Introductory Courses

• PHIL–P 100 Introduction to Philosophy (3 cr.) A & H Perennial problems of philosophy, including problems in ethics, in epistemology and metaphysics, and in philosophy of religion. Major emphases for each section appear in the online Schedule of Classes. I Sem., II Sem., SS.

• PHIL–P 103 Gender, Sexuality, and Race in Philosophical Perspectives (3 cr.) A & H New issues and emphases in philosophy arising out of a focus on gender, sexuality, and race. One basic issue is the nature of a person and definitions of “human being.” Another issue is the assumptions underlying current discussions in personal identity, feminism, race relations, and ethics.

• PHIL–P 105 Thinking and Reasoning (3 cr.) A & H Basic rules of correct reasoning; roles of definitions and of language in thinking; roles of observation, hypothesis, and theory in knowledge; basic techniques for gathering information, testing beliefs for truth, and problem solving.

• PHIL–P 115 Pro and Con: Philosophical Analysis of Contemporary Social Controversies (3 cr.) Uses philosophical tools to analyze and create arguments for/against a position. Uses PBS’s Pro and Con as a source of examples of positions on current issues, such as affirmative action. Students learn critical thinking skills and are introduced to areas of philosophy such as ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology.

• PHIL–P 135 Introduction to Existentialism (3 cr.) A & H, TFR Philosophical themes in nineteenth- and twentieth-century existentialism. Topics may include free choice and human responsibility, the nature of values, the influence of phenomenology on existentialism, and existentialism as illustrated in literature. Readings from some or all of Buber, Camus, Heidegger, Husserl, Jaspers, Kierkegaard, Marcel, Nietzsche, Beauvoir, and Sartre. No prior knowledge of philosophy is presupposed.

• PHIL–P 140 Introduction to Ethics (3 cr.) A & H Philosophers’ answers to ethical problems (e.g., the nature of good and evil, the relation of duty to self-interest, the objectivity of moral judgments), and the applications of ethical theory to contemporary problems.

• PHIL–P 145 Introduction to Social and Political Philosophy (3 cr.) A & H Fundamental problems of social and political philosophy: the nature of the state, political obligation, freedom and liberty, equality, justice, rights, social change, revolution, and community. Readings from classical and contemporary sources.

• PHIL–P 150 Elementary Logic (3 cr.) A & H Development of critical tools for the evaluation of arguments. Not a prerequisite for P250. Not open to students who have taken or are enrolled in P250. I Sem., II Sem., SS.

• PHIL–P 240 Business and Morality (3 cr.) A & H Fundamental issues of moral philosophy in a business context. Application of moral theory to issues such as the ethics of investment, moral assessment of corporations, and duties of vocation.

• PHIL–P 270 Introductory Topics in Philosophy (3 cr.) A & H Topics vary. May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.

Logic Courses

• PHIL–P 250 Introductory Symbolic Logic (3 cr.) N & M Propositional logic and first-order quantificational logic. No credit for P150 if P250 taken first or concurrently. I Sem.

• PHIL–P 251 Intermediate Symbolic Logic (3 cr.) P: P250. N & M Identity, definite descriptions, properties of formal theories, elementary set theory. II Sem.

• PHIL–P 350 Logic of Sets (3 cr.) P: P250. Elementary operations on sets, relations, functions, orderings, introduction to ordinal and cardinal numbers.

• PHIL–P 352 Logic and Philosophy (3 cr.) P: P150 or P250 or equivalent course. A & H Relation of logic to other areas of philosophy. Selected topics from among the following: logic and ontology; logic and language; logic, reasoning, and belief; intentionality and intensional logic; tense and modal logic and the nature of time and necessity; individuation and reference; relative vs. absolute identity.

History of Philosophy

The courses P201, P211, P301, and P304 are the department’s “core sequence” in the history of Western philosophy. P201 and P211 cover the two most important periods in that history, while P301 and P304 offer further study of other important periods. The courses may be taken in any order, but the department recommends that P201 and P211 be taken sequentially before either P301 or P304.

• PHIL–P 201 Ancient Greek Philosophy (3 cr.) R: 3 credit hours of philosophy. A & H, CSA Selective survey of ancient Greek philosophy (pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle). I Sem.

• PHIL–P 205 Modern Jewish Philosophy (3 cr.) A & H, CSA A survey and critical analysis of modern Jewish philosophers and thinkers such as Mendelssohn, Cohen, Rosenzweig, Buber, and Fackenheim. Topics: concepts of God; the nature of religion; autonomy and revealed morality; God and history; theodicy and the Holocaust; empiricists and analytic criticism of divine human encounter; Jewish philosophy and modern philosophy.

• PHIL–P 211 Modern Philosophy: Descartes through Kant (3 cr.) P: 3 credit hours of philosophy. A & H Selective survey of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophy, including some or all of the following: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant.

• PHIL–P 301 Medieval Philosophy (3 cr.) P: 3 credit hours of philosophy. A & H, CSA A selective survey of Western philosophy from the turn of the Christian era to the end of the Middle Ages. Readings from some or all of Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, Abelard, Bonaventure, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and Ockham.

• PHIL–P 304 Nineteenth-Century Philosophy (3 cr.) P: 3 credit hours of philosophy. A & H Selective survey of post-Kantian philosophy. Readings from some or all of Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard, Mill, and Nietzsche.

• PHIL–P 305 Topics in the Philosophy of Judaism (3 cr.) P: 3 credit hours of philosophy. A & H, CSA Comparative analysis of two or more Jewish philosophers; or selected topics in the philosophical treatment of contemporary Jewish experience; or topics in the history of Jewish philosophy. May be repeated once with different topic.

• PHIL–P 319 American Pragmatism (3 cr.) P: 3 credit hours of philosophy. A & H Examination of the central doctrines of Peirce, James, Dewey, Mead.

• PHIL–P 328 Philosophies of India (3 cr.) A & H, CSA Historical and critical-analytic survey of the major traditions of Indian philosophy. Attention to early philosophizing and the emergence of the classical schools in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions. Attention also to contemporary thought in India including critical theory and subaltern theorizing. Credit not given for both PHIL P328 and REL R368.

• PHIL–P 330 Marxist Philosophy (3 cr.) P: 3 credit hours of philosophy. A & H An examination of major philosophical issues in the light of Marxist theory. Historical materialism and the critique of idealism in metaphysics, the theory of knowledge, ethics, and social science. Discussion of both classical and contemporary sources.

• PHIL–P 335 Phenomenology and Existentialism (3 cr.) P: 3 credit hours of philosophy. A & H Selective survey of central themes in nineteenth- and twentieth-century phenomenology and existentialism. Readings from some or all of Buber, Camus, Heidegger, Husserl, Jaspers, Kierkegaard, Marcel, Nietzsche, Beauvoir, and Sartre.

• PHIL–P 374 Early Chinese Philosophy (3 cr.) A & H, CSA Origins of Chinese philosophical traditions in the classical schools of Confucianism, Taoism, Mohism, and Legalism. Explores contrasting agendas of early Chinese and Western traditions. Credit given for only one of P374, EALC E374, REL B374, or REL R368.

Ethics and Value Theory

• PHIL–P 242 Applied Ethics (3 cr.) P: 3 credit hours of philosophy. A & H Application of moral theory to a variety of personal, social, and political contexts, such as world hunger, nuclear weapons, social justice, life-and-death decisions, and problems in medical ethics.

• PHIL–P 246 Introduction to Philosophy and Art (3 cr.) A & H Introduction to the philosophical study of art and the relationship between art and philosophy. Topics include the nature of a work of art, the role of emotions in art, the interpretation and appreciation of art, and the way philosophy is expressed in art.

• PHIL–P 332 Feminism and Value (3 cr.) P: 3 credit hours in philosophy. A & H Selected topics from recent feminist philosophy, including the reassessment of classical philosophical texts, the construction of gender, perspectives on the good life, and the relation of private and public spheres.

• PHIL–P 340 Classics in Ethics (3 cr.) P: 3 credit hours of philosophy. A & H Readings from Plato and Aristotle to Kant, Mill, and Nietzsche. Topics include virtue and human nature, pleasure and the good, the role of reason in ethics, the objectivity of moral principles, and the relation of religion to ethics.

• PHIL–P 342 Problems of Ethics (3 cr.) P: 3 credit hours of philosophy. A & H May concentrate on a single large problem (e.g., whether utilitarianism is an adequate ethical theory), or several more or less independent problems (e.g., the nature of goodness, the relation of good to ought, the objectivity of moral judgments).

• PHIL–P 343 Classics in Social and Political Philosophy (3 cr.) P: 3 credit hours of philosophy. A & H Readings from Plato and Aristotle to Hobbes, Locke, Hegel, and Marx. Topics include the ideal state, the nature and proper ends of the state, natural law and natural right, social contract theory, and the notion of community.

• PHIL–P 345 Problems in Social and Political Philosophy (3 cr.) P: 3 credit hours of philosophy. A & H Problems of contemporary relevance: civil disobedience, participatory democracy, conscience and authority, law and morality.

• PHIL–P 346 Classics in Philosophy of Art (3 cr.) P: 3 credit hours of philosophy. A & H Readings from Plato and Aristotle to Nietzsche and Dewey. Topics include the definition of art, the nature of beauty, and art and society.

• PHIL–P 347 Contemporary Controversies in Philosophy of Art (3 cr.) P: 3 credit hours in philosophy. A & H Topics include the intersection of art, art criticism, philosophy, modernism and post-modernism, and the relation of aesthetic and cognitive judgment.

• PHIL–P 375 Philosophy of Law (3 cr.) P: 3 credit hours of philosophy. A & H Selective survey of philosophical problems concerning law and the legal system. Topics include nature and validity of law, morality and law, legal obligation, judicial decision, rights, justice, responsibility, and punishment.

• PHIL–P 393 Biomedical Ethics (3 cr.) A philosophical consideration of ethical problems that arise in current biomedical practice, e.g., with regard to abortion, euthanasia, determination of death, consent to treatment, and professional responsibilities in connection with research, experimentation, and health care delivery.

Epistemology and Metaphysics

• PHIL–P 310 Topics in Metaphysics (3 cr.) P: 3 credit hours of philosophy. A & H Topics such as existence, individuation, contingency, universals and particulars, causality, determinism, space, time, events and change, relation of mental and physical.

• PHIL–P 312 Topics in the Theory of Knowledge (3 cr.) P: 3 credit hours of philosophy. A & H Topics such as various theories of perceptual realism, sense-datum theories, theories of appearing, phenomenalism, the nature of knowledge, the relation between knowledge and belief, relation between knowledge and evidence, and the problem of skepticism.

• PHIL–P 320 Philosophy and Language (3 cr.) P: 3 credit hours of philosophy. A & H A study of selected philosophical problems concerning language and their bearing on traditional problems in philosophy.

• PHIL–P 360 Introduction to Philosophy of Mind (3 cr.) P: 3 credit hours of philosophy. A & H Selected topics from among the following: the nature of mental phenomena (e.g., thinking, volition, perception, emotion); the mind-body problem (e.g., dualism, behaviorism, functionalism); connections to cognitive science issues in psychology, linguistics, and artificial intelligence; computational theories of mind.

• PHIL–P 366 Philosophy of Action (3 cr.) P: 3 credit hours of philosophy. A & H The nature of human and rational action: the structure of intentions and practical consciousness; the role of the self in action; volitions; the connections of desires, needs, and purposes to intentions and doings; causation and motivation; freedom; the structure of deliberation; rational actions and duties, whether moral or institutional.

Special Courses

• PHIL–P 370 Topics in Philosophy (3 cr.) P: 3 credit hours of philosophy. A & H A survey of selected topics or figures in an area of philosophy (areas vary). May be repeated with different topics for a maximum of 6 credit hours.

• PHIL–P 371 Philosophy of Religion (3 cr.) P: 3 credit hours of philosophy. A & H Topics such as the nature of religion, religious experience, the status of claims of religious knowledge, the nature and existence of God.

• PHIL–P 401 History of Philosophy: Special Topics (3 cr.) P: 6 credit hours of philosophy or consent of instructor. A & H Special topics, such as developing views on one or more of the following subjects: substance, nature, essence, dialectics. May be repeated once with a different topic.

• PHIL–P 470 Special Topics in Philosophy (3 cr.) P: 6 credit hours of philosophy. A & H Advanced study of a topic (or cluster of related topics) in an area of philosophy. May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.

• PHIL–P 490 Readings in Philosophy (1–3 cr.) P: Consent of instructor. R: 9 credit hours philosophy. Intensive study of selected authors, topics, and problems.

• PHIL–P 497 Internship in Philosophy (1–3 cr.) P: Approval of major department. Designed to provide academic credit for paper or other project done for supervisor of the intern in a given semester. The student will also be assisting in some course(s) in this department. Does not count toward the major in philosophy. May not be repeated.

Honors Courses

• PHIL–P 498 Senior Seminar (4 cr.) P: Approval of departmental honors committee. Special topics.

• PHIL–P 499 Honors Thesis (3–6 cr.) P: Approval of departmental honors committee.