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Philosophy | PHIL

Danielle SchwenkPictured | Danielle Schwenk | Bachelor of Science in Advertising and Marketing / Minor in Philosophy | Knox Bend, Indiana (hometown)
Student Government Association | Associate Justice
Club Affiliation | Advertising Club, Marketing Club


Philosophy | PHIL

P Prerequisite | C Co-requisite | R Recommended
I Fall Semester | II Spring Semester | S Summer Session/s


  • PHIL-P 101 Philosophy in the Public Sphere (3 cr.) Meets the IU South Bend campuswide General Education Critical Thinking requirement. An introduction to philosophy through discussion of one or more major topics of pressing public concern, such as the economy, religion, healthcare, etc.  At IU South Bend, has a special focus on critical thinking.
  • PHIL-P 102 Critical Thinking and Applied Ethics (3 cr.) Meets the IU South Bend campuswide General Education Critical Thinking requirement. This course is an introduction to ethics and is approved as meeting the IU South Bend campuswide General Education Critical Thinking requirement. This course integrates an introduction to ethics with instruction in basic techniques of critical thinking.
  • PHIL-P 105 Critical Thinking (3 cr.) Meets the IU South Bend campuswide General Education Critical Thinking requirement. We spend a good part of our waking hours thinking and/or critiquing the thoughts and beliefs of ourselves and others. This course is designed to help you develop a toolbox of techniques and skills that will help you become a skilled evaluator and creator of arguments.
  • PHIL-P 110 Introduction to Philosophy (3 cr.) Meets the IU South Bend campuswide General Education Critical Thinking requirement. An introduction to the methods and problems of philosophy and to important figures in the history of philosophy.  Concerns such topics as the nature of reality, the meaning of life, and the existence of God. Readings from classical and contemporary sources. e.g., Plato, Descartes, Nietzsche, and Sartre.
  • PHIL-P 135 Introduction to Existentialism (3 cr.) 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 200 Problems of Philosophy (3 cr.) Important problems at the center of rational reflection upon human experience, including issues in ethics, aesthetics, political philosophy, philosophy of religion, metaphysics, epistemology, and/or the history of philosophical thought. Emphasis upon interpretation, critical analysis, and evaluation of philosophical texts from contemporary and/or historical perspectives. Topics vary. Introductory level.
  • PHIL-P 201 Ancient Greek Philosophy (3 cr.) Selective survey of ancient Greek philosophy (Presocratics, Plato, Aristotle).
  • PHIL-P 202 Medieval to Modern Philosphy (3 cr.) Selective survey of such philosophers as Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz.
  • PHIL-P 207 Information and Computer Ethics (3 cr.) P: CSCI-A 106 or equivalent. Examines the ethical implications of computer and information technology for society.
  • PHIL-P 214 Modern Philosophy (3 cr.) A study of Western philosophy from the rise of modern science through Enlightenment.  Covers such philosophers as Bacon, Descartes, Berkeley, Hume, Leibniz, and Kant.
  • PHIL-P 250 Introductory Symbolic Logic (3 cr.) P: ALEKS Math Score of 31 or MATH-A 100. Propositional logic and first-order quantificational logic.
  • PHIL-P 283 Non-Western Philosophy (3 cr.) A study in contrasts between selected non-Western philosophies and classic Western philosophies in relation to environmental, social-political and psychological issues.
  • PHIL-P 303 The British Empiricists and Kant (3 cr.) Selective survey of the writings of some or all of the following: Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant.
  • PHIL-P 304 Nineteenth Century Philosophy (3 cr.) Selective survey of Post-Kantian philosophy. Readings from some or all of: Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard, Mill, and Nietzsche.
  • PHIL-P 310 Topics in Metaphysics (3 cr.) 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 Theory of Knowledge (3 cr.) P: Three credit hours of philosophy or consent of instructor. 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, of knowledge and evidence, and the problem of skepticism.
  • PHIL-P 313 Theories of Knowledge (3 cr.) P: Three credit hours of philosophy or consent of instructor. Topics such as the nature of knowledge, the relation of knowledge and belief, knowledge and evidence, knowledge and certainty, the problem of skepticism.
  • PHIL-P 320 Philosophy of Language (3 cr.) P: Three credit hours of philosophy or consent of instructor. A study of selected philosophical problems concerning language and their bearing on traditional problems in philosophy.
  • PHIL-P 325 Social Philosophy (3 cr.) P: Three credit hours of philosophy or consent of instructor. Concentrated study of one or more topics in social philosophy - e.g. human rights, political violence, civil disobedience, and legal paternalism. May be repeated for credit.
  • PHIL-P 335 Phenomenology and Existentialism (3 cr.) P: Three credit hours of philosophy or consent of instructor. An overview of the main problems, themes, and foundational texts of Phenomenology and Existentialism, as well as intensive study of the writings of several of the most prominent thinkers in these movements.  Selected readings from Buber, Camus, de Beauvoir, Heidegger, Husserl, Jaspers, Kierkegaard, Marcel, Merleau-Ponty, Nietzsche, Sartre, and others.
  • PHIL-P 340 Classics in Ethics (3 cr.) P: Three credit hours of philosophy or consent of instructor. 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 341 Ethical Classics 2 (3 cr.) P: Three credit hours of philosophy or consent of instructor. Topics such as the role of reason in ethics, the role of the emotions in ethics, the objectivity of moral principles, the relation of religion to ethics. Readings include Spinoza, Hume, Butler, Kant, Mill, and Nietzsche.
  • PHIL-P 342 Problems of Ethics (3 cr.) May concentrate on a single large issue (e.g., whether utilitarianism is an adequate ethical theory), or several more or less independent issues (e.g., the nature of goodness, the relation of good to ought, the objectivity of moral judgments, moral responsibility, moral emotions, concepts of virtue, cultural conflicts of value, the nature of moral discourse).
  • PHIL-P 343 Classics in Social and Political Philosophy (3 cr.) P: Three credit hours of philosophy or consent of instructor. 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, the social contract theory, and the notion of community.
  • PHIL-P 344 Classics in Social and Political Philosophy 2 (3 cr.) Topics such as those mentioned in P343, the social contract theory of the state, and the notion of community. Readings include 16th- to 19th-century sources Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, and Mill.
  • PHIL-P 345 Problems in Social and Political Philosophy (3 cr.) P: Three credit hours of philosophy or consent of instructor. Problems of contemporary relevance: justice and economic distribution, participatory democracy, conscience and authority, law and morality.
  • PHIL-P 346 Classics in Philosophy of Art (3 cr.) P: Three credit hours of philosophy or consent of instructor. 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 348 Philosophy and Literature (3 cr.) A study of philosophical issues raised by and in literature. Special emphasis on reading works of literature as texts of philosophical interest.
  • PHIL-P 358 American Philosophy (3 cr.) P: Three credit hours of philosophy or consent of instructor. A study of the philosophical tradition in the United States, emphasizing major thinkers such as Peirce, Royce, James, Dewey, and Whitehead.
  • PHIL-P 360 Introduction to Philosophy of Mind (3 cr.) 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: Three credit hours of philosophy or consent of instructor. 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.
  • PHIL-P 371 Philosophy of Religion (3 cr.) Topics such as the nature of religion, of religious experience, the status of claims of religious knowledge, the nature and existence of God.
  • PHIL-P 374 Early Chinese Philosophy (3 cr.) Origins of Chinese philosophical traditions in the classical schools of Confucianism, Taoism, Mohism, and Legalism. Explores contrasting agendas of early Chinese and Western traditions.
  • PHIL-P 381 Religion and Human Experience (3 cr.) P: Three credit hours of philosophy or consent of instructor. An attempt to understand 'religious experience' in the light of interpretations made possible by the insights of such disciplines as anthropology, psychology, sociology of knowledge and value theory.
  • PHIL-P 383 Topics in Philosophy (3 cr.) Advanced treatment of a special topics. May be repeated for credit under new subtitle.
  • 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.
  • PHIL-P 394 Feminist Philosophy (3 cr.) A study of one or more philosophical topics in feminist thought. Examples: Feminist ethics; feminist critiques of science; and feminist perspectives on motherhood, sexuality, and reproductive technology.
  • PHIL-P 401 History of Philosophy: Special Topics (3 cr.) A focused look at a particular thinker, movement, period, or set of ideas in the history of philosophy.
  • PHIL-P 490 Readings in Philosophy (1-3 cr.) Intensive study of selected authors, topics, and problems.
  • PHIL-P 495 Senior Proseminar in Philosophy (1-4 cr.) P: Consent of instructor. For Philosophy majors in their senior year of study. The pro-seminar will concentrate on issue(s) and figure(s) selected by students with faculty involved. The emphasis will be on the preparation, presentation and formal discussion of papers. May be repeated for a maximum of 4 credit hours.
  • PHIL-P 497 Internship in Philosophy (1-3 cr.) P: Consent of instructor. 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.
  • PHIL-T 190 Literary and Intellectual Traditions (3 cr.) Explores, in an interdisciplinary way, one of the great humanistic traditions of inquiry regarding one of the following themes: ideas of self, ideas of truth, ideas of beauty, ideas of community, ideas of nature, ideas of conflict. Writing-intensive, discussion-focused. May be repeated for credit.
  • PHIL-T 390 Literary and Intellectual Traditions (3 cr.) Interdisciplinary exploration of a humanistic tradition of inquiry regarding one of the following themes:  ideas of self, truth, beauty, community, nature and conflict.  Course is writing intensive and discussion focused with attention paid to primary texts and research materials. May be repeated for credit.

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2023-2024 Campus Bulletin
2022-2023 Campus Bulletin
2021-2022 Campus Bulletin
2020-2021 Campus Bulletin
2019-2020 Campus Bulletin
2018-2019 Campus Bulletin
2017-2018 Campus Bulletin
2016-2017 Campus Bulletin
2015-2016 Campus Bulletin
2014-2015 Campus Bulletin

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