A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.

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Raja El Halwani

Professor, Presidential Professor

Contact

Bio

Raja Halwani is Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Liberal Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has a BA in economics (American University of Beirut) and a PhD in Philosophy (Syracuse University). He is the author or editor of seven books, and of numerous articles in journals and anthologies, including his book Philosophy of Love, Sex, and Marriage: An Introduction, which came out in its second edition in 2018. He specializes in the philosophy of sex and love, moral, social, and political philosophy, and philosophy of art. He teaches various courses at SAIC, especially Philosophy of Art, Philosophy of Sex, and Controversial Moral Issues.

 

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

This course examines basic questions in the philosophy of art from the analytic tradition. Some major questions include: What is the definition of ?art?? What is the role of artistic intentions in interpreting and evaluating art? What connections are there between art, on the one hand, and beauty and aesthetics, on the other? What are aesthetic (artistic) principles and how do they differ from aesthetic (artistic) judgments? Are aesthetic or artistic judgment objective or subjective, and how do they connect to issues of taste? What connections are there between art and ethics? And what is the value of art? Philosophers that we study include Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and contemporary ones such as George Dickie, Jerrold Levinson, Monroe Beardsley, Kendall Walton, Noel Carroll, Berys Gaut, Marcia Muelder Eaton, Carolyn Korsmeyer, Paul C. Taylor, Richard Shusterman, Frank Sibley, and Malcolm Budd. Assignments vary, but they might include some or many of the following: weekly reading responses, quizzes, papers, and exams.

Class Number

2123

Credits

3