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Keywords: Rationality
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: The Art of the Probable" addresses the history of scientific ideas, in particular the emergence and development of mathematical probability. But it is neither meant to be a history of the exact sciences per se nor an annex to, say, the Course 6 curriculum in probability and statistics. Rather, our objective is to focus on the formal, thematic, and rhetorical features that imaginative literature shares with texts in the history of probability. These shared issues include (but are not limited to): the attempt to quantify or otherwise explain the presence of chance, risk, and contingency in everyday life; the deduction of causes for phenomena that are knowable only in their effects; and, above all, the question of what it means to think and act rationally in an uncertain world. Our course therefore aims to broaden students’ appreciation for and understanding of how literature interacts with--both reflecting upon and contributing to--the scientific understanding of the world. We are just as centrally committed to encouraging students to regard imaginative literature as a unique contribution to knowledge in its own right, and to see literary works of art as objects that demand and richly repay close critical analysis. It is our hope that the course will serve students well if they elect to pursue further work in Literature or other discipline in SHASS, and also enrich or complement their understanding of probability and statistics in other scientific and engineering subjects they elect to take.
- Subject:
Humanities, Social Sciences
- Grade Level:
Post-secondary
- Collection:
MIT OpenCourseWare
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: Culture, Embodiment, and the Senses will provide an historical and cross-cultural analysis of the politics of sensory experience. The subject will address western philosophical debates about mind, brain, emotion, and the body and the historical value placed upon sight, reason, and rationality, versus smell, taste, and touch as acceptable modes of knowing and knowledge production. We will assess cultural traditions that challenge scientific interpretations of experience arising from western philosophical and physiological models. The class will examine how sensory experience lies beyond the realm of individual physiological or psychological responses and occurs within a culturally elaborated field of social relations. Finally, we will debate how discourse about the senses is a product of particular modes of knowledge production that are themselves contested fields of power relations.
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: This half-term course examines the choices that we make which affect others and the choices others make that affect us. Such situations are known as "games" and game-playing, while sounding whimsical, is serious business. Managers frequently play games both within the firm and outside it - with competitors, customers, regulators, and even capital markets! The goal of this course is to enhance your ability to think strategically in complex, interactive environments. Knowledge of game theory will give you an advantage in such strategic settings. The course is structured around three "themes for acquiring advantage in games": commitment / strategic moves, exploiting hidden information, and limited rationality.
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: What do your dreams mean? Do men and women differ in the nature and intensity of their sexual desires? Can apes learn sign language? Why can’t we tickle ourselves? This course tries to answer these questions and many others, providing a comprehensive overview of the scientific study of thought and behavior. It explores topics such as perception, communication, learning, memory, decision-making, religion, persuasion, love, lust, hunger, art, fiction, and dreams. We will look at how these aspects of the mind develop in children, how they differ across people, how they are wired-up in the brain, and how they break down due to illness and injury.
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: An exploration of colonial and postcolonial clashes between theories of healing and embodiment in the African world and those of western bio-medicine. Examines how Afro-Atlantic religious traditions have challenged western conceptions of illness, healing, and the body, and have offered alternative notions of morality, rationality, kinship, gender and sexuality. Analyzes whether contemporary western bio-medical interventions reinforce colonial or imperial power in the effort to promote global health in Africa and the African diaspora.
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: The course is an examination of philosophical theories of action and motivation in the light of empirical findings from social psychology, sociology and neuroscience. Topics include Belief, Desire, and Moral Motivation; Sympathy and Empathy; Intentions and other Committing States; Strength of Will and Weakness of Will; Free Will; Addiction and Compulsion; Guilt, Shame and Regret; Evil; Self-knowledge and Self-deception; Virtues and Character Traits.
- Subject:
Humanities, Social Sciences
- Grade Level:
Post-secondary
- Collection:
MIT OpenCourseWare
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: An examination of philosophical issues on the theme of relativism. Are moral standards relative to cultures and/or moral frameworks? Are there incompatible or non-comparable ways of thinking about the world that are somehow equally good? Is science getting closer to the truth? Is rationality -- the notion of a good reason to believe something -- relative to cultural norms? What are selves? Is there a coherent form of relativism about the self? Discussion of these questions through the writings of contemporary philosophers such as Thomas Kuhn, Karl Popper, Gilbert Harman, Judith Thomson, and Derek Parfit. Emphasis on ways of making these vague questions precise, and critical evaluation of philosophical arguments.
- Subject:
Humanities, Social Sciences
- Grade Level:
Post-secondary
- Collection:
MIT OpenCourseWare
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: The main aims of this seminar will be to go over the classification of surfaces (Enriques-Castelnuovo for characteristic zero, Bombieri-Mumford for characteristic p), while working out plenty of examples, and treating their geometry and arithmetic as far as possible.
- Subject:
Mathematics and Statistics
- Grade Level:
Post-secondary
- Collection:
MIT OpenCourseWare
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