ADPL2011 · Advancing Studies

True Detectives: Investigating the Crimes and Mysteries of Existence

ADV

For modern readers, detectives stand as the image of the ideal thinker. In literature, cinema, and on TV, we see the hold detectives have on our cultural imagination. They are viewed as purveyors of wisdom, personifications of reason, logical thinkers defined by their commitment to the facts and their unflinching pursuit of truth at all cost - especially hard, uncomfortable truths, the kind most of us prefer not to see. From the time of Aristotle, philosophers have approached the world as if it was the scene of a crime, a mystery to be solved, a riddle to be deciphered. Philosophers, it might be said, act as investigators whose job it is to uncover hidden truths. Like detectives, they are late on the scene, arriving after the crime has been committed. Like detectives, they rely upon the facts of existence to question and reason their way to probable answers, to what happened here and why.In this course, students will learn the art of philosophical investigation by learning to think like a detective. Questions of epistemology - what can be known - and metaphysics - why things are the way they are - will be explored in relation to mystery novels, detective shows, and works of philosophical literature.