July 26, 2023
Philosophy and Science Fiction, Unit 1: Rights and Wrongs
As I mentioned last time, I'll be teaching Philosophy and Science Fiction this fall, for the first time in 8 years or so. The general theme will be personhood, and I've been crowdsourcing suggestions for science fiction to include. I'll be posting results here. At the end of each of the four units, students will be asked to give a philosophical analysis/critique of a work of science fiction that addresses a particular philosophical question. The task for unit 1 is to analyze a work of science fiction that involves an apparent conflict between a plausible moral rule (e.g., respect for...
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July 23, 2023
Philosophical Themes in the 'Homo Superior' Trope in Science Fiction
I am currently preparing a course on Philosophy and Science Fiction for the fall, focusing on the theme of personhood. It has been 8 years since I last taught a course on this topic, so I am re-designing it more or less from scratch, and I recently asked on social media for suggestions of scifi works to include. I'll be doing some more of that and posting the reading list and additional suggested reading here over the rest of the summer. This post, however, is about some neat stuff that I probably won't manage to squeeze onto my syllabus (this...
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