70 courses with the subject PHL, 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.
Course An introduction to some of the most enduring questions of philosophy: Does God exist? Might the external world be an illusion? Is science rational? What is the relationship between the mind and the body? What is it to be moral, and why should one bother? CC: HUM
Course An introduction to traditional normative ethical theories, which attempt to provide a rationally defensible account of morally right and wrong conduct and morally good and bad character, and consideration of the challenges posed to these theories by ethical relativism and feminist ethics. CC: HUM ISP: LAW
Course An introduction to ethics by considering how a wide variety of reality-based examples of complex and controversial ethical issues might be resolved in a rational manner. CC: HUM ISP: LAW
Course This class considers the goals economic policy might pursue and how different theories of the good lead to particular choices about desirable or undesirable economic policies. We consider mainstream economic thinking, which has roots in utilitarianism and liberalism, and alternative ideas such as libertarianism, Austrian economics, feminist, communitarian, and religious philosophy and economics. We apply these ideas to relevant policy issues, such as free trade, globalization, unemployment, income distribution, affirmative action, care of the environment, health care, and famine relief. Cross-Listed: ECO 123 CC: HUM, JSPE
Course A course in informal logic, with a very brief introduction to elementary formal logic. Students will learn to identify, analyze and evaluate English-language arguments in areas ranging from the sciences to current affairs to the law. CC: HUM, GSPE
Course An introduction to philosophy by way of some of the most important European philosophical works of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. CC: HUM
Course An exploration of some of the major trends in the philosophy of the 19th and 20th centuries focusing especially on contemporary skepticism, cultural relativism, the crisis of faith and morality, language, and the metaphysics of truth, as reflected in the contemporary philosophical movements of existentialism, analytic philosophy, phenomenology, and postmodernism. CC: HUM
Course An introductory survey of Confucianism, Daoism, Moism, Yin Yang, Legalism, Neo-Confucianism and Neo-Daoism. Among the theories covered in the course are Confucian theories of self-cultivation, the superior person and human nature, Menzi's theory of original human goodness, Xunzi's theory of evil human nature, Daoist theories of non-action, harmony with nature, and law of reversion, and Moist theories of universal love and non- discrimination. Many of these Chinese theories shaped Chinese civilization for over two millennia. CC: HUM, LCC ISP: REL
Course This course takes a cross-cultural approach to theories of the good life by studying ancient Greek, Chinese, African and Hindu theories, as well as more modern versions of these theories. In class, we shall analyze and debate these theories in terms of their underlying beliefs about human nature and in terms of whether someone can actually live by these theories. CC: HUM, LCC ISP: REL
Course Relativism is not just a 'theoretical' issue: the Events of 9/11 have pitted those who demand 'moral clarity' against those who urge 'more understanding'. Moral disagreement is not limited to conflicts between cultures: democratic societies attempt to accommodate points of view which conflict and diverge, sometimes nearly to the point of violence, as debates on abortion or gay marriage or the separation of church and state, or even taxation, show. But relativism is also an important theoretical issue as it raises questions about truth, justification of belief and moral skepticism. We explore these theoretical, moral and political dimensions through reading of theorists such as Rawls, Nagel, Harman, Thomson, Gutmann, and others. One philosophy course prerequisite or permission of the instructor CC: HUM ISP: LAW
Course An introductory survey of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Carvaka. Over the centuries, Indian philosophers inquired into the nature of reality and mind, debated epistemological issues concerning the criteria for valid knowledge, proposed paths for attaining spiritual liberation, and developed social theories for the welfare of people. Methods used by Indian philosophers include meditation, yoga, reasoning, logic, debate and observation. Some of these methods will be explored in class. CC: HUM, LCC ISP: REL
Course Many of us spend a lot of time thinking about, talking about, worrying about, and fantasizing about love, sex, and desire. One way or another, they are central to the human experience. But how much do we really know about love, sex, and desire? In this class, we will read philosophers who have thought a lot about these concepts. Through readings and class discussions, we will explore what these concepts really mean-or what we think they should mean, taking an intersectional approach to examining some of the complicated and complex ethical questions that surround these concepts. CC: HUM, JSPE
Course This course will introduce students to philosophical work about sports and games. Topics to be covered include the nature and value of sports and games; lying and cheating in sports and games; the ethics of performance enhancing drugs; racism, sexism, and transphobia in sports and games; and gender separation in sports and games, especially scholastic sports. ISP: GSWS
Course An introduction to modern symbolic logic, focusing on translation, semantics and syntax for propositional and predicate logic. You will learn to translate natural language into the language of logic and vice versa, and study key concepts such as validity, consistency, proof, soundness and completeness. CC: HUM, QMR ISP: LAW
Course An introduction to philosophy of science. What are scientific theories, and how are they tested? What is scientific method? What counts as evidence for a scientific theory? What is scientific explanation? We will approach these questions both philosophically and through formal techniques. CC: HUM ISP: STS
Course An examination of some of philosophy's "Greatest Hits," from some of the 17th and 18th centuries' greatest thinkers: Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. We will consider questions like: Is there a God, and how could we know? Is your mind just your brain, or do you have an immaterial soul? What is free will, and are we just fooling ourselves when we think we have it? Does your subjective perception of the world correspond to how it is in reality, and how can you possibly know? Are there universal moral duties, which everyone has an obligation to follow regardless of their personal inclinations? CC: HUM ISP: STS
Course An historical introduction to issues in political philosophy. The texts that we will consider address questions such as: Why should individuals live in society at all? Why should individuals obey any government at all? What are the sources, limits and purposes of political power? CC: HUM ISP: LAW
Course This course will examine some of the most important texts from the history of Latin American philosophy. Topics discussed will include human rights, colonialism, feminism, national identity, race and racism, and the barbarism-civilization dichotomy. CC: HUM, LCC, JCHF, JSPE
Course Ethics is one of the three main components of the Buddhist path, the others being meditation and wisdom. In the centuries following the Buddha's death, two main branches of Buddhism developed: Theravada Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism. The older school, Theravada, emphasized moral guidelines and meditation practices that culminate in nirvana; the Mahayana school emphasized a morality of compassion and a metaphysical theory of emptiness. In the contemporary period, Buddhists are concerned about issues relating to the environment, social justice, war, medicine and health, gender, and race. Buddhist ethical theories emphasize selflessness, moral discipline, compassion, karma and awareness. This course draws from ancient ethical texts as well as contemporary works on applying basic Buddhist principles to today's moral problems. CC: HUM, LCC ISP: REL
Course An examination of the traditional aesthetic theories of philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Burke, Hume, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, as well as more recent theories. Among the issues considered will be how art is different from everyday objects and the impact of technology on art. CC: HUM
Course "Public philosophy" tests the prospects and limits of philosophy as a means of analyzing events and conditions of current interest. We will select an issue, such as affirmative action, the politics of religion, minority rights, the entertainment industry, etc., and track it both in the scholarly and the popular media (newspapers, television, etc.). CC: HUM
Course Theories such as utilitarianism, pure obligation theory, virtue-ethics, and enlightened self-interest theory propose to provide defensible methods for answering questions about right and wrong. The course examines traditional theories (Aristotle, Hobbes, Kant, Mill, etc.) and contemporary theories (Harman, Rawls, Wolf, Nagel, Gauthier) on issues such as moral skepticism and truth, rational self-interest, care as the basis of ethics, the diversity of moral beliefs, moral trump cards, etc. CC: HUM ISP: LAW
Course An examination of issues debated by ancient Greek and Roman philosophers that became central to western philosophy, including the nature of reality, the criteria for knowledge, the difference between good and pleasure, and the principles of political justice. Discussion of readings from the Pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle, the Epicureans and the Stoics Cross-Listed: CLS 150 CC: HUM, GCHF
Course The central goal of this course is to develop and apply some useful tools for critical reflection upon the morality of war. In considering this issue we will focus on two main questions: (i) that of jus ad bellum - what, if anything, makes it right to go to war?, and (ii) that of jus in bello - what kinds of actions are, and are not, justified in carrying out a war? CC: HUM
Course Current research in philosophical theology about language, possible worlds, and evidence used to address issues such as whether moral obligation can depend upon God's will, whether God's power is limited by the possible, whether God owns us, whether it is reasonable to bet on the existence of God. CC: HUM ISP: REL
Course Some actions are bad. Some actions are very bad. Some actions are very, very, very bad. Are there, in addition, actions which are evil? In other words, does "evil" mark out a form of wrongdoing that is qualitatively different from the bad or is it simply a synonym for "bad" or at most a term we reserve for marking a merely
Course This course will introduce students to the philosophy of gender and the philosophy of race, with an eye to both theoretical issues and to issues that apply to our everyday lives within a social and political context. Cross- Listed: N/A CC: HUM ISP: AFR, GSW
Course Is it possible to build a computer that effectively simulates human intelligence? If we did so, would the computer really be intelligent, or would it merely seem to be: Would the computer have free will? Do we have free will, or is human freedom merely an illusion? Do we have immaterial souls that can survive the deaths of our bodies and brains? In this advanced introduction to the philosophy of mind, we will consider these and other questions about what it means to have a mind, and about the relationship between mind and the brain. CC: HUM ISP: STS
Course An examination of the connections between the two disciplines. CC: HUL, HUM
Course This course will introduce students to metaphysics, the branch of philosophy that deals with fundamental questions about reality. Questions to be explored include: What are races and genders? Do people have free will? Do the past and future exist, or only the present? Is it possible to travel backwards in time? Are there any things that exist that aren't physical, such as numbers and works of music? Are people physical or mental? Both? Neither? Assuming that you existed ten years ago, how is that possible given all of the changes that have happened to you? Does God exist? CC: HUL, HUM
Course An exploration of the ethical and philosophical ideas that have shaped attitudes toward the environment and toward non-human species. CC: HUM ISP: ENS, STS
Course An introduction to ethical problems in biology and medicine, touching on such issues as reproductive ethics (abortion, cloning), research ethics, the ethics of death and dying (assisted suicide, euthanasia) and similar subjects. CC: HUM ISP: STS
Course Examination of different ways of responding to wrongdoing. When is revenge appropriate and why? When is forgiveness appropriate and why? CC: HUM
Course This course will examine the ethical and political theories of the European Enlightenment with a focus on their historical connection to racism and racial oppression. In the first half of the course, we will study three iconic thinkers from the Enlightenment: John Locke, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant. In the second half, we will investigate the following questions: What role did racial prejudice play in these philosophers' works? How did they inspire racist thinking? Given these historical connections to racism, how should we engage with their works in the present? CC: HUM, WAC, JCHF, JSPE
Course Most people care deeply about justice and strive to live just lives. But what is justice and why should we try to be just? What if we always do the right thing, but we are constantly treated badly and as if we are untrustworthy? Should we be just even if others think we are dishonest and corrupt? Is justice worth pursuing for itself? If justice is good how do we make our cities and our fellow citizens just? What kind of ruler would make a city just? In this course we will try to answer these questions as we work our way through Plato's most famous work, Republic. Each class will be organized around specific question(s). We will focus most of our attention on analyzing and interpreting Plato's answer to these questions, but we will also try to answer these questions ourselves and see whether or not we agree with Plato. Cross-Listed: CLS 311 CC: HUM
Course ISP: GSWS
Course Mahayana Buddhist philosophy explains the nature of reality as emptiness, which means that the nature of reality is beyond (and thus empty of) words, concepts and characteristics. Mahayana Buddhism also regards compassion as the primary motivation for ethics. This course focuses on the metaphysical theories of two schools of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy: Chinese/Japanese Zen Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism. The course examines Zen Buddhist theories of No-Self and the nature of mind that makes sudden enlightenment possible, as well as Tibetan Buddhist theories of interdependent arising and emptiness. This course is applicable to the Asian Studies and Religious Studies majors. CC: HUM, LCC ISP: REL
Course A study of 20th century European or American philosophies: phenomenology, existentialism, or analytic philosophy. CC: HUM ISP: AMS
Course Aristotle is one of the most influential philosophers in the Western world. His impact spans centuries, influencing ancient Greek and Roman thought, medieval Christian, Arabic, and Jewish thinkers, and even today's philosophers and intellectuals. In this class we will focus mostly on his contribution to metaphysics, philosophy of mind, epistemology, and ethics. What is the nature of reality? How do we come to have knowledge? What constitutes a good human life? These are just some of the questions that we will discuss in the course. Cross-Listed: CLS 242 CC:
Course Do some groups control the way we use language? Is discourse male-dominated or Euro-centric? Postmodern theories investigate the nature of language, as well as questions concerning power and language: How is power gained and controlled through discourse, the media and other cultural institutions? Postmodern theories have had an impact on contemporary literature, art, and media theory. Readings by Structuralist and Postmodern thinkers, such as Saussure, Barthes, Foucault, Cixous, Irigaray, and Derrida will be discussed. Cross-Listed: WGS 359 Prerequisite(s): One philosophy course or permission of the instructor. CC: HUM
Course An advanced historically based introduction to biomedical ethics. Among the subjects treated will be the relationship between bioethics and traditional medical ethics, the evolution of the discourse, core concepts, models, theories and organizational infrastructure of bioethics, including IRBs and ethics committees. The course is designed to serve as a foundation for graduate work in bioethics and to fulfill the required knowledge competencies recommended by the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities in its 1998 report Core Competencies for Health Care Ethics Consultation. Prerequisite(s): Two philosophy courses or permission of the instructor. CC: HUM ISP: STS
Course For as long as there have been philosophers engaged in passionate pursuit of knowledge, there have been skeptics critical of the entire enterprise. Can we really know the Truth about anything? For that matter, how important is it for us to know the Truth? Skeptical thinkers have appeared in all times and cultures. We will engage with three venerable texts: the Zhuangzi from ancient China, Nagarjuna's writings on the Middle Way from ancient India, and the Outlines of Skepticism by Sextus Empiricus from ancient Greece. Our goal is to put these authors into dialogue and then join in that dialogue. CC: LCC
Source: Union College's catalog, linked per course · table learning_unit · CourseShelf publish 61
