78 courses with the subject PHI, 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.
Examines the basic concepts of several representative philosophers, including their accounts of the nature of knowledge, persons, God, mind, and matter. (D) c
How and why does philosophy engage religious belief and common sense? Why is the purposive world of pre-modern life abandoned by modern naturalism, skepticism, and existentialism? How are our contemporary ideas of self and world expressions of these opposing conceptions of life, love, and meaning? (D)
Examination of three interconnected philosophic problems: the nature of existence; the distinction between truth and falsity; and the question of what it means to know. (D)
A study of selected topics bearing on human nature, such as free will and determinism, the relation of mind and body, personal identity and personhood, and immortality. (D)
A study of some central issues in the philosophy of religion, such as arguments for and against the existence of God; faith and reason; the divine attributes; the nature and existence of the soul; the possibility of immortality; and religious diversity. (D)
Examines the nature of happiness and meaning and the epistemic, ethical, and political issues surrounding their pursuit. Focus varies by instructor. (D)
Examines basic concepts and problems in political thought, including social and economic issues, individual rights, equality, justice, and the common good. (D)
NEU 391
An examination of ethical issues concerning the environment as they arise in individual lives and public policy. (D)
A study of pressing ethical issues in contemporary life, such as abortion, euthanasia, animal rights, affirmative action, marriage, cloning, pornography, and capital punishment. (D)
An examination of prominent legal cases and their underlying principles, with an emphasis on philosophical analysis and moral evaluation. Topics include the rule of law, constitutional interpretation, judicial review, leg enforcement of morality, punishment, and freedom of speech and of religion. (D)
Elementary study of the laws of valid inference, recognition of fallacies, and logical analysis. (D)
Introduces propositional and predicate logic, including identity and functions. Construction of proofs. Use of models to demonstrate consistency and invalidity. Application of these techniques to the assessment of arguments expressed in ordinary language.
A study of the central figures in early Greek philosophy, beginning with the Presocratics, focusing primarily on Plato and Aristotle, and concluding with a brief survey of some Hellenistic philosophers. P - One PHI course or prerequisite override required.
Survey of the main streams of Chinese philosophical thought from their ancient beginnings to their development and influence on one another in later eras.
A survey of some major philosophers from Augustine to Suarez, including Anselm, Averroes, Maimonides, Avicenna, Aquinas, Scotus and Ockham. P-One PHI course or prerequisite override required.
Surveys important texts and figures in these two related philosophical traditions, addressing issues such as colonization, liberation, identity, and immigration. P-one course in PHI. (CD)
A study of the works of influential 17th and 18th century European philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley, and Hume, with a concentration on theories of knowledge and metaphysics. P-One PHI course or prerequisite override required.
In the era of fake news, AI, and social media, many of us are finding it increasingly difficult to figure out what is real and who we really are. The Truth and Authenticity Lab is a course unlike any other. Crosslisted between Philosophy and Journalism, students will learn aspects of both disciplines as a way to cast a unique lens on how to understand truth and authenticity today. Also listed as JOU 360.
Seminar and/or lecture course in selected topics. May be repeated if course title differs. P—One PHI course required.
Detailed analysis of selected dialogues, covering Plato's most important contributions to moral and political philosophy, theory of knowledge, metaphysics, and theology. P-One PHI course or prerequisite override required.
Study of the major texts, with emphasis on metaphysics, ethics, and theory of knowledge. P-One PHI course (232 or 331 strongly recommended) or prerequisite override required.
al Study of the Ancient Greek and Roman philosophical schools of the Hellenistic Period, focusing on the Stoics, Skeptics, and Epicureans. P- One PHI course or prerequisite override required.
Study of some major texts, with a focus on metaphysics and philosophical theology. P—One PHI course (232 strongly recommended) or prerequisite override required.
A study of Kant's principal contributions to metaphysics and the theory of knowledge. P-One PHI course (241 strongly recommended) or prerequisite override required.
Treatment of selected figures and/or themes in 17th and 18th century European philosophy. May be repeated for credit if topic varies. P-One PHI course (241 strongly recommended) or prerequisite override required.
Study of Kant's principal contributions to theory of action, theory of value, and moral and political philosophy. PHI 341 is not a prerequisite for this course. P-One PHI course or prerequisite override required.
Surveys the work of important figures in this period, such as G. W. F. Hegel, Soren Kierkegaard, Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemberg, Freidrich Nietzsche, and Edith Stein, addressing issues such as the nature of history, society, nihilism, alienation, and authenticity. P – One PHI course or prerequisite override required.
Heidegger early and late. Early Heidegger: the contrast between conformism and authenticity achieved through ‘being-towards-death’; meaning through communal tradition. Late Heidegger: critique of modernity’s reduction of everything to ‘resource’; the ethics of ‘dwelling’ as our proper way of being in the world. P—One PHI course or prerequisite override required.
A study of the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein on such topics as the picture theory of meaning, truth, skepticism, private languages, thinking, feeling, the mystical, and the ethical. P-One PHI course (221 strongly recommended) or prerequisite override required.
Study of the principal works of several representative 20th century philosophers. P-One PHI course (221 strongly recommended) or prerequisite override required.
Surveys the work of important figures in this period, such as Max Weber, Martin Heidegger, Herbert Marcuse, Hannah Arendt, Michel Foucault, Jurgen Habermas, and Angela Davis, addressing issues such as the 'disenchantment' and technological 'rationalization' of modernity and the challenges of multiculturalism. P-One PHI course of prerequisite override required.
An advanced exploration of ethical principles and their application to environmental sustainability, preparing participants to navigate ecological issues with effective strategies for ethical decision-making. Also listed as ENV 305. ENV 359. P-one course in PHI.
Systematic examination of central ethical theories in the Western philosophical tradition. Such theories include Kantian deontology, utilitarianism, Aristotelian virtue ethics, and divine command theory. P-One PHI course or prerequisite override required.
May be repeated for credit. P-One PHI course or prerequisite override required.
A systematic examination of the work of selected contemporary and traditional philosophers on topics such as the state, the family, distributive justice, property, liberty, and the common good. P-One PHI course or prerequisite override required.
Inquiry into the nature of law and its relation to morality. Classroom discussions of readings from the works of classical and modern authors focus on issues of contemporary concern involving questions of legal principle, personal liberty, human rights, responsibility, justice, and punishment. P-One PHI course or prerequisite override required. Combined Bulletin 2026-2027 251
Study of the nature of human freedom and related matters in the philosophy of action, metaphysics, and moral philosophy. P-One PHI course or prerequisite override required. (EI)
Study of the historical and contemporary philosophical investigations of love and friendship. P - One PHI course or prerequisite override required.
Does justice transcend national boundaries? Topics include citizenship, national sovereignty, war, human rights, humanitarian concerns, distribution of resources and burdens, and international law. P-One PHI course or prerequisite override required.
A study of the main philosophical approaches to contemporary bioethics. Each approach is examined critically and students explore how each approach informs analysis of contemporary issues in bioethics. P—One PHI course or prerequisite override required.
Concepts of health, disease, and disability shape discussions in bioethics and health policy. This course examines and critically evaluates competing conceptions of health and disease. The implications of adopting different understandings of health and disease for bioethics and health policy are explored. P—One PHI course or prerequisite override required.
Examines philosophical issues relating to moral, social, behavioral, and/or cognitive pschology. Topics may include the existence and nature of moral character; bias, self deception, and denial; reasoning, intuition, and deliberation; and perception and consciousness. P - One PHI course or prerequisite override required.
Examination of the philosophical foundations of Christian thought and belief. Christian concepts of God and life everlasting, trinity, incarnation, atonement, prayer, sin, evil and obligation. P-One PHI course or prerequisite override required. (EI)
Covers such questions as: What is beauty: What is taste? What is art? Must art be beautiful? Can immoral art be good art? Readings may cover historical figures such as Plato or Kant, or may focus on contemporary writers. P-One PHI course or prerequisite override required.
What is religion? Are the gods dead? Is God dead? Is religious belief a symptom of an underlying human weakness or biological process, or could it be a response to the sacred? Must believers rely on something less than knowledge? Are philosophical proofs the way to knowledge of God? What sort of problem is the “problem of evil” and what is its significance? How are religious beliefs like and unlike metaphysical, moral, and modern scientific beliefs? P – One PHI course or prerequisite override required.
3 PSY 241 Developmental Psychology 3 PSY 220 Biopsychology 2 PSY 222 Psychopharmacology
Selection from the following topics: the mind-body problem; personal identity; the unity of consciousness; minds and machines; the nature of experience; action, intention, and the will. P-One PHI course or prerequisite override required.
Study of such philosophical issues about language as truth and meaning, reference and description, proper names, indexicals, modality, tense, the semantical paradoxes, and the differences between languages and other sorts of sign-systems. Also listed as LIN 375. P-One PHI course (PHI 221 strongly recommended) or prerequisite override required.
The sources, scope and structure of human knowledge. Topics include: skepticism; perception, memory, and reason; the definition of knowledge; the nature of justification; theories of truth. P-One PHI course or prerequisite override required.
A survey of such issues as the nature and existence of properties, possibility and necessity, time and persistence, causation, freedom and determinism, and dualism versus materialism about the human person. P-One PHI course or prerequisite override required.
Philosophical thought about space and time, from the Presocratics to the present. Topics may include the reality of the passage of time, paradoxes of change and motion, puzzles and the awareness of time, spacetime and relativity, and the possibility of time-travel. P-One PHI course or prerequisite override required.
Examination of feminist approaches to philosophical theorizing. Topics may include feminist critiques of the scope and methods of mainstream philosophy, feminist approaches to ethics, epistemology and philosophy of language, and feminist conceptions of the self, sexuality, and moral agency. Also listed as WGS 302. P-one PHI course or prerequisite override required.
Examines the nature of emotions and their relationship to mind, knowledge, ethics, meaning, and politics. Focus varies by instructor. P-one course in PHI.
Examines the role of philosophers and the contributions of philosophy in addressing substantive matters of public importance or concern. Focus varies by instructor. P-one course in Philosophy.
Offered by members of the faculty on specialized topics of their choice. With permission, may be repeated for credit. P-One PHI course or prerequisite override required.
Directed study and research in preparation for writing an honors thesis. P-Admission to the honors program in philosophy.
Completion of the honors thesis begun in PHI 391. Graduation with honors in philosophy requires successful defense of the honors thesis in an oral examination conducted by at least two members of the department. P-PHI 391.
Project for a qualified student in an area of study not otherwise available in the department; subject to approval. Work must be equivalent to an upper-level course. May be repeated for credit. P-Prerequisite override required.
Detailed analysis of selected dialogues, covering Plato’s most important contributions to moral and political philosophy, theory of knowledge, metaphysics, and theology.
Study of the major texts, with emphasis on metaphysics, ethics, and theory of knowledge. P-POI.
Study of Kant’s principal contributions to metaphysics and the theory of knowledge.
Treatment of selected figures and/or themes in seventeenth and eighteenth century European philosophy. P-POI.
Nietzsche. (3 h) Surveys the work of important figures in this period, such as G. W. F. Hegel, Soren Kierkegaard, Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Edith Stein, addressing issues such as the nature of history, society, nihilism, alienation, and authenticity.
Heidegger early and late. Early Heidegger: the contrast between conformism and authenticity achieved through ‘being-towards-death’; meaning through communal tradition. Late Heidegger: critique of modernity’s reduction of everything to ‘resource’; the ethics of ‘dwelling’ as our proper way of being in the world.
The work of Ludwig Wittgenstein on several central philosophical problems studied and compared with that of Frege, James, and Russell. Topics include the picture theory of meaning, truth, skepticism, private languages, thinking, feeling, the mystical, and the ethical. P-POI.
Systematic examination of central ethical theories in the Western philosophical tradition. Such theories include Kantian deontology, utilitarianism, Aristotelian virtue ethics, and divine command theory.
P-POI.
Systematic examination of the work of selected contemporary and traditional philosophers on topics such as the state, the family, distributive justice, property, liberty, and the common good.
Examination of the philosophical foundations of Christian thought and belief. Christian concepts of God and life everlasting, trinity, incarnation, atonement, prayer, sin, evil and obligation.
Covers such questions as: What is beauty? What is taste? What is art? Must art be beautiful? Can immoral art be good art? Readings may cover historical figures such as Plato or Kant, or may focus on contemporary writers.
What is religion? Are the gods dead? Is God dead? Is religious belief a symptom of an underlying human weakness or biological process, or could it be a response to the sacred? Must believers rely on something less than knowledge? Are philosophical proofs the way to knowledge of God? What sort of problem is the “problem of evil” and what is its significance? How are religious beliefs like and unlike metaphysical, moral, and modern scientific beliefs?.
Systematic and critical examination of major views concerning the methods of scientific inquiry, and the bases, goals, and implication of the scientific conclusions which result from such inquiry. P-POI.
Selection from the following topics: the mind-body problem; personal identity; the unity of consciousness; minds and machines; the nature of experience; action, intention, and the will.
Study of such philosophical issues about language as truth and meaning, reference and description, proper names, indexicals, modality, tense, the semantical paradoxes, and the differences between languages and other sorts of sign-systems. P-POI.
The sources, scope and structure of human knowledge. Topics include: skepticism; perception, memory and reason; the definition of knowledge; the nature of justification; theories of truth. P-POI.
This course examines the role of philosophers and the contributions of philosophy to examine and address substantive matters of public importance or concern. P-POI.
Offered by members of the faculty on specialized topics of their choice. With permission, may be repeated for credit. P-POI.
Source: Wake Forest University's catalog, linked per course · table learning_unit · CourseShelf publish 61
