General description of the Senior Seminar Format
Intended for students with a specific interest in advanced research and an eye towards post-graduate studies in philosophy, this course is designed to meet the needs of students who wish to develop greater depth in their philosophical studies.

The course consists of rotating content based on the expertise of philosophy teachers at University College. It is organized thematically, and requires students to follow three seminars of five weeks each treating main categories of philosophical investigation, such as metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, aesthetics, ethics, philosophy of mind, language, religion and science.

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Topic for the Fall semester of 2013: "East and West: the arbitrariness of divisions"

Content
The “East and West” Senior Seminars select a cluster of related themes and follow their treatment in non-Western (especially Indian, Chinese and Japanese) and Western traditions. In the Fall of 2013, the leading theme is: the arbitrariness of divisions. Or, ‘Does reality come in discrete units?’
We will read texts by philosophers and philosophically informed scientists and authors such as Parmenides and Chuang-Tzu, Plotinus and Shankara, Dogen and Spinoza, Schopenhauer and Borges, Bohm and McGilchrist, who argue that our human categories that enable us to make sense of the world on an everyday basis, like time, space, matter, subject-object distinction, yield an illusory view of reality. In fact, they impose divisions that might well be very useful for practical purposes, but are not to be found in reality. These philosophers use rigorous arguments to offer us a way out of this illusion. The way out consists in becoming aware of the arbitrariness of these human categories and the division and fragmentation that they yield.
Some of these authors also point at something —e.g. being, reality, the process, the will, the way—, which is more fundamental than these categories, yet which is not a mysterious object behind the veil of the categories. We will look at the arguments they use to show us that one (or more) of these categories are merely human, and compare these arguments. We will also compare the different models of the reality that they consider as 'more real' than the divisions that the categories impose on reality and that result in our everyday belief that reality comes in discrete units. The fact that some of these authors can be regarded not only as philosophers but also as poets and/or scientists will benefit the comparisons.

Aims
After completing this course students are able to:
• recognize and understand arguments from various philosophical traditions that either defend or attack specific assumptions about the nature of reality (e.g. that reality comes in discrete units); and thus come to realize how dialogue is possible between those who hold irreconcilable assumptions about the nature of reality.
• understand the role of logically structured step-by-step arguments (e.g. reductio ad absurdum) in the context of philosophies that claim that step-by-step arguments are not enough in order to know the nature of reality;
• recognize how philosophers use very different kinds of arguments (e.g. analogy; e.g. asking readers to reflect on their own experience) to induce readers to revise their assumptions;
• recognize and critically assess their own everyday assumptions about the nature of reality, by contrasting them with the philosophers’ different assumptions;
• recognize the impact of everyday language on assumptions about the nature of reality (e.g. the use of different words suggesting a real gap or discontinuity in reality between items referred to in different ways);
• formulate an original research question about philosophical texts of different traditions —with awareness of the problems related to reading most of them in translation— and elaborating an informed and intelligent answer to such questions in the context of a well-structured paper.

Format
Presentations by students and lectures by the teacher will alternate. We will watch two movies.