41 courses with the subject PHIL, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
PHIL 101Intro Philosophical Problems1.00
Acquaints students with the nature of philosophical problems and the means by which one might try to solve them. Readings and discussions are organized around perennial questions regarding the nature of morality and justice, free will, the existence of God, the meaning of life, the nature of knowledge, and the relation between mind and body. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Junior, Senior Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: The Process of Writing Core Component: None
Explores central questions of morality. What makes a good life good? What makes some actions right and others wrong? Are there human rights that everyone has? What are our obligations to others? Are there good answers to these questions, or is it all relative? The philosophers explored may include Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Bentham, Mill, and various significant contemporary thinkers. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Junior, Senior Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression
Explores central and enduring questions in political philosophy. What justifies the state, and might we be better off without one? What are the proper limits of individual liberty? How should we understand the ideal of equality, and what does it require of political institutions? What different forms does oppression take, and how might we respond to them? Readings are drawn from both the great figures in the tradition (such as Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, and Locke) and contemporary theorists. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Junior, Senior Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: Confronting Collective Challenges and The Process of Writing Core Component: None
An introduction to the field of environmental ethics. Some of the major figures and philosophies in the environmental movement are studied and critically analyzed with a particular emphasis on the ethical reasoning and its influences on environmental policies and practices. Topics include the historical development of the environmental movement, central debates between preservationist and conservationist ethics, intrinsic and instrumental evaluations of the natural environment and its inhabitants, animal rights and the ethical treatment of animals, shallow and deep ecological distinctions, and anthropocentric versus biocentric and ecocentric evaluations of nature. Crosslisted: ENST 202 Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Junior, Senior Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: Confronting Collective Challenges and The Process of Writing Core Component: None
Our modern economy has produced technological breakthroughs and material comforts for many. However, these achievements also raise complex ethical questions. For instance, how should a just society address poverty and/or inequality? What types of economic activity are morally impermissible? Is the pursuit of self- interest ultimately harmful or beneficial for society? Students explore a diverse range of scholarly perspectives and refine their own views on such questions at the intersection of ethics and economics. Major/Minor Restrictions: None
Addresses urgent moral questions that arise in the field of medicine. Some of these are long standing. Is health strictly a biological concept, or do cultural and social norms in part determine what is good health? Should doctors act solely for the goal of improving their patients' health, or is their central obligation to respect patient autonomy? Other questions are more recent. When exactly is a person dead, such that withdrawing life-saving equipment is appropriate? Should parents and doctors take steps to see that their children are born with more desirable traits and characteristics? Students learn how philosophic argument can help illuminate these and related issues. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
Designed to introduce students to existentialist thought via an examination of its 19th-century origins and 20th-century manifestations. Among the authors to be discussed are Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Beauvoir, Camus, and Flannery O'Connor. Among the topics to be considered are existence, freedom, subjectivity, and absurdity. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Junior, Senior Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
Logic is the science of correct reasoning. It provides rigorous methods for evaluating the validity of arguments. This introductory course covers the basic concepts and techniques of propositional logic and first-order predicate logic with identity, including truth tables, proofs, and elementary model theory. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Recommended: This course is suitable for students in all areas and is highly recommended for philosophy
Can the existence of God be proven? Can it be disproven? What is the relationship between faith and reason? Does evil provide strong evidence against the existence of God? How should we think about the relationship between creation and evolution -- and about the relationship between science and religion generally? Does the Christian notion of the Trinity make any sense? What about the idea of Original Sin or the Atonement? Students seek reasoned answers to many of these questions by evaluating the work of philosophers who address them. Students encounter both classical and contemporary authors, though the class focuses more on perspicacious presentations of these issues rather than on their historical development. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No Junior, Senior Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
An introduction to the philosophy of science that explores issues of general philosophical interest to the sciences, rather than those germane to any particular discipline. Focus is on the issues of scientific laws, induction, theory confirmation and choice, falsificationism, reductionism, realism, explanation, prediction, and problems relevant to the special sciences. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
For the past few centuries, capitalism has brought unprecedented levels of prosperity for some but also poverty and conflict for others. As a result, scholars have long debated the morality of market capitalism. Students are introduced to this debate and examine several controversial issues. For example, is sweatshop labor in developing countries morally justified? What reforms (if any) are necessary to the economic norms that require developing countries to pay back debilitating levels of debt? Students also wrestle with whether pursuing economic justice is the responsibility of institutional actors or whether it falls primarily on individuals to build a more ethical world. Students read a broad array of philosophical texts and case studies that help them articulate their own answers to these pressing questions.
Opportunity for individual study in areas not covered by formal course offerings, under the guidance of a member of the faculty. Credits: variable Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
Surveys some of the central figures and ideas of classical Greek and Roman philosophy, with particular emphasis on Plato, Aristotle and the main Hellenistic schools. Topics to be considered include the aim and method of Socratic inquiry; Plato's epistemology, theory of forms and defense of justice; Aristotle's logic, ontology and ethical theory; Stoic and Epicurean cosmology and ethics. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
The rise of modern science together with the Reformation's challenge to the authority of the Catholic Church created an era of intense intellectual and cultural ferment in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The philosophy of this period is called 'modern' because it made a distinct break with older traditions and because the questions it asked remain the central issues for philosophers today. Studying modern philosophy will help students think creatively about what there is, what we are, and what we can know. Readings will be selected from classic works by Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hume, Locke, Berkeley, and Kant.
Medieval philosophy involved the absorption and transformation of Greek and Hellenistic thought by Jewish, Christian, and Muslim thinkers, often in relations of mutual influence. The period is crucial not only for its project of reconciling reason and faith but also for philosophical insights, arguments, and formulations that have remained influential in several of the main areas of philosophy. Students are introduced to some of the central figures and their most interesting and influential views. Thinkers covered include Thomas Aquinas, al-Ghazali, and Maimonides, and may include John Duns Scotus, Saadya Gaon, Ibn Rushd, Christine de Pizan, Ibn Sina, and John Buridan. Topics covered may include hylomorphism, philosophical psychology, free will, happiness, and virtue. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
German Idealism continues to be one of the most influential movements in philosophy, leaving its mark on many different fields of thought and experience, including epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, politics, and religion. An overview of the thought of the major representatives of German Idealism: Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. Students examine the problems that motivated the emergence and development of this philosophical tradition, and the new forms of philosophical argument that each of these thinkers employed in order to address these problems. In doing so, students see that there is a sense in which Kant can be considered the father of Existentialism. The topics discussed include the doctrine of transcendental idealism, the nature and possibility of knowledge, the ground of moral obligation, human freedom, and religious belief. No prior familiarity with these issues or thinkers is assumed. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
A study of some of the major movements in recent continental philosophy. Among the movements to be considered are phenomenology, existentialism, philosophical hermeneutics, poststructuralism, and
Offers a critical engagement with the rich work in political philosophy that has appeared since the landmark publication of John Rawls' A Theory of Justice. After a close examination of Rawls' egalitarian liberalism, students take up the range of alternative positions that dominate contemporary political theory: conservatism, libertarianism, communitarianism, feminism, Marxism, and multi-culturalism. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: No First-year Recommended: At least one course in ethics or political theory is recommended. Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: Confronting Collective Challenges Core Component: None
Nations increasingly come into contact with one another in a common international arena, and these encounters raise a host of important moral questions: Are there moral standards that apply across all human communities, and if so, how specific are they? Do all human beings have rights, and if they do, what are they? What duties do wealthy countries have to aid poor ones? Are there moral constraints on how war must be conducted, and if so, what are they? In this course students engage with the work of contemporary theorists exploring these and related questions. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Recommended: At least one course in ethics or political theory is recommended. Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: Confronting Collective Challenges Core Component: None
Employs the tools of analytic philosophy to address the large topic of the mind, the world, and the relation between them; students also explore the closely related topics of how our concepts get their content and
In his Republic, Plato famously banishes the poets from the ideal society, and thereby establishes the traditional separation of literature from philosophy, fiction from truth, and logical argument from persuasion. By examining the literary style of selected philosophical texts, as well as the philosophical significance of various literary works of art, students focus on how different modes of writing are able to address traditional questions of philosophy and to illuminate significant features of human existence. Could philosophy itself perhaps be understood as a literary enterprise? And what is the philosophical significance of literary works, written in poetic or narrative form, that explore the same aspects of human experience that are also studied by philosophers who use more prosaic modes of writing? Students explore these questions in relation to such literary and philosophical authors as J.M. Coetzee, Italo Calvino, Stanley Cavell, Søren Kierkegaard, Iris Murdoch, Martha Nussbaum, Friedrich Schiller, Shakespeare and others. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: Artistic Practice and Interpretation Core Component: None
Modem physics overturned many assumptions about the fundamental nature of reality that had been widely accepted since Greek antiquity. Students trace the transition from Aristotelian mechanics to modern theories of motion, and then survey the main philosophical problems raised by three of our most successful physical theories: Newtonian mechanics, thermodynamics, and quantum theory. Topics discussed include the problem of action at a distance, thermodynamics and the arrow of time, theories of probability, non-locality, and the measurement problem in quantum mechanics. Major/Minor Restrictions: None
Covers a selection of advanced topics in logic: computability, Turing machines, soundness and completeness theorems, undecidability of predicate logic, Skolem-Löwenheim theorems, nonstandard models, and Gödel's incompleteness theorems. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: Quantitative and Algorithmic Reasoning Core Component: None
Philosophical theology is the systematic articulation of divine revelation. Its origins as a discipline trace to antiquity, as early Christians sought to compose a coherent alternative to "pagan" philosophies (Platonic, Stoic, etc.), using the tools of those very philosophies (e.g., conceptual analysis and the determination of logical consistency as a means to metaphysical system-building). Philosophical theology flourished in the Middle Ages, as Jews, Christians, and Muslims grappled with the rediscovered Aristotelian corpus; it is in the midst of a renaissance begun in the second half of the 20th century. After examining the epistemological framework in which philosophical theology takes place, the course discusses particular issues, which may include: revelation and scripture, the concept of prayer, the oneness of God, mitzvoth (commandments), halakhah (law), the Trinity, the Incarnation, sin and original sin, the Atonement, and the eternal destiny of the soul. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
Examines some central ideas of jurisprudence and the philosophy of law. Readings concentrate on general theories of law, justice, legal rights, liability, and legal responsibility, and on the nature of judicial reasoning and legal principles. Some broader methodological questions pertaining to causation and the law and the relation of law and morality are discussed and related to the readings.
Discussion of the classical writings of philosophers on art and central ideas of aesthetics: form and content, expression, taste, and standards of criticism are included in this course. Readings include Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, etc., as well as contemporary essays. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: Artistic Practice and Interpretation Core Component: None
Involves a critical examination of selected fundamental issues and theories in environmental philosophy. Precise issues and themes vary from year to year, but may include sustainability and moral obligations to future generations; the nature of the good life for humans; the status of environmental values; recent work in environmental ethics theories including deep ecology, social ecology, and ecofeminism; the moral and metaphysical status of human modifications to the world, including environmental restoration and genetic engineering; and aesthetics of the natural world. An emphasis is placed on exploring the connections between philosophical theory and environmental policy and practice. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: Confronting Collective Challenges Core Component: None
Examines central questions about knowledge and justification, including whether and how knowledge is possible, whether we must always be able to access the foundations of our justified beliefs, and how a knower can be virtuous or vicious. In answering these questions, students explore various sources of knowledge and justification, including perception, testimony, memory, and introspection. Students may also explore challenges to the dominant epistemological paradigms of the last century from experimental, feminist, and Bayesian perspectives.
A systematic study of central issues involved in theorizing about reality at the most general level. Is the world a world of substances or a world of events? What is the nature of causation? Do concepts and statements refer to the world as it is in itself, or is such a notion idle or incoherent? How are such things as possibility and necessity and laws of nature to be understood? The topics are handled in a way that stresses the historical persistence of the debates over these issues but focuses on recent and contemporary discussions of the topics. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
Examines the historical and contemporary debates about the nature of the mind. These questions are considered: What is the relation of the mind to the physical world? How do mental states manage to be about things? Are all minds conscious? How serious is the difference between first-person and third-person perspectives on mental activity? What beyond consciousness is required for self-hood? What grounds our concept of mental health? What kind of mind makes individuals responsible for their behavior? Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
Examines major topics and insights in the philosophy of language from its modern inception in the late 19th century to the present. Core questions include: How does linguistic meaning relate to how people use language to communicate? What is meaning's relationship to concepts like reference, truth, verification and use? Is there a systematic theory that can generate the meaning of every sentence in a language? In answering the above questions, students master the logical and conceptual tools necessary for analyzing particular parts of language, which may include names, definite descriptions, demonstratives, metaphors, slurs, and other interesting linguistic expressions. Among the thinkers discussed are Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Austin, Grice, Quine, Searle, Davidson, and Kripke.
Addresses central questions in metaethics by examining the dialectic between moral realism and antirealism. Students consider questions like: Are there moral facts? Or do moral pronouncements express a noncognitive attitude? Can we reconcile the idea that morality is objective with the fact that there are scientific or sociological explanations of our moral beliefs? If there are moral facts, where do they come from? Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
Focuses on questions concerning what makes a life a good one, and if death is bad for a person, what makes it bad. These questions include: What is it for a life to go well for the person living it? Can death harm the one who dies? In what sense, if any, can a life be meaningful? Is immortality relevant to the possibility of well-being or meaningfulness? Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
Explores questions like: How have gendered assumptions influenced philosophical views about what knowledge is and how knowledge is best pursued? What roles, if any, should considerations of gender play in our theories of knowledge? How have gendered assumptions influenced political discourse? What conceptual advances might be won if we take the woman to be the paradigm of personhood rather than the man? Students may address issues in feminist philosophy of science, specifically issues concerning the scientific study of sexual differences in behavior and brain structure; or issues in feminist political philosophy, including the role of justice in the family and the effects of power inequality on autonomous
PHIL 365EFreedom, Tyranny, and Philosophy in the Ancient Mediterranean
(Extended Study) A three-week extended study course aiming acquaint students with the geography, topography, and material culture of ancient Greece, southern Italy, and Rome; with the concepts and vocabularies of ancient political thought (in particular binaries such as freedom and tyranny, democracy and empire, republic and monarchy, citizenship and authority); and with the deep continuity between Greco-Roman political theory and ancient (as well as much contemporary) philosophical thought about ethics and human psychology. Credits: Variable Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: None Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
Philosophy course taken by students on the Scotland Study Group to St. Andrews; taught by study group director. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
PHIL 380Issues in Epistemology and Metaphysics1.00
This is an umbrella course designed to allow students to delve into specific topics in epistemology or metaphysics. The study will situate each problem in its appropriate historical context thus allowing student access to the approaches to a given issue offered in Ancient, Medieval, Modern, and recent works. The course will bring students inside some problems and methods that lie at the heart of philosophy by inquiring into issues such as the structure of knowledge, our basis for making claims about other minds, possible worlds, skepticism, and the justification of belief.
Opportunity for individual study in areas not covered by formal course offerings, un member of the faculty. Credits: variable Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
The choice of a central philosophical problem to study varies from year to year. The majors and minors in philosophy. Major/Minor Restrictions: Only Philosophy & Religion, Philosophy Majors and Minors Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
Students pursuing honors in philosophy enroll in this course. Major/Minor Restrictions: None Class Restriction: None Area of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression Liberal Arts Practices: None Core Component: None
