Required textbooks:

John Stuart Mill (ed. John Gray), On Liberty and Other Essays (Oxford UP)
Update: the U-store hasn't ordered this book, on the grounds that used copies are very inexpensive. That's your cue to get this on Amazon, for a penny plus shipping. You might want to do this before class starts; we'll be using it soon.
Charles Dickens, Hard Times (Bantam)
John Stuart Mill, System of Logic (Collected Works, vols. 7 and 8, Liberty Fund)
John Stuart Mill, Autobiography and Literary Essays, (Collected Works, vol. 1, Liberty Fund)
James Mill, Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (available as a course reader)
James Gunn, The Joy Makers (Fantastic Books -- however, any edition is fine; there are likely to be inexpensive used copies available)
Update: the U-store hasn't ordered enough copies of this book; I suggest looking online. Amazon is out of stock for Prime-eligible copies, so you may have to opt for a used copy anyway.
F. Nietzsche, Basic Writings of Nietzsche, trans. and ed. Walter Kaufmann (Modern Library)
F. Nietzsche, The Portable Nietzsche, trans. and ed. Walter Kaufmann (Penguin)
F. Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann (Vintage)

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Alexander Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature (Harvard UP)
Paul Katsafanas, Agency and the Foundations of Ethics: Nietzschean Constitutivism (Oxford UP)

Most of these books have been in print for quite a while, and you can save money by finding them used.

For Mill, it pretty much doesn't matter which edition you use; they're more or less all respectable. The Liberty Fund hosts the online Mill's Collected Works.

However, for Nietzsche, be careful to stick with the recommended translations: there are many translations of Nietzsche, and many of them are not respectable. (If you already own other editions, check in with me at the beginning of the semester, and I'll tell you which ones are okay.)

Additional readings will be made available through the Marriott Library reserve desk. (See Marriott's Course Reserve How to Guide for an intro to using the library reserves.)

Reading Assignments:

Aug. 25: Optional prereading: David Wiggins, "Truth, Invention, and the Meaning of Life" (online reserve; this is a very difficult reading -- don't be daunted if you get lost midway thru). Nagel, "The Absurd" (JSTOR).
Followup reading: Ben Crowe, "Friedrich Schlegel and the Character of Romantic Ethics," Journal of Ethics 14 (2010), from p. 61 (at the section break) to the top of p. 62 (end of the first paragraph), and p. 68 (last paragraph) to the section break on p. 70.
Aug. 27: The Utilitarian Project.
Reading: Mill, Utilitarianism, ch. 1; ch. 2; paras. 1-2; ch. 4, paras. 1-10 (up to "...a physical and metaphysical necessity"). (You can find this either in Gray, ed., John Stuart Mill, On Liberty and Other Essays, or in Vol. X of the Collected Works).
Jeremy Bentham, "Of the Principle of Utility" (online reserve -- this is a chapter in his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, if you have the book lying around).
Optional reading: if you want to get an overview of what the Benthamites' ideology and platform looked like before Mill got his hands on it, the standard treatment is Elie Halevy, The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism. I haven't put this on reserve, because it's a longish read; however, the library has three copies.
Aug. 29: Anticipating Problems with Projects.
Reading: Bernard Williams, "The Makropulos Case" (online reserve).
Optional reading: Connie Rosati, "The Makropulos Case Revisited"; Karel Capek, The Makropulos Case.

Change of plan -- since there isn't enough immediate availability on the Gunn book, I'm rearranging the order of the next few sessions.

Happy Labor Day! Take Mill's Autobiography and his father's psych textbook to the beach!

Sept. 3. Programming Your Child for Fun and Profit -- and Political Advantage.
Reading: Mill, Autobiography, ch. 1. James Mill, Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, vol. i, pp. 2-3, 40-47, 51-62, 68-69 (note 24), 70-102 (top, and you can skip note 32, even though it's by Mill -- we'll get to it later); vol. ii, pp. 262-263 (footnote 49).
(The Analysis is available as a course reader, in the bookstore; the chapters are also available on online reserve -- these page ranges are from chs. 1-3 -- and you can click through to a .pdf of the entire book on the Marriott catalog.)
N.B.: The footnotes are important, but you don't have to read all of them: first, look at the end of the footnote to see who wrote it. If it says "Ed.", it's by John Stuart Mill (the author's son, and our main interest now); if it says anything else (e.g., "B" for Alexander Bain, you can skip it).
Optional reading: Michael Packe, The Life of John Stuart Mill, pp. 3-47 (online reserve).
And if you're starting to think about writing your first paper, here are some model assignments by former students: "Amplification of Desire Results in... Amplified Desires"; "Association of Ideas and the Joy of Ability" (online reserve).
Sept. 5. Arguing for the 1st Amendment.
Reading: Mill, On Liberty, chs. 1-2. James Mill, Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, vol. i, pp. 106-114 (the very long footnote 34).
Optional reading, for those gearing up for the first paper, and looking for writing advice: George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language" (online reserve). And for people looking for a paper target: Millgram, "On Being Bored Out of Your Mind", secs. 2-3.
Sept. 8. Complaints about the Benthamite Project.
Reading: James Gunn, The Joy Makers.
Optional reading: Bernard Williams, "Against Utilitarianism," in Smart and Williams, Utilitarianism: For and Against (on reserve).
Followon reading and viewing: J.-K. Huysmans, Against Nature (available at the Marriott reserve desk); Stanley Kubrick, A Clockwork Orange.
Sept. 10. Mill Responds to Complaints.
Reading: Mill, Utilitarianism, chs. 2, 5. (In Gray, John Stuart Mill On Liberty and Other Essays.) Analysis, vol. 2, pp. 206-255, 265-266 (thru first full para.).
Optional reading: Gertrude Himmelfarb: On Liberty and Liberalism: The Case of John Stuart Mill (on reserve); Millgram, "Liberty, the Higher Pleasures, and Mill's Missing Science of Ethnic Jokes", through sec. 5.
Optional followong viewing: Danny Boyle, Trainspotting (available at the Marriott Media Desk).
Sept. 12.
Reading: Mill, Autobiography, ch. 2; Jeremy Bentham, "The Auto-Icon" (online reserve).
Optional reading: "The Bentham Project's Auto-Icon page"; Bentham, Chrestomathia (excerpts; online reserve).
Further reading, for those of you who wanted to think about whether values are objective -- and for people getting ready to write their papers: Heather Douglas, "The Irreducible Complexity of Objectivity" (online reserve).
Sept. 15. Growing Up in the Flat Earth Society.
Reading: James Mill, Analysis, vol. ii, pp. 250-255; Mill, System of Logic, Book VI, ch. iv ("Of the Laws of Mind" -- in the Collected Works, that's vol. 8, starting on p. 849). Start reading Dickens, Hard Times.
Sept. 17. Mill's Epiphany.
Reading: Mill, Autobiography, ch. 3.
Optional reading: Harry Frankfurt, "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person".
Sept. 19. Mill's Postdoc.
Reading: Mill, Autobiography, ch. 4; Dickens, Hard Times.
Optional reading: Martha Nussbaum, "Literary Imagination in Public Life" (online reserve). Jeremy Bentham, Rationale of Judicial Evidence (excerpts, online reserve); "Bentham" (in Collected Works, vol. X).
Sept. 22. Mill Cracks Up.
Reading: Mill, Autobiography, ch. 5; Candace Vogler, "Means, Ends and Mill" (online reserve).
Optional reading: Janice Carlisle, "Vocation" (online reserve).
Sept. 24. What Poetry Does (Round One).
Reading: Wordsworth, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" (Bartleby). (Please come to class prepared to read this out loud; this means practicing reading it aloud at home. Please also be prepared to paraphrase the poem in ordinary English; this means paying attention to the sense as you read. ... models for your recitation: Wordsworth courtesy of MC Nuts and Cumbria Tourism, and Natalie Wood.) Review A 5:6.
Optional reading: Laurie Paul, "The Worm at the Root of the Passions" (online reserve).
Sept. 26. Deduction.
Reading: Mill, System of Logic, Book II, chs. 2-3;
Optional reading: Mill, "Auguste Comte and Positivism" (Collected Works vol. X).
Sept. 29. Induction.
Reading: Mill, System of Logic, Book III, chs. 3-5 (up thru sec. 6 [= p. 342]), 21.
Optional reading: R. B. Braithwaite, "The Predictionist Justification of Induction" (online reserve).

PAPERS DUE TUE SEPT 30

Oct. 1. Necessity (I).
Reading: Mill, System of Logic, Book VI, ch. 2 ("Of Liberty and Necessity").
Optional reading: Millgram, "John Stuart Mill, Determinism, and the Problem of Induction" (online reserve). Followon/background reading: Hilary Bok, Freedom and Responsibility, ch. 1.
Oct. 3. Upgrading the Project: Free Will.
Reading: SW chs. 1-2.
Optional reading: Mill, "On Marriage," "Statement on Marriage" (both in CW vol XXI).
Oct. 6. Analysis in Action: The Father of Feminism.
Reading: SW chs. 3-4.
Optional reading: Gertrude Himmelfarb, On Liberty and Liberalism: The Case of John Stuart Mill (on reserve).

Oct. 8. Instrumentalism and Authority.
Reading: Autobiography, ch. 6; Rose, ch. from Parallel Lives (online reserve).
Optional reading: Considerations on Representative Government, ch. 3. Further reading, for the very ambitious: F. A. Hayek, John Stuart Mill and Harriett Taylor: Their Friendship and Subsequent Marriage (it's a longish but fun read -- I haven't had it put on reserve).
Oct. 10. Liberty and Genius.
Reading: OL ch. 3; Mill, "On Genius", "Thoughts on Poetry and Its Varieties" (in Collected Works, vol. I).
Optional reading: U ch. 3; OL chs. 4-5; Elizabeth Anderson, "John Stuart Mill and Experiments in Living" (for best results with JSTOR, access on campus or click through to the journal -- in this case, Ethics -- from the Marriott catalog).

Paper topics have been handed out -- make sure you have a copy.

Read either Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature or Katsafanas, Agency and the Foundations of Ethics, over Fall Break. (If you're reading the Katsafanas, you can skip chapters 3 and 4.) There will be a pop quiz after the break.

Oct. 20. Mill's Aftermath.
Reading: Autobiography, ch. 7.
Optional followon reading: Millgram, "Mill's Incubus" (available shortly).
Oct. 22. How Project Lives Become Train Wrecks.
Reading: System of Logic, III:xv ("Of Progressive Effects"), VI:x ("Of the Inverse Deductive, or Historical Method").
Optional reading: Stuart Hampshire, "Spinoza and the Idea of Freedom" (online reserve); Bernard Williams, "Moral Incapacity" (online reserve).
Oct. 24. The Straight Reading of Nietzsche, First Lap: 'Bad' and 'Evil'.
Reading: GM P, I (= Genealogy of Morals, Preface and first Essay, in Kaufmann, ed., Basic Writings of Nietzsche; see this list of abbreviations for guidance in referring to Nietzsche's works); Robert Solomon, "Nietzsche ad Hominem" (online reserve).
Optional reading: Nietzsche: se creer liberte (a graphic biography, in French; available at the reserve desk).
Oct. 27. Reading Nietzsche Straight: We Have Met Kubrick's Monolith, and It Is Us.
Reading: GM II. Solomon, "One Hundred Years of Ressentiment" (online reserve).
Optional reading: Lanier Anderson, "The Nobility of Nietzsche's Priests" (online reserve).

Thinking about your next paper? Check out Ian Anthony, "Metaphysical Doubling contra ad Hominem" (model paper, on online reserve).

Oct. 29. Reading Nietzsche Continental Straight: What Is Genealogy?
Reading: Review GM 2:12-13; read GM III.
Optional reading: Raymond Geuss, "Nietzsche and Genealogy" (online reserve). Christopher Janaway, "Nietzsche's Illustration of the Art of Exegesis" (online reserve). Followup reading, for the very ambitious: Foucault, Madness and Civilization, for an extended illustration of how genealogies are supposed to work, one that is also a critique of Nietzsche's assessment of the value of certain values.

I'll be giving a talk at the SLCC conference on Nietzsche's nihilism (Th, Oct 30, 11:00-11:45): "Who Was the Author of Nietzsche's Zarathustra?"

Oct. 31. Alternatives to the Straight Reading of the Genealogy.
Reading: Review GM 1:13-14, 3:14. Ken Gemes, "We Remain of Necessity Strangers to Ourselves" (online reserve). We may also get to Alasdair MacIntyre, "Genealogies and Subversions" (online reserve); if not, we'll do it next week.
Optional reading: This would be a good time to take another look at a model paper: Ian Anthony, "Nietzsche: Metaphysical Doubling Contra Ad Hominem" (online reserve -- it discusses GM 1:13). If you want to use your instructor as a paper target, try Millgram, "Who Was Nietzsche's Genealogist?" (online reserve). And for the very ambitious: David Strauss, "Davidical Descent of Jesus" (excerpts, online reserve).
Nov 3. Reading Nietzsche Straight: The Eternal Return.
Reading: Z 3:1,2,13 (in The Portable Nietzsche; these sections are "The Wanderer," "On the Vision and the Riddle," and "The Convalescent"; see the table of contents at pp. 112-114 to match up section numbers and titles in Zarathustra with page numbers). GS 341. Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (excerpts, online reserve); Nehamas, "This Life -- Your Eternal Life" (online reserve = ch. 5 of Life as Literature; if you read Nehamas over fall break, this is just review).
Optional reading: Danto, "Eternal Recurrence" (online reserve); Soll, "Reflections on Recurrence" (online reserve); Zuboff, "Nietzsche and Eternal Recurrence" (online reserve). Maudemarie Clark, Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy, ch. 8 ("Eternal Recurrence"; available at the Marriott reserve desk). For your amusement: The Nietzsche Family Circus.
Nov 5. Nietzschean Metaphysics.
Reading: Beyond Good and Evil, Preface and Part I; GS 110-112, 121, 246, 348, 354, 355, 373. Review MacIntyre, "Genealogies and Subversions."
Optional reading: This would be a good time to review Nehamas, "A Thing Is the Sum of Its Effects" (Nietzsche: Life as Literature, ch. 3). If you want to see someone who thinks that Nietzsche has a metaphysics, check out Richardson, Nietzsche's System (excerpts, online reserve). Followup reading (a good paper target): Maudmarie Clark and David Dudrick, "Nietzsche on the Will" (online reserve).
Nov 7. What the Values Are is a Practical Question.
Reading: Beyond Good and Evil, Part II. Lanier Anderson "Nietzsche on Redemption and Transfiguration" (online reserve). Raphael's "Transfiguration of Christ," discussed by Anderson (click on-campus, disable popup blocking).

Optional reading: BGE Part III.

Another model paper -- "Mill's Crisis" -- is now available online.

Nov 10. Philosophical Portraiture: Who Are the Good Europeans?
Reading: BGE V-VII (up to sec. 229). Alexander Nehamas, "Who Are 'The Philosophers of the Future'?: A Reading of Beyond Good and Evil" (e-reserve).
Optional reading: Lanier Anderson, "Philosophy as Self-Fashioning" (online reserve).
Nov 12. Going for a Drive.
Reading: BGE VII (from sec. 230); BGE VIII; GS P.4; review BGE Preface; Katsafanas, "Nietzsche's Philosophical Psychology" (online reserve).
Optional reading: GS 59-75; Maudemarie Clark, "Nietzsche's Misogyny" (online reserve); Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Over-Soul" (online reserve).
Nov 14. Synthesizing the Self.
Reading: BGE IX; Anderson, "What Is a Nietzschean Self?" (online reserve).
Optional reading: Anderson, "Nietzsche on Strength and Achieving Individuality" (online reserve); Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature, ch. 6 ("How One Becomes What One Is").

Another model paper is now available: Taylor Almond, "Mill's Faded Pleasures" (online reserve).

FINAL PAPER TOPICS HAVE BEEN HANDED OUT -- MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A COPY.

Nov 17. Nietzsche Gets Sick.
Reading: GS IV.
Optional reading: Leonard Sax, "What Was the Cause of Nietzsche's Dementia?" (online reserve). Followon reading, for the very ambitious: Pierre Klossowski, Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle (on reserve).
Nov 19. Legends of the Overmunchkin!
Reading: Z I. (Come prepared to paraphrase each section into just plain ordinary English.)
Optional reading: Hollingdale, "Lou Salome" (online reserve). And for your amusement, Sharon Wahl, "I Also Dated Zarathustra" (online reserve).
Want to know more about Nietzche's girlfriend? Take a look at Binion, Frau Lou.
Nov 21. Redemption Value: 5 cents in CT, HI, IA, MA...
Reading: Z II.
Optional reading: Pippin, "Irony and Affirmation in Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra" (online reserve).
Nov 24. Bad Yolk! Plus, Tablets.
Reading: Z III; review GS 360, and come with further objections to Nietzsche's view. Review Lanier Anderson "Nietzsche on Redemption and Transfiguration" (online reserve) -- we'll start off with a quick pop quiz on the paper.
Optional reading: Nadeem Hussain, "Honest Illusion: Valuing for Nietzsche's Free Spirits" (online reserve).
Nov 26. Who Was Nietzsche's Convalescent?
Reading: GS V.
Optional reading: Rochefoucauld, Reflections.

Happy Thanksgiving! Take The Antichrist home to read after dinner.

Dec. 1. Who Was Nietzsche's Antichrist?
Reading: AC (all of it); Wagner, "Judaism in Music" (online reserve). Review CW 7; come prepared to give a definition of "decadence".
Optional reading: Katsafanas, ch. 5.
Dec. 3. Decadence and Nihilism.
Reading: TI through "The Four Great Errors".
Optional reading: Katsafanas, ch. 1; Nehamas, ch. 2.
Dec. 5. Who Was Nietzsche's Psychologist?
Reading: Finish TI.
Optional reading: Katsafanas, chs. 7-8; Nehamas, ch. 7.
Dec. 8. Decadence, Perspectivism, and the Eternal Return.
Reading: EH through "Dawn".
Optional reading: Hollingdale, "The Hero as Outsider" (online reserve); Nehamas, ch. 1.
Dec. 10. Meaning in Life for One Very Sick Puppy.
Reading: Finish EH.
Optional reading: Katsafanas, ch. 2; Nehamas, ch. 4.
Dec. 12. The Meaning of Life: The State of Play.
No new reading.

Graded final papers are available for pickup in the Philosophy Department reception area -- ask Connie or Sterling.