$250.00

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Seven Sessions | Tuesdays, 3 November – 15 December, 2026

10:00 LA | 13:00 NY | 18:00 London | 19:00 Paris

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Are we alone in the universe? Part of the answer to this question depends on what or whom we are willing to count as “others”. Would microbes on Mars be sufficient? Or do we need to have confirmation of intelligent life, perhaps with technological capabilities beyond our own? While statistical reasoning and discoveries in exoplanetary astronomy have brought about tremendous revolutions in recent decades in the way we think about the likelihood of extraterrestrial life, there remain some enduring ideas that return again and again, from antiquity to the present, and in different cultures around the world, in the way we represent alien life to ourselves. What can we learn from the study of these representations? And what are the limits of contemporary science in its effort to resolve the mystery of alien life? These will be the principal questions guiding our philosophical inquiry in this class.