PHILOSOPHY (PHIL)
PHIL 101 - INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY
Basic philosophical questions in metaphysics, theory of knowledge, political theory, ethics, and philosophy of religion. Representative answers to be found in writings of classical and contemporary philosophers.
Credits: 3
Attributes: Humanities, Social Science
PHIL 102 - PHILOSOPHIES OF LIFE
Credits: 3
Attributes: Humanities, Social Science
PHIL 103 - HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
A survey of major philosophers and philosophical movements from the ancient world through the 19th century.
Credits: 3
Attributes: Humanities, Social Science
PHIL 130 - JUSTICE, LIBERTY, EQUALITY
This course covers contemporary problems and theoretical reflections drawn from ancient, modern and contemporary sources about justice, liberty and equality.
Credits: 3
Attributes: Humanities, Social Science
PHIL 203 - THE ARABIAN NIGHTS
Arabian Nights, or as it is sometimes called, One Thousand and One Nights, is one of the great works of world literature. Its influence in both the Arabic world and the west has been immense. But do the many stories that make it up have a common theme? Those stories are told by a young woman, Scheherazade, to keep herself alive. If the king loses interest in the stories she tells each night, he will have her executed; every night is thus a test she must pass. The imaginative stories range over themes that are of the utmost importance in thinking about what the nature of human beings is, ranging from justice to liberty to equality to knowledge to happiness. But if there is one theme that dominates the work it is despotism, and how to combat it. The stories are relatively short, and a joy to read.
Credits: 3
Course Notes: Open to first-year students.Philosophy majors or minors, should register for the course as PHIL 203.
PHIL 204 - PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
The concepts of God, faith and reason, religious experience, the problem of evil, and religion and morality.
Credits: 3
Attributes: Humanities, Non-western Culture, Social Science
PHIL 206 - PHILOSOPHY IN LITERATURE
Philosophical problems found in selected novels, short stories, plays, poems, and essays.
Credits: 3
Attributes: Humanities, Social Science
Prerequisites: ENG 102 (may be taken concurrently)
PHIL 210 - LOGIC
Deductive and inductive logic; analysis of propositions and arguments and fallacies of reasoning.
Credits: 3
Attributes: Humanities, Legal Studies, Social Science
PHIL 219 - WORLD RELIGIONS
A survey of the histories and beliefs of the major world religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Satisfies non-Western requirement.
Credits: 3
Attributes: Humanities, International Studies, Non-western Culture, Social Science
PHIL 220 - BUDDHISM
Origins of Buddhism in ancient India. Major schools of Buddhist thought in contrast to Western philosophy. Contemporary Buddhism in the West.
Credits: 3
Attributes: Non-western Culture
PHIL 230 - ETHICS
Classical ethical systems such as those of Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Mill, and Nietzsche.
Credits: 3
Attributes: Humanities, Social Science
Course Notes: Sophomore standing
PHIL 233 - BIOMEDICAL ETHICS
The age of biotechnology is upon us. In this course we will explore issues such as: the ethics of experimentation, cloning and organ generation; the use of genetic information; euthanasia; psychopharmacology and memory/character manipulation; the patient's rights and dignity (including questions of identity and individuality, body and mind, birth and death, sex and procreation).
Credits: 3
Course Notes: Must have completed one course in Biology, Chemistry, or, Philosophy., Both students in the College of Humanities, Education and, the Social Sciences and the College of Science, Health and, Pharmacy are encouraged to enroll.
PHIL 240 - THE ENLIGHTENMENT
This course will examine philosophical and political texts, along with works of drama, music, and art from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These investigations will serve a larger mission of answering the dominant question of this unique period of history: What is Enlightenment?
Credits: 3
Attributes: Humanities, International Studies, Social Science
PHIL 250 - ON HAPPINESS
A consideration of alternative conceptions of human fulfillment; among other themes, we will examine the relation of happiness to love, morality, and mortality.
Credits: 3
Attributes: Humanities, Social Science
PHIL 251 - PHILOSOPHY OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
We will study the scientific, ethical, and political implications of artificial intelligence. Questions will include: the meaning of intelligence, reasoning, and deliberation; the problem of the relation between image and language; digitization vs. embodiment; the political promise and peril of AI.
Credits: 3
Course Notes: Must have completed one course in Biology, Chemistry,, or Philosophy., Students majoring in both the sciences and the humanities, are encouraged to enroll.
PHIL 323 - PERSIAN LETTERS
A study of Montesquieu's eighteenth century epistolary novel,Persian Letters.
Credits: 3
Attributes: Humanities, Social Science
Course Notes: One course in Philosophy or one in Literature required.
PHIL 324 - POLITICS & LITERATURE
A philosophical understanding of political life through the reading of literature. Topics may include oppression, tyranny, compromise, jealousy, friendship, equality, liberty, and justice.
Credits: 3
Attributes: Humanities, Social Science
Course Notes: Open to students who have taken ONE course in PHIL, ENG, literature (ENG 115 or higher) or POS.
PHIL 326 - PANDEMICS PHILOSOPHERS & POETS
Viruses that cause large numbers of deaths world-wide and spread relatively unabated are more common historically than one might have thought. Pandemic diseases have led philosophers and poets, among others, to reflect on human fragility, mortality, the bonds of human society, pain and anguish, caring, trust, and commitment to others, etc. This course will think through questions about pandemic diseases through readings from Thucydides, Lucretius, Boccaccio's Decameron, Samuel Pepys, Mary Shelley's The Last Man, and Hannah Arendt on loneliness and solitude.
Credits: 3
Attributes: Humanities, Social Science
Prerequisites: 3 Credit Hours of Philosophy
Course Notes: One course in PHIL with a minimum grade of C required, d or consent of instructor.
PHIL 330 - PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE
A philosophical examination of the fundamental differences between the natural world and the human world and between the world of necessity and the world of artifice.
Credits: 3
Attributes: Humanities, Social Science
Course Notes: One course in philosophy.
PHIL 331 - PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY
Social and ethical implications of new technology; problems in contemporary environmental ethics.
Credits: 3
Attributes: Humanities, Social Science
Course Notes: 3 SH of PHIL with a min grade of C required or consent, of instructor.
PHIL 342 - POLITICS AND SOCIETY
A philosophical study of the nature of politics and the nature of society. What is the relationship between society and culture? What is the role of art in society? What is politics? Is it a necessary feature of modern life? Why does it take the forms that it does? Why are politics and conflict so tightly knitted together? We will consider these questions through readings drawn from philosophy, sociology, political science, and economics and authors such as Georg Simmel, Hans Speier, Alfred Schutz, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Edward Shils, F.A. Hayek, Annette Baier, Judith Shklar, and Karl Marx.
Credits: 3
PHIL 343 - PHILOSOPHY & TYRANNY
A philosophical study of tyranny through the writings of Sophocles, Herodotus, Xenophon, Plato, Montesquieu, Marx and Hannah Arendt.
Credits: 3
Attributes: Humanities, Social Science
Prerequisites: 3 Credit Hours of Philosophy
PHIL 350 - PHILOSOPHY IN FILM
Every film presents to its audience a world and a way of sensing and thinking about that world. Cinema possesses what we might call a thought-function: cinema incites us to think, to think through and with the diverse worlds presented in films. To the extent that philosophy consists in an effort to think clearly and rigorously about the world and the problems it comprises, it follows that there is much of philosophical interest in cinema. In this class, then, we will attend to cinema’s thought-function, endeavoring to think philosophically about cinema—and even, perhaps, to think cinematically about philosophy.
Credits: 3
Attributes: Humanities, Social Science
PHIL 355 - EXISTENTIALISM
We will explore issues of human freedom, commitment, vulnerability, and authenticity by reading authors such as Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Camus
Credits: 3
Attributes: Humanities, Social Science
Prerequisites: 3 Credit Hours of Philosophy
Course Notes: 1 course in PHIL.
PHIL 361 - METAPHYSICS ANCIENT AND MODERN
Metaphysics Ancient and Modern. We will explore the greatest questions of metaphysics: the relation between speech, being, and soul, between the visible and the intelligible, and between the perishable and the imperishable.
Credits: 3
Attributes: Humanities, Social Science
Course Notes: Prerequisites: 3 hrs of PHIL w/min grade of C.
PHIL 371 - HERODOTUS
This is a one book course on Herodotus's 'Histories' a work which is at the same time historical, literary, and philosophical. The themes of the 'Histories' are timely because they are timeless: freedom, slavery, tyranny, oppression, diversity, national character, the power of speech and the power of deed, and eros and its perversions.
Credits: 3
Attributes: Humanities, Social Science
Course Notes: 1 course in Philosophy required.
PHIL 372 - PLATO ON LOVE
This course is devoted to Plato’s dialogue, The Symposium, the subject of which is love.
Credits: 3
Attributes: Humanities, Social Science
Prerequisites: 3 Credit Hours of Philosophy
PHIL 374 - UTOPIAS
A study of literary and philosophical utopias, imaginary best societies, and fictional perfect communities. Dystopian considerations will be raised as well. Books considered may include: Thomas More's Utopia, Lucian’s True Story, Alfarabi's Virtuous Regime, Aristophanes' Birds, Mary Bradley Lane’s Mizora, Irene Clyde’s Beatrice the Sixteenth, Bogdanov’s Red Star, Bacon’s New Atlantis, Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, etc
Credits: 3
Attributes: Humanities, Social Science
Prerequisites: 3 Credit Hours of Philosophy
PHIL 384 - PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY
An examination of fundamental psychological concepts (e.g., perception, consciousness, memory, shame, emotions and rationality) from a philosophical perspective.
Credits: 3
Attributes: Humanities, Social Science
Prerequisites: 3 Credit Hours of Philosophy
PHIL 395 - INDEPENDENT STUDY
Study of a particular philosopher, movement, or problem.
Credits: 1-4
Course Notes: Consent
PHIL 399 - SENIOR RESEARCH PROJECT
A research project in the student's area of concentration done under the direction of the area advisor or another appropriate faculty member.
Credits: 1-3
Course Notes: Sr.stand. consent