Undergraduate Course Descriptions

This course is intended to equip the student with a baseline understanding of issues and concepts that compose the Western philosophic enterprise, and to serve as a point of departure for their further studies in Philosophy.

This course will examine the field of ethics and provide the tools for ethical decision-making. Students will analyze texts for meaning, apply theories learned to various areas of moral concern, such as war, euthanasia, divorce, and poverty. The course will also provide an overview of how philosophers have thought about moral problems and some of the solutions they have proposed. Students will develop the ability to think about moral problems in a clear and logically consistent manner.

This course is an examination of the historical and contemporary concepts and techniques used in logic and emphasizes modern and classical treatments of topics such as quantification and rules of inference. The course will cover the principles of induction, informal fallacies, and uses of logic in everyday life. (Prerequisite: PHIL101). NOTE: THIS COURSE UTILIZES SOFTWARE THAT CAN ONLY BE RUN ON WINDOWS OR MAC SYSTEMS

This course examines the leading ethical thinkers, research, and writings that dominate the history of moral philosophy from the ancient to the contemporary periods, including such traditional philosophers as Aristotle, Kant, and Mill. Students will compare and contrast traditional Western theories and non-traditional, non-Western ethical theories, and recognize the main objections to traditional Western ethical theories. (Pre-requisite: PHIL101).

This course examines themes in the thought of Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoic, Epicurean, and neo-Platonist philosophers of the ancient world. It enables the student to enter the “great conversation” of western civilization as well as debate the fundamental questions that surround science, religion, self-awareness, ethics, and politics. (Prerequisite: PHIL101).

This course considers the synthesis of Christianity with classical pagan philosophy achieved by St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. What became of the ancients’ ideal of human knowledge in an age when philosophy became the “handmaid of theology"? What were the underpinnings of the “natural law” conception of moral and political philosophy? How did this medieval synthesis break down, on the scientific side with Galileo’s challenge to Aristotelian physics and astronomy, and on the moral and political side with Machiavelli’s portrayal of a Renaissance prince? (Note to Students: The course materials, assignments, learning outcomes, and expectations in this upper level undergraduate course assume that the student has completed all lower level general education and career planning coursework necessary to develop research, writing, and critical thinking skills. Students who have not fulfilled all general education requirements through courses or awarded transfer credit should strongly consider completing these requirements prior to registering for this course. (Prerequisite: PHIL101).

This course is an introduction to the three great traditions of Chinese philosophy: Confucianism, Taoism, and Ch’an Buddhism. Modern translations and commentaries of the classical texts will be used.

This course is an introduction to the Japanese philosophical tradition. Zen Buddhist teachings will be examined through two quite different but equally representative schools: "zazen" - sitting in meditation, and "koan" - Zen riddles. The Bushido or Samurai teachings will also be examined. Modern translations and commentaries of the classical texts will be used.

This course is a study of environmental issues from a moral and philosophical approach. Issues raised in the course include the moral obligation, or lack thereof, to preserve and protect the environment, the ethical presumptions that underlie environmental policy, the traditional theories of moral philosophy applicable to contemporary environmental problems, and the potential for a new conception of the relationship between humanity and nature.

This course is an examination of specific topics in philosophy that are of central interest and interdisciplinary in nature. Topics are selected with reference to the areas of technology, aesthetics, philosophy of religion, as well as ethics, social, and political philosophy. Topics include but are not limited to homosexuality, abortion, drugs, civil disobedience, capital punishment, and the rights of the individual versus the rights of society. (Pre-requisite: PHIL101).

This course is a critical examination of problems concerning knowledge and belief; for example, how are beliefs acquired and justified, are there limits to knowledge, what is the scope and reliability of reason and experience, what counts as an explanation, how are truth, meaning and reality related? Readings will be from historical and contemporary sources, e.g., Descartes, Kant, Russell, Wittgenstein, Quine.

What is it that we name, what is it that we mean, when we say God? Although we may speak of God as if we are naming some entity or being whose identity we hold in common understanding, as we will see, God is a name used to express a range of concepts and experiences that have varying and often conflicting features. In this class we will examine some of these concepts and descriptions of experiences of the divine. Ultimately, however, this is not a study of God but of man and his attempt to understand his relation within and between God and the world.

This course follows the development of the European philosophical tradition through the age of religious upheaval, secular enlightenment, and scientific and democratic revolutions. The key themes addressed in the course include the social contract theory, toleration, freedom of thought, and the enlightenment ideal. (Pre-requisite: PHIL101).

This course is the contemporary discussion of philosophic thought. It addresses the leading thinkers and theories of the past two centuries and includes but is not limited to Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Sartre, and Arendt. (Pre-requisite: PHIL101).

This capstone course is an intensive study of major figure(s) and or movement(s) in philosophic thought. Students will integrate knowledge acquired in previous courses into critical analyses of movements, theories and principles that have influenced historical and contemporary thought in philosophy.This is a capstone course to be taken after all other Philosophy courses have been satisfactorily completed. Student must have SENIOR standing to register.