Representative Ethics positions and their application to contemporary social problems.
Interaction of personal and societal values with technology and the human self image, the future, and value change.
Basic social ideals and concepts of human nature in Western civilization, and their implications for theories of education.
Philosophical and ethical implications of various concepts of love in the writing of philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Sartre and Buber.
Methods and principles used to distinguish between correct and incorrect reasoning, uses of language, informal and formal fallacies, Venn diagrams, truth tables, symbolic notation, formal deductive proof, and induction.
Perennial problems of philosophy such as the existence of God, the mind/body relationship, the knowledge and the foundations of moral judgment, humans and the state.
Major philosophers in the history of Latin American philosophy, such as, Unamuno, Ortega y Gasset, Vasconcelos, Caso and Gutiérrez.
Directed studies in specific problem areas of philosophy.
Selected topics in an identified area of philosophy. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: approval of instructor
Research conducted under the direction of faculty member in the department of philosophy and humanities. May be repeated for credit.
Critical analysis of scientific methods and achievements, the nature and types of explanation, discovery and confirmation, models and theories.
Nature and objectivity of the social sciences, their paradigms and patterns of explanation. Prerequisite: 3 hours of philosophy other than PHIL 240.
Moral basis of duties to preserver or protect plants, animals and environmental system; foundations of environmental law and policy; the idea of nature in philosophy; critique of social and economic analysis f environmental values. Prerequisite: Sophomore classification or approval of instructor.
Major ethical issues in modern military practice: ethics of leadership, just war theory, killing of the innocent and the moral status of the rules of war.
Relation of mind to body, nature of thought and knowing, the free will problem, death, and immortality.
Theories of artistic creation and aesthetic response as exemplified in art forms such as painting, music poetry, architecture, dance theater, sculpture, and motion pictures.
Philosophical problems of Western religion such as the existence of God, the problem of evil, types of theism, and rational, empirical and mystical approaches to God.
Metaphysical commitments and political theory, the nature and proper ends of the state, freedom, equality, authority, and justice, considering such writers as Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Locke, Rousseau, Marx, and Dewey. Prerequisite: 3 hours of philosophy other than PHIL 240.
This course is meant to serve as an introduction to the philosophy of law. Traditional legal issues will be considered from a philosophical point of view. The questions we examine include: Is there a necessary connection between law and morality? When and why is punishment justified? How do we determine the kind of punishment that is appropriate in any particular case?
Elementary symbolic logic beginning with propositional calculus and first order predicate logic, and their applications. Prerequisite: PHIL 240.
Advanced topics in logic such as the theory of identity, higher order logic, logic of sets, elements of modal logic.
Major topics in epistemology such as the problem of induction, perception theory, memory and the problem of other minds.
Topics concerning the fundamental nature of reality such as what exists, the mental and the physical, universals and individuals, space and time, God.
Philosophical analysis of the major recurrent themes in world literature including fate, the meaning of tragedy, death, odyssey, good and evil, time and eternity, hope, and salvation. Works selected from a variety of cultures and historical periods.
Aesthetic, ethical and epistemological issues of photography, cinema and video.
Values and conduct such as moral relativism, self-interest, utilitarianism, rules, nature of valuation, ethical language and argumentation. Prerequisite: 3 hours of philosophy other than 240.
Major philosophers from 600 BC to the end of the third century AD, including the Pre-Socratics, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Hellenistic and Roman philosophy and the Neoplatonists.
Major philosophers from the early Christian centuries through the 14th century, emphasizing such writers as Augustine, Aquinas, Duns Scotus and William of Ockham.
Major developments from the Renaissance through he 18th century emphasizing such philosophers as Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant.
Contributions of such philosophers as Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Mill, and Bradley.
The thought of philosophers such as Peirce, James, Royce, Santayana, Mead, Dewey, and Whitehead. Prerequisite: 3 hours of philosophy other than PHIL 240.
Major philosophers in contemporary Anglo-American thought such as Moore, Russell, Wittgenstein, Ayer, Quine, Austin, and Ryle. Prerequisites: PHIL 240 and 413.
Major recent philosophers such as Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Marcel, and Ricoeur. Prerequisite: PHIL 413
Major thinkers concerned with "postmodern" topics in hermeneutics, poststructuralism, critical theory, deconstructionism, contemporary Marxist strategies, semiotics, and feminist theory. Prerequisite: Junior classification or approval of instructor.
The nature of language; the various uses of language and their philosophical import; the nature of meaning, truth, reference and issues surrounding formal representation of natural languages. Prerequisite: 3 hours of philosophy other than PHIL 240.
Critical analysis of major ethical issues in medicine including truth-telling, confidentiality, paternalism, genetics, abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, and social justice in health care.
Development of techniques of moral analysis and their application to ethical problems encountered by engineers, such as professional employee rights and whistle blowing; environmental issues; ethical aspects of safety, risk and liability; conflicts of interest; emphasis on developing the capacity for independent ethical analysis of real and hypothetical cases.
Major ethical theories as applied to problems of professional ethics and decision-making in the biological, physical and social sciences, business, education, engineering, law, and medicine.
Directed topics (individualized tutorials) in specific problem areas of philosophy. Prerequisite: Approval of department head.
Selected topics in an identified area of philosophy. Often the 489 designation is used for courses offered infrequently or proposed for adoption into the regular schedule. May be repeated for credit.
Research conducted under the direction of faculty member in the department of philosophy and humanity. May be repeated for credit.
Writing, analysis, and criticism of philosophical arguments; writing philosophical prose; methods for research in philosophy.
Directed independent studies in specific philosophical problems.
Greek and Roman philosophy from 600: B.C. to 300 A.D.; emphasis on Plato and Aristotle.
Christian, Jewish and Islamic thought from 300 to 1450; emphasis on Augustine and Aquinas.
Developments in philosophy from the Renaissance through the Enlightenment: Renaissance humanism and natural science, 17th and 18th century empiricism and rationalism, idealism; major thinkers including Descartes, Hume, Kant, Hegel.
19th and 20th century philosophical movements: phenomenology, existentialism, positivism, pragmatism, analysis, process thought.
The genesis of American philosophical thought from the seventeenth century until the work of Emerson; subsequent concentration on the philosophies of Pierce, James, Royce, Dewey, Mead, Santayana and Whitehead.
Metaphor, the ontology of artworks, art and artifactuality, aesthetic attitudes, concepts of aesthetic appraisal such as beauty and sublimity and theory of tropes.
Investigation of metaphysical and epistemological issues concerning religious claims, beliefs, and experiences.
Theories of justice, equality, liberty and authority in social and political institutions; individualism and the social contract; political philosophy of writers such as Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Locke, Rousseau, Marx, Dewey and Rawls.
This course investigates the nature of law, one of the key issues in the philosophy of law. Some of the questions we consider are: Is there a necessary connection between law and morality? What distinguishes the law from other standards relevant to human deliberation towards choice and action? When and why are we obligated to obey the law? When and why is civil disobedience permissible?
Theories of moral value and conduct, moral language and argumentation; consequentialist and deontological approaches to ethics; ethical naturalism; theories of virtue.
Nature and origin of knowledge, skepticism, belief, truth, rationality, justification and reliability and knowledge of necessary truths.
The metatheory of propositional and first-order logic: definitions of formal languages for these systems, their proof theory, model theory, and demonstrations of their soundness and completeness. The course begins with an overview of the basic elements of set theory, including functions and relations, infinite sets, infinite cardinal numbers, and Cantor's Theorem.
Continuation of PHIL 641: Compactness, The Lowenheim-Skolem Theorems, computability theory and Church's thesis, formal arithmetic, Godel's Incompleteness Theorems, Tarski's Theorem, and Church's Theorem. Other topics covered in the course might include systems of modal logic, intuitionistic logic, and more advanced issues in set theory.
Selected topics on the historical development of logic; philosophical views of the nature of logical theory; the role of logical metatheory in the development of logic.
Philosophy of the natural and social sciences, including the nature of theories and laws, the notion of causation, probability and determinism and the nature of theoretical change.
Focus on the methodological, epistemological, and ontological issues in physics, or one of the special sciences, such as biology, psychology, cognitive science, economics. Application of philosophical methods to theoretical issues in the particular science. Relationships between theories and explanations of the particular science to more basic sciences or other special sciences. May be repeated for credit for courses focusing on different sciences. Prerequisite: Consent of instructor.
Classical and contemporary treatments of the nature of reality, God, the existence of universals, space, time, causality; realism and antirealism, the existence and nature of abstract entities, the nature of events, the nature and logic of time and modality, freedom and determinism, and personal identity.
The mind-body problem, personal identity, thought and intentionality, action and responsibility; materialism, behaviorism, functionalism.
The nature of language, the various uses of language and their philosophical import, the nature of meaning, truth, reference and issues surrounding formal representations of natural languages.
Intensive study of a current issue in the history of philosophy. May be repeated for credit with variation in topic. Prerequisite: 12 hours of graduate work in Philosophy and approval of instructor.
Intensive study of a current issue in ethics, ethical theory, applied ethics, aesthetics, or the work of particular philosophers in one of these areas. May be repeated for credit with variation in topic. Prerequisite: 12 hours of graduate work in Philosophy and approval of instructor.
Intensive study of current issue in metaphysics, epistemology, or other core areas of philosophy. May be repeated for credit with variation in topic. Prerequisite: 12 hours of graduate work in Philosophy and approval of instructor.
Intensive study of a topic involving the application of philosophical concepts and theories to an issue arising in another scientific or academic field. May be repeated for credit with variation in topic. Prerequisite:
Basic concepts and theories underlying major contemporary ethical codes with application to ethical problems encountered in professions such as engineering, law, business and teaching.
Intensive study of the works of an individual important philosopher, their historical context, and criticisms and interpretations of them. May be repeated for credit with different authors. Prerequisite: appropriate background in the history of philosophy and approval of instructor.
Practical experience in an institutional or organizational setting appropriate to analysis and understanding of issues in some area of applied philosophy.
Directed studies in specific problem area in philosophy.
Selected topics in an identified area of philosophy. May be repeated for credit.
Research for thesis or dissertation.