Course Descriptions

10003 PHILOSOPHY ONE: (Subtitle and content may vary in different sections.) This course focuses on the basic human concerns treated under the classical core elements of philosophical inquiry, and prepares students for more detailed treatments of these areas in courses at the 30000 level. Major topics include ethics, epistemology, metaphysics and the philosophies of religion, science, art and mind, and introductory logic.

10103 MIND, MEANING, AND MORALITY. This course provides an introduction to philosophy focused on the metaphysical and ethical questions, What (who) are we?  What should we do? and What makes life Meaningful?  Answers from various figures in Western thought will be compared and evaluated, providing a basis for further study of these areas at the 30000 level. 

20103 CRITICAL REASONING. How to detect, analyze, and critically evaluate reasoning in ordinary language and its technical counterparts found in business, economics, etc. The course is designed to enhance skills for handling arguments in a variety of texts. Understanding the arguments and theories encountered in one's situations is stressed, along with how one can improve one's own expression of arguments and theories, especially in writing. Topics include techniques of reconstruction and evaluation in a process of self-editing, detection of fallacies, and distinguishing correct from incorrect reasoning.

20213 PHILOSOPHY AND FILM. Students will examine and critically evaluate important philosophical ideas as they are expressed in film. Students will watch fils and read accompanying philosophical texts that deal with perennial philosophical questions.

30003 JUNIOR HONORS SEMINAR. Prerequisite: Permission of instructor.

30133 SYMBOLIC LOGIC I. (Math 30133) An introduction to the scope and limits of modern logic. The nature of logical systems and the various areas of logic are discussed. Alternative proof- procedures in propositional logic and predicate logic are presented.

30143 SYMBOLIC LOGIC II. (MATH 30143) Prerequisite: PHIL 30133. A continuation of 30133, with an emphasis on predicate logic, nonstandard logic, and metalogic.

30313 MORAL PROBLEMS. Prerequisite: PHIL 10003. A examination of contemporary moral issues. Typical topics include abortion, euthanasia, discrimination, preferential hiring, the enforcement of community standards, the morality of war, punishment, the rights of distant peoples and future generations, and environmental ethics.

30323 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. (RELI 30633) Prerequisite: PHIL 10003 or any religion course. Philosophy of Religion today is centrally concerned with issues relating to the rationality and justification of religious convictions. There is also an interest in the coherence of religious concepts. In this course various philosophical models for understanding and evaluating religious convictions and practices are examined and applied.

30333 ASIAN PHILOSOPHY. Prerequisite: PHIL 10003. A survey of the three intellectual traditions of Asia: Japanese, Chinese, and Indian philosophy. Topics include causality, concepts of the individual and Nature, and the nature of reality and knowing.

30353 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. Prerequisite: PHIL 10003. An introduction to the classical systems and central issues in political philosophy. The approach is largely historical, and selected major thinkers of most recent four centuries form the focus of the course.

30363 ETHICS AND HEALTHCARE. Prerequisite: PHIL 10003 or permission of the instructor. An introduction to ethical and philosophical issues in healthcare. Case studies supplemented with readings from medical, nursing, and philosophical literature.

30373 EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY. Prerequisite: PHIL 10003. This course offers students an opportunity to reflect on such topics as alienation, the search for meaning, freedom, embodiment, authenticity, love, and ethics as they are deal with in texts by major writers in the 19th and 20th century movement known as existentialism.

30393 PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. Prerequisite: PHIL 10003. A survey of past and present accounts of human mentality. Beginning with the classical ideas of the soul the course concentrates on the major theories of mind advanced by Western philosophers in the last four centuries.

30403 ENVIRONMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. Prerequisite: PHIL 10003. This course surveys several contemporary approaches for understanding our moral obligation to the environment, including intuitionism utilitarianism, deontology and feminism. By applying these approaches to concrete environmental issues, the course illustrates how efforts to preserve the environment raise special difficulties for traditional moral categories, such as intrinsic and instrumental value. The course also explores the peculiarly aesthetic dimension of environmental ethics, including claims about the value of natural beauty and unspoiled wilderness.

30413 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY OF LAW. Prerequisite: PHIL 10003. An examination of the basic issues in Legal Theory. Topics typically include the nature of legal reasoning, the relationship between law and morality, and classical theories of law.

30423 INTRODUCTION TO EPISTEMOLOGY.  Prerequisites: Any 10000-level (or higher) course in Philosophy or permission of instructor. An examination of the central issues in epistemology. Topics typically include the structure of knowledge (and justification), skepticism, a priori (i.e. nonempirical) knowledge, truth as the primary epistemic goal, and specific kinds of knowledge (e.g. knowledge by memory, knowledge by testimony, knowledge by introspection).

30433 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE.  Prerequisites: Any 10000-level (or higher) course in Philosophy or permission of instructor. An examination of the central issues in the philosophy of science. Topics typically include science versus pseudoscience, theory testing and confirmation/disconfirmation, scientific explanation, laws of nature, and realism versus antirealism.

30970 PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES. Prerequisite: Permission of instructor. Topics vary as announced. May be repeated for credit. (1-6 sem. hrs.)

40000 SENIOR HONORS RESEARCH. Prerequisite: Permission of instructor. (1-3 sem. hrs.)

40103 SEMINAR IN LOGIC. Prerequisite: PHIL 30133 or MATH 20524 (or permission of instructor). Advanced topics in logic. Course content to vary by semester and will include areas such as formal languages, mathematical logic, deontic logic, modal systems, and philosophy of language.

40203 SEMINAR IN METAPHYSICS. Prerequisite: Permission of instructor. Course content to vary by semester and will include such areas as philosophy of mind, philosophy of history, action theory, ontology, Process Philosophy and Continental Philosophy.

40213 HISTORY OF ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY. Prerequisites: PHIL 10003 and any 30000 level PHIL course. A survey of the major figures in Western thought between 600 BCE and 1500 CE. Among those included are the Presocratics, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine and Aquinas.

40220 CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY. Prerequisite: Permission of instructor. An historical study of one or more philosophical movements in the twentieth century. Topics vary and include analytic, existential, phenomenological and process philosophy. May be repeated for credit. (3-6 sem. hrs.)

40223 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. Prerequisites: PHIL 10003 and PHIL 30383 (or PHIL 30393 or permission of instructor). A survey of the major figures in Western thought from 1500 to 1800. Among those included are Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Kant.

40233 HISTORY OF CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES. Prerequisites: PHIL 10003 and PHIL 40223. The philosophical tradition after Kant developed in different ways in Continental Europe from the ways it did in English speaking countries. This course examines those developments, especially in Germany and France. Such thinkers as Hegel and the German Idealists, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, Husserl and Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, Gadamer, Ricoeur and Derrida are discussed.

40243 ANGLO-AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY. Prerequisites: PHIL 10003 and PHIL 40223. A historical study of either the analytic or pragmatic tradition. Such figures as Carnap, Neurath, Schlick, Moore, Russell, and Ayer; or Royce, Peirce, Mead, James, Dewey, and Quine; or a combination of philosophers are studied.

40253 SEMINAR IN HISTORY OF PHILOSOPY.  Prerequisites: PHIL 10003 and PHIL 30383 or PHIL 30393 or permission of instructor.  A survey of the major figured in Western thought from 1500 to 1800.  Among those included are Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant.  

40303 SEMINAR IN VALUE THEORY. Prerequisite: Permission of instructor. Course content to vary by semester and will include such areas as metaethics, phenomenology of values, philosophy of religion, legal philosophy, philosophy of sport and aesthetics.

40323 PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. Prerequisites: PHIL 10003 or advanced standing as a major in one of the physical, life, or social sciences (or permission of the instructor.) Includes What are the aims of science? What are the roles of theory and experiment in science? What is explanation? What is a scientific law? How do scientists justify their claims? How does scientific knowledge develop and grow? What are the differences between physical and live sciences and the social sciences?

40343 ADVANCED ISSUES IN PHILOSOPHY OF LAW. Prerequisites: PHIL 10003 and 30413. A rigorous examination of specific issues in legal theory and jurisprudence. Topics may include the nature of law, legal adjudication, law and economics, theories of punishment, and legal responsibility and obligation.

40353 SEMINAR IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.  Prerequisite: Phil 30313, Phil 30413, or Phil 30353 or permission of instructor.  A philosophical analysis of some selected topics that are central to  political philosophy.  Topics may include a discussion of the nature of human rights, the nature and limit of political authority, analysis of the problem of political obligation, the moral value of freedom and autonomy, and the meaning and nature of justice. 

40373 ART AND THE AESTHETIC. Prerequisite: PHIL 10003. Philosophical theories are presented regarding the nature of art and aesthetic experience. The concepts of representation, expression, formalism, the work of art, intention, meaning, truth, and criticism are discussed along with how they contribute to answering the question, "What is art?"

40383 ADVANCED TOPICS IN HUMAN NATURE. Prerequisites: PHIL 10003 and PHIL 30383 (or PHIL 30393). Critical analysis of contemporary theories of human nature advanced by philosophers, psychologists, biologists, cognitive scientists and others. The thinkers under consideration will vary but examples would include E. O. Wilson, B. F. Skinner, Sigmund Freud, John Searle and Daniel Dennett.

40393 ETHICAL THEORY. Prerequisites: PHIL 10003 and PHIL 30353 (or PHIL 30313 or PHIL 30363). A systematic treatment of basic issues in moral theory, critically examining such issues as the possibility of providing rational foundations for moral belief, and the nature of moral judgments and moral reasoning, focusing on the work of major historical and contemporary figures.

40403 SEMINAR IN EPISTEMOLOGY. Prerequisite: Permission of instructor. Course content to vary by semester and include areas such as theories of perception, theories of truth, analytic philosophy, philosophy of science, phenomenology, pragmatism and empiricism.

50970 DIRECTED STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY. Prerequisite: Permission of instructor.