PHL 3370 Philosophy of Love and Sex
In this course, we will take a philosophical approach to love and sex and the various issues and questions surrounding these important topics. We will cover a broad range of thinkers from canonical philosophers like Plato to contemporary political theorists like Alva Golby. We will also discuss a wide range of topics and questions including the perennial question “What is love?”, compulsory sexuality, disability justice and state sanctioned monogamy, queer kinship, and more. We will explore various disciplinary approaches to these topics. For example, we will look at the latest neuroscientific and psychological treatments of love and grapple with the affinities, tensions, and discrepancies between these and philosophical approaches. We will also contend with both the personal, interpersonal, communal, and political dimensions of love and sex. This course will help you develop philosophical skills, such as engaging with and reconstructing arguments, developing and answering philosophical questions, and applying what you learn in class to your life. You will also develop critical thinking and reflection skills that will allow you to engage with your life philosophically and engage with philosophy in a way that is significant to you and your communities.
Course Types
Expression; Advanced Studies
- Close Reading and Analysis: Students will practice and develop close reading skills, engaging in interpretation and analysis of the key ideas presented in various texts.
- Understanding & Deploying Key Concepts to Generate Meaning and Insight: Students will develop firm understandings of key concepts (e.g. sex, gender, romantic love, asexuality, capitalism, race). They will demonstrate their understanding by explaining these concepts in their own words as well as articulating how these concepts relate to each other and deploying these concepts in meaningful ways through description, analysis, and critique.
- Mapping and Navigating Intellectual Traditions and Orientations: Students will familiarize themselves with various schools of thought and traditions that take up issues relating to love and sex. They will be able to articulate the central theories that define these traditions and trace the philosophical dialectic and discussions between different and opposing traditions and schools of thought. They will be able to assess the strengths and limitations of various schools of thought and their related views. Lastly, they will be able to frame their understandings of various topics within the context of ongoing intellectual conversations, debates, and the histories of relevant ideas.
- Identifying, Evaluating, and Making Arguments: Students will identify and charitably reconstruct key arguments in various texts. They will be able to identify the reasons and evidence that authors provide for the claims they make and assess the strength, validity, and soundness of arguments. They will respond to various arguments with their own arguments.
- Ethical Reflection and Application: Students will reflect on how the ideas and arguments we discuss in class apply to their everyday lives and practices. They will be asked to articulate how various ideas and theories relate to, affirm, challenge, and/or transform their and others’ worldviews. They will analyze and articulate the various ethical issues and implication of various arguments, norms, conventions, practices, etc.