALL TERM
JEUDI 13H30-16H30 / THURSDAY, 1:30-4:30 PM
PROFESSEUR / PROFESSOR: JEAN-FRANÇOIS MÉTHOT
Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, Bas Van Fraasen, Michel Foucault et Ian
Hacking ont proposé des approches audacieuses et innovatrices en histoire
des idées et en philosophie des sciences, qui leur ont valu des critiques et
des accusations de relativisme. Ces critiques sont-elles justifiées dans chaque
cas? Faut-il accepter leurs approches ou tenter de les justifier malgré ces
critiques. Le séminaire voudra donc évaluer les conséquences relativistes de ces
approches, s’il en est, et proposer des stratégies critiques pour les justifier ou
les rejeter.
Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, Bas Van Fraasen, Michel Foucault, and Ian
Hacking have proposed bold and innovative approaches in history of ideas
and philosophy of the sciences, which earned them criticism and accusations
of relativism. Are these criticisms justified in each case? Should we accept their
approaches or attempting to justify them despite these criticisms. The seminar
therefore wish to evaluate the relativistic approaches consequences, if any, and
propose critical strategies to justify them or reject them.
PHILOSOPHY OF ECONOMICS. PERSPECTIVES ON INEQUALITY
AND POVERTY
SESSION D’HIVER / WINTER TERM
MERCREDI 13H30-16H30 / WEDNESDAY, 1:30 - 4:30 PM
PROFESSEUR / PROFESSOR: FRANCIS PEDDLE
This course examines the diverse and significant connections between ethics,
economics, equality, and poverty within the context of the recent trends
towards extreme inequality of income and wealth, global financialization,
wage suppression, debt deflation, and the ongoing after effects of the
2008 global financial crisis. In the twentieth century economics has been
primarily descriptive and often neutral with respect to moral considerations,
or it investigates these considerations from a very narrow, usually utilitarian,
perspective. Social and economic philosophers in the tradition of classical
political economy sought to integrate normative economics with the positive
science of wealth creation. This integration has important implications for
contemporary developments in post-neoclassical economics where qualitative
and ethical evaluations are coming to be viewed as essential components
of economic policy development. This course is an in-depth analysis of the
concepts of economic justice, liberty, wealth, social economics, inequality,
poverty as well as the more philosophical considerations of equalities of
opportunities and benefits as found primarily in the writings of such classical
political economists and philosophers as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Thomas
Malthus, G.W.F. Hegel, Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, Henry George, Alfred
Marshall, Knut Wicksell and John Maynard Keynes as well as current views
of Joseph Stiglitz, Thomas Piketty, Anthony Atkinson and others on how to
resolve inequality, reduce poverty, and address the ongoing economic crisis.
The interaction between philosophical presuppositions about human nature,
political philosophy, economic theory, and the juridical structure of civil society
will be a central focus of the course. An effort will also be made to compare the
central ideas of classical political economy and philosophical economics with
contemporary articulations of these ideas and to look for broader philosophical
explanations of economic discussions of inequality and the nature of poverty.
GOD IN SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS
WINTER TERM
THURSDAY, 9:00 - 11:30 AM
PROFESSOR: MAXIME ALLARD
This is a seminar in practical exegesis of the writings of saint Thomas Aquinas.
We will review: questions of historiography and historical context; medieval
theories of language, including the practices of grammar, dialectic and rhetoric;
pedagogical practices of the university; Aquinas’ use of philosophical tools
for understanding theological mysteries; key principles of theological method
according to Thomas Aquinas; kinds of writings and their responsible exegesis.
ARISTOTLE’S METAPHYSICS
WINTER TERM
THURSDAY, 1:30 - 4:30 PM
PROFESSOR: JAMES LOWRY
Aristotle’s Metaphysics, while one of the most celebrated and commented
upon of all philosophical works, remains mostly unread and problematic for
moderns. Central to Later Greek and Medieval philosophers and theologians
(notably Plotinus and Aquinas), the work, if considered at all, tends to be
thought incidental to modern thinking. Members of this seminar can reasonably
be expected to work at analyzing and synthesizing this text (or at least parts of
it) as an ancient might do, while trying to understand how ancient metaphysics
might provide some needful ballast to our modern voyage.
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