Grad Tutorial: Abstraction

2 credits · Undergraduate

Tutorial taught by grad student. From making scientific predictions and constructing mathematical proofs, to conceptualizing and communicating our own personal experience, we rely on abstraction. This course explores "abstraction" across different domains of philosophy including metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, and political theory. In addition to surveying a variety of theories of abstraction we will pay attention to moments when it played a crucial role in history such as the dawn of human civilization, the invention of philosophy, the inauguration of the Scientific Revolution, and the scandalous innovations of modern art.