Philosophy
Note: the courses on this page reflect Summer Term 2008 offerings.
Please check back on December 15 for a list of courses available during Summer Term 2009.
College of Arts and Sciences
CAS PH 100 Introduction to Philosophy
Introduction to philosophy centering on such perennial issues as the rationality
of belief in God; the relationship of mind and body; free will and determinism;
the foundations and limits of human knowledge; the nature and structure of morality.
4 cr.
Top
CAS PH 110 Great Philosophers
A comparative introduction to the life and thoughts of six preeminent philosophers
from classical times in both the Western and Eastern traditions. 4 cr.
Top
CAS PH 140 God, Freedom, Immortality
Focuses on philosophical issues relating to God, freedom, and immortality.
Metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical aspects are examined. Relevant
writings of key
thinkers (such as Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, Nietzsche, and Lao Tzu) are
studied. 4 cr.
Top
CAS PH 150 Introduction to Ethics
How do we decide what is right or wrong? How do we know what we ought to do?
What is the place of reason, feeling, virtue, character, in our choice of what
we ought to do? Such questions are addressed with attention to contemporary
issues. 4 cr.
Top
CAS PH 155 Philosophy and Politics
An introduction to political philosophy through a reading of several classic
and contemporary works. Selections from Hobbes' Leviathan, Locke's Second
Treatise on Government, Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality and The
Social Contract,
and Rawl's Theory of Justice. 4 cr.
Top
CAS PH 160 Reasoning and Argumentation
A systematic study of the principles of both deductive and informal reasoning,
with an emphasis on reasoning and argumentation in ordinary discourse and
their
strategies. 4 cr.
Top
CAS PH 250 Environmental Ethics
An examination of the duties of individuals and societies to environments and
posterity. Value and safeguards of the survival of the species, as well as
ecological corollaries of classical moral and social philosophies, are considered.
4 cr.
Top
CAS PH 251 Medical Ethics
Examination of a number of value problems arising within the context of medicine
and health care. Particular ethical problems of euthanasia, abortion, human
experimentation, reproduction, and allocation of scarce resources; critiques
of contemporary medicine as an institution. 4 cr.
Top
CAS PH 270 Philosophy of Science
Main features of the scientific enterprise are illustrated by examples in
the study of physics, biology, and mind: the aims of scientific activities,
the nature of scientific understanding and procedures, the structure and
interpretation
of scientific theories, and the development of science. 4 cr.
Top
CAS PH 300 History of Ancient Philosophy
The history of ancient
Greek philosophy from its beginnings through Aristotle: the cosmos, human nature,
Socrates and Plato, metaphysics, music, atomic theories, immortality, friendship,
love, being and nonbeing, civil disobedience, form and formlessness, definitions,
and the hierarchy of reality. 4 cr.
Top
CAS PH 310 History of Modern Philosophy
An examination of seventeenth-
and eighteenth-century philosophy from Descartes to Kant, with emphasis on the
nature and extent of knowledge. Readings include Descartes, Locke, Spinoza,
Berkley, Hume, and Kant. 4 cr.
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Courses of Related Interest
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