31 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.
A study of the development of philosophical thought from its Greek beginnings through the Romano-Hellenistic period with special attention given to Plato and Aristotle as background for the rise of Christian thinking. Program: College; Department: Philosophy
Study of and principle focus on Aristotelian logic with some consideration of symbolic logic. Topics include: logic as a philosophical tool, categorical propositions, syllogistic argumentation, informal fallacies, propositional logic, and logical translation Program: College; Department: Philosophy
This course provides the seminarian with the opportunity to examine the meaning of knowledge with particular emphasis on the moderate realism of St. Thomas Aquinas. Topics include: the origin of knowledge, the process of knowing, the power of the intellect, truth and certitude, and knowledge as wisdom. Program: College; Department: Philosophy
An examination of being with particular emphasis on the primacy of existence (esse) and essence, causality, analogy, the existence of God, and the problem of evil. Program: College; Department: Philosophy
An examination of and emphasis on God as the center of being under the themes: ontological vs. cosmological proofs for God’s existence, the “five ways” of St. Thomas Aquinas, the nature of God, God the Creator, God’s transcendence and immanence, the eternity of God, the problem of evil in the light of God’s goodness, and the relation of natural theology and Revelation. Program: College; Department: Philosophy
A study of major themes characterizing philosophy in the Medieval period: the relation of faith and reason, the existence and nature of God, freedom of the will, the problem of evil, and the nature of the human being. These issues will be explored in the writings of some of the principal thinkers of the Medieval period: Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, Averroes, and Thomas Aquinas. Particular attention will be given to the historical context in which these figures philosophized. Program: College; Department: Philosophy
THOUGHT OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS A study of St. Thomas with special emphasis on his meaning for the contemporary world. Included as integral to this examination of his work will be the focus on the inter-relation of Aquinas the theologian and Aquinas the philosopher. Program: College; Department: Philosophy
An in-depth study of Plato, focusing on his overriding search for Divine Goodness and Unity. Themes will include the journey of the soul, knowledge vs. opinion, reality vs. appearance, love of 137
THOUGHT OF ST. AUGUSTINE A study of St. Augustine with special emphasis on his meaning for the contemporary world. Included as integral to this examination of his work will be the focus on the theological-philosophical unity of his vision. Other topics include: the freedom of the will, the theory of illumination, time and memory. Special consideration given to his Confessions. Program: College; Department: Philosophy
ATHEISM IN A PHILOSOPHICAL CONTEXT The religion of man comes center stage. The emergence of secular humanism in the modern world; particular stress will be given to the triumph of subjectivity, the denial of transcendence (in contras to the transcendental), the impact of positivism, and the growth of naturalism as conducive to atheism and agnosticism. Possible philosophical responses to this challenge of atheistic humanism will be explored. Program: College; Department: Philosophy
This course will explore the family as the natural relation of husband and wife, male and female, ordered toward unity and procreativity. Various philosophical treatments of the family will be discussed. Topics include: the nature and end of marriage, the role of family in society, nature of the human person, human sexuality, sacramentality of marriage, and the principle of subsidiarity. Relevance of particular recent conceptions of the family, and Catholic responses to these, will also be explored. Readings include selections from Evangelium Vitae, Deus Caritas Est, Familaris Consortio, as well as readings from Classical Greek sources (especially Plato and Aristotle), St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, St. John Paul II, and other thinkers. Program: College; Department: Philosophy
A study of and historical introduction to phenomenology in the twentieth century, with special emphasis on Husserlian phenomenology. Consideration will also be given to the thought of Heidegger and other twentieth century phenomenological figures. Topics include: the phenomenological method; intentionality; perception, memory, imagination, and their differences; symbols and pictures; the relation between perception and categorial thinking; presence and absence in human experience; the life- world and modern natural science; the human person; and theological disclosure. Program: College; Department: Philosophy
A philosophical examination of action and political life; work, labor, and technology; friendship; privacy and publicness; justice and other virtues; cities, states, and nations; nature and convention; the moral and the legal. Special consideration will be given to the thought of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas on the nature of society and the common good. Special consideration will also be given to the political philosophy in the modern era with emphasis on major figures and movements in philosophy. Program: College; Department: Philosophy
This course examines several topics concerning the meaning and possibility of human “free will”, including 1) is freedom primarily about doing what is good, or about choice? 2) are being free and being determined compatible or incompatible concepts? 3) how can we have “free will” if God is all knowing and all powerful? 4) how is the possibility of free will affected by various theories of the human person (e.g. materialism, dualism, hylomorphism), ? 5) how can God have free will if He is eternally fully actual and t indivisible?, 6) what is the relationship between free will, sin, grace, and predestination ? 6) how does individual free will relate to morality and political freedom? It will cover Catholic thinkers like St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, Boethius, and famous debates between the Dominican thinker Banez and the Jesuit thinker Molina. Protestant figures like Calvin and differing views within evangelical Protestantism on free will and salvation, as well as modern philosophers like Hobbes, Locke, Kant, and Marx, will also be addressed. Program: College; Department: Philosophy
An examination of St. Thomas Aquinas’s account of knowledge and challenges posed to it by later Medieval thinkers such as Henry of Ghent, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham. Select topics will include, but are not limited to: critiques of intelligible and sensible species, certitude and divine illumination, intuitive cognition and knowledge of the singular, ontological status of universals (realism vs nominalism). Program: College; Department: Philosophy
MIRACLES: CHALLENGES AND POSSIBILITIES A philosophical examination and defense of miracles in light of modern and contemporary challenges. Select topics will include, but are not limited to: a study of definitions of miracles; philosophical defenses of the possibility of miracles in the thought of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas especially, as well as those offered by Al-Ghazali, John Locke, George Berkeley, G.W. Leibniz, and C.S. Lewis, among others; an assessment of arguments against miracles by Hume, Spinoza, Kant, and others; the relationship between faith and reason; evidence and credibility; the challenges of empiricism and skepticism; metaphysical causation; scientific explanation; cause and effect; nature; and the laws of nature. Additionally, some attention will be given to more 138
A study of the human person as a rational substance. Topics include: the body/soul relation; the nature of thought; proofs for the soul’s immortality; the notions of personhood, embodiment, and identity; teleology vs. mechanism; freedom and community; happiness and the ultimate end of the human person. Particular emphasis given to the contributions of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas, and Modern authors such as Descartes, Hume, Nietzsche and others. Program: College; Department: Philosophy
A study of Thomistic natural moral law. Topics will include: objective morality as rooted in the first moral principle and the moral norm of right reason, act vs. intentionality, the role of conscience, virtue and the good as end, natural rights, and the perennial significance of natural law within the contemporary ethical context. The latter part of the course will focus on the application of the natural law’s ethics principles to such problem areas as life, sex, war and social justice. Program: College; Department: Philosophy
A study of the development of philosophical thought from Descartes through the nineteenth century. Topics will include: rationalism and empiricism, Kantian epistemology and deontological ethics, German Idealism, Positivism and Materialism, Secular Humanism, and the crisis of reason. Consideration may also be given to principles of Modern political thought in relation to its epistemological and metaphysical commitments. Program: College; Department: Philosophy
A study of the development of philosophical thought from the twentieth century to the present day. Topics include: phenomenology and existentialism, hermeneutics, the crisis of reason, the rise of Neo-Thomism, with some consideration of analytic philosophy. Some attention given to more recent topics and problems in philosophy. Program: College; Department: Philosophy
A study of the human person as a rational substance. Topics include: the body/soul relation; the nature of thought; proofs for the soul’s immortality; the notions of personhood, embodiment, and identity; teleology vs. mechanism; freedom and community; happiness and the ultimate end of the human person. Particular emphasis given to the contributions of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas, and Modern authors such as Descartes, Hume, Nietzsche and others. Program: Pre-Theology; Department: Philosophy
A study of Thomistic natural moral law. Topics will include: objective morality as rooted in the first moral principle and the moral norm of right reason, act vs. intentionality, the role of conscience, virtue and the good as end, natural rights, and the perennial significance of natural law within the contemporary ethical context. The latter part of the course will focus on the application of the natural law’s ethics principles to such problem areas as life, sex, war and social justice. Program: Pre-Theology; Department: Philosophy
A study of the development of philosophical thought from its Greek beginnings through the Romano-Hellenistic period with special attention given to Plato and Aristotle as background for the rise of Christian thinking. Program: Pre-Theology; Department: Philosophy
This course provides the seminarian with the opportunity to examine the meaning of knowledge with particular emphasis on the moderate realism of St. Thomas Aquinas. Topics include: the origin of knowledge, the process of knowing, the power of the intellect, truth and certitude, and knowledge as wisdom. Program: Pre-Theology; Department: Philosophy
An examination of being with particular emphasis on the primacy of existence (esse) and essence, causality, analogy, the existence of God, and the problem of evil. Program: Pre-Theology; Department: Philosophy
Study of and principle focus on Aristotelian logic with some consideration of symbolic logic. Topics include: logic as a philosophical tool, categorical propositions, syllogistic argumentation, informal fallacies, propositional logic, and logical translation. Program: Pre-Theology; Department: Philosophy
An examination of and emphasis on God as the center of being under the themes: ontological vs. cosmological proofs for God’s existence, the “five ways” of St. Thomas Aquinas, the nature of God, God the Creator, God’s transcendence and immanence, the eternity of God, the problem of evil in the light of God’s goodness, and the relation of natural theology and Revelation. 139
A study of major themes characterizing philosophy in the Medieval period: the relation of faith and reason, the existence and nature of God, freedom of the will, the problem of evil, and the nature of the human being. These issues will be explored in the writings of some of the principal thinkers of the Medieval period: Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, Averroes, and Thomas Aquinas. Particular attention will be given to the historical context in which these figures philosophized. Program: Pre-Theology; Department: Philosophy
A study of the development of philosophical thought from Descartes through the nineteenth century. Topics will include: rationalism and empiricism, Kantian epistemology and deontological ethics, German Idealism, Positivism and Materialism, Secular Humanism, and the crisis of reason. Consideration may also be given to principles of Modern political thought in relation to its epistemological and metaphysical commitments. Program: Pre-Theology; Department: Philosophy
A study of the development of philosophical thought from the nineteenth century, through the twentieth, and to the present day. Topics include: phenomenology and existentialism, hermeneutics, the crisis of reason, and a treatment of analytic philosophy. Some attention given to more recent topics and problems in philosophy. Program: Pre-Theology; Department: Philosophy
MIRACLES: CHALLENGES AND POSSIBILITIES A philosophical examination and defense of miracles in light of modern and contemporary challenges. Select topics will include, but are not limited to: a study of definitions of miracles; philosophical defenses of the possibility of miracles in the thought of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas especially, as well as those offered by Al-Ghazali, John Locke, George Berkeley, G.W. Leibniz, and C.S. Lewis, among others; an assessment of arguments against miracles by Hume, Spinoza, Kant, and others; the relationship between faith and reason; evidence and credibility; the challenges of empiricism and skepticism; metaphysical causation; scientific explanation; cause and effect; nature; and the laws of nature. Additionally, some attention will be given to more specialized themes and to some more recent defenses of and challenges to an affirmation of miracles. Program: Pre-Theology; Department: Philosophy
Source: Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary-Overbrook's catalog, linked per course · table learning_unit · CourseShelf publish 59
