Course Descriptions

Students examine a broad range of philosophical problems, methods and areas of interest. Topics may include the nature of reality, theory of knowledge, the existence and nature of God, the idea of beauty, personal and social ethics, political philosophy, the mind-body problem, freedom and determinism and personal identity.
Note: PHIL 1381 is a prerequisite for all upper-division philosophy courses.

Students develop a problem-solving approach to the study of both informal and formal reasoning, focusing upon techniques and principles for the analysis and evaluation of logical arguments. The course includes a study of the rules of inference, including deduction and induction, and rules for definition, emphasizing evaluation of the validity and soundness of arguments as well as recognition of common fallacies of reasoning. 
Prerequisite: PHIL 1381 OR PHIL 1381H

This is an advanced examination of theories of reality, knowledge, and the complex connections between them. Topics may include the nature of being, substance, causality, change and becoming, possibility and actuality, materialism and idealism, the nature and scope of human knowledge, skepticism, criteria and methods of certainty, rationalism and empiricism, and the nature of truth. 
Prerequisite: PHIL 1381 OR PHIL 1381H

Students examine personal and social ethics. Topics may include ethical theory, the nature and scope of ethical discourse, the concepts of the good, virtue, duty and responsibility, civil authority, international law, and the state and religion. 
Prerequisite: PHIL 1381 OR PHIL 1381H

Students survey ancient Greek philosophy with emphasis on the major philosophical themes explored by the Presocratics, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
Prerequisite: PHIL 1381 OR PHIL 1381H

Students survey Western Philosophy during the Middle Ages, including, among others, the thought of St. Augustine, St. Anselm, Roger Bacon, St. Thomas Aquinas and William of Occam. 
Prerequisite: PHIL 1381 OR PHIL 1381H

Students survey Western Philosophy from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, Kant and post-Kantian Idealism. 
Prerequisite: PHIL 1381 OR PHIL 1381H

Students survey Western Philosophy from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Topics may include Marxism, positivism, American pragmatism, process philosophy, analytic philosophy, phenomenology, existentialism and more recent developments in deconstruction and postmodernism. 
Prerequisite: PHIL 1381 OR PHIL 1381H

Students explore major philosophical currents and texts from around the world, which may include Indian, Japanese, Chinese, South Asian, Arabic, Persian, Native American, Latin American, and African traditions.
Prerequisite: PHIL 1381 OR PHIL 1381H