31 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 100Philosophical Concepts
This survey course explores major problem areas of Philosophy-metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, and axiology-to introduce students to philosophy as both a method of inquiring about and making sense of the self and the world. Primary emphasis is placed on readings from outside the traditional canon of philosophy, with a focus on themes of diversity, inequality, and moral rights and obligations. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. (DN, H, O.)
This is an introductory course that looks at philosophical questions raised in various films. Examples include: considering personal identity through Memento and Being John Malkovich; humanness and the nature of the mind through Blade Runner and Ex Machina; social justice and ethical issues through films like Do the Right Thing, Pariah, and Ma Vie en Rose; and the meaning of life through Ikiru, Life of Pi, and Encounters at the Edge of the World. Philosophy texts relevant to the issues raised accompany each film. Three hours lecture and a two-hour screening per week. Four semester hours. (H.)
A philosophical examination of whether life has a purpose or is absurd and meaningless. Particular attention is given to what it means for something to have a purpose, what are possible sources of a purpose, and the issues of the afterlife and God. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. (H.) PHIL/GWSS-107. Philosophy of Love and Sex What do we mean when we talk about love? How do we understand what motivates our interests in and movements toward relationships of pleasure and community? This course conducts its inquiry of love, sex/ualities, and pleasures with a ground in Black Feminist love-praxis and erotics and how this obligates us to others in various loving and pleasure engagements, including but not limited to transformative justice, friendship, wisdom, BDSM/Kink, asexuality, and sex work. The texts for this course range broadly within the discipline of philosophy (such as: black feminist/womanist thought, Latinx thought, feminist philosophy of science, and genealogy), and literature (as philo
Topics may include special issues and movements. Open to students with no previous experience in philosophy. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. (H.)
How can philosophy help you begin to articulate what should matter to you and how we should live together? One of the ways it does this is by first questioning how it is we can understand the world. In Introduction to Philosophies, we take seriously the notion that there are multiple ways of coming to knowledge about the world, ourselves, and our place in that world. This introductory course explores major problem areas of philosophy from non-Western thinkers such as metaphysics, epistemology, axiology, and ontology. Primary emphasis is placed on readings from Africana, American Indigenous, Chinese, and Indian thought, with a focus on themes of personhood/constructions o PHIL/RELS-220. Philosophy of Religion A philosophical study of both belief itself as a psychological attitude and what has been believed about God. Particular attention is given to such questions as whether or not belief is a matter of choice and whether or not one must have a reason to believe in God. Questions about the natures of God and man, evil and immortality are also addressed. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. (H.) PHIL/GWSS-221. Prison Studies/The Problem of Freedom Is it possible to think of freedom without framing it against a background of various unfreedoms? This course looks at how the development of the notion of the modern liberal subject is predicated on structures of unfreedom, specifically prisons. Taking prison abolition as its starting point, this course explores an historical account of the prison industrial complex and interrogates the constitutive relationship of prison in the lives of people with precarious identities. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. (DN, H, O.)
This course focuses specifically on one (or two intimately related) figures per semester -and the way they engage with major problem areas of philosophy-from within and without the canon of western philosophy. Open to students with no previous experience in philosophy. This course may be repeated for credit. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. (H; possibly DN or O depending on topic.)
This course will study the philosophical assumptions behind various concepts of race, the social realities underlying those concepts, and the ethics and politics of racial identity. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. (H.) PHIL/POL-237. Political Philosophy This course examines the nature of justice through a careful reading of major works in the history of political philosophy. Specifically, we will consider selected political writings of Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, and Marx. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. (H, O, SS.)
A study of the theories of ethical relativism, psychological and ethical egoism, altruism, utilitarianism, Kantian deontology, and virtue theory, and of various views on the human good, virtue, the role of motive and consequences in determining right and wrong conduct, and the like. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. (H.) PHIL/CS-243. Technology and Ethics Data privacy, digital surveillance, data mining, self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, algorithms used by government and law enforcement, doxxing - technology raises many new and old ethical questions. In this core capstone course we use a variety of ways of asking to address these ethical questions: empirical, philosophical, political, creative, and other ways of asking. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. (CCAP, H, O.) PHIL/RELS/GWSS-244. Work and Meaning What is work? What’s the difference between real work, bullshit work, and play? Why do we pay people for some kinds of work and not others? Are we all just naturally lazy, or do we really want to do something meaningful with our lives? Why do so many people hate their jobs? And does what you do make you who you are? We will explore these questions and many, many more through classic and contemporary readings, impassioned discussions, and a variety of in-class experiments. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. (H, LINQ.)
An introduction to and examination of some major issues in bioethics, including abortion, euthanasia, surrogate motherhood, informed consent, doctor/patient confidentiality, medical futility, the distribution of health care resources, genetic engineering, prenatal testing, stem cell research, and medical experimentation. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. (DN, H.)
An examination of some major issues in business ethics, including duties to consumers and investors, duties between employers and employees, the ethics of advertising and marketing, accounting and finance ethics, hiring and firing, justice and the market system, the problem of public goods, social responsibility and stakeholders, whistleblowing, conflicts of interest, and the environment. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. (H) PHIL/ENVS-248. Environmental Ethics The central issue in environmental ethics concerns what things in nature have moral standing and how conflicts of interest among them are to be resolved. After an introduction to ethical theory, topics to be covered include anthropocentrism, the moral status of non-human sentient beings, preservation of endangered species and the wilderness, holism versus individualism, and the land ethic. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. (H.)
Artists are not saints. Many do morally bad things. How should we react to morally bad artists? Is it wrong to listen to their music, watch their films, read their books, admire their paintings? Can we separate the art from the artist? Should we separate the art from the artist? In this class, we will explore these and related questions. We will also critically investigate the diagnosis that we live in a problematic “cancel culture”. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. (H, O.)
An examination of the major works of four or more of the major European philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Among the candidates for study are Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Malebranche, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Reid, and Kant. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. (H.)
Existentialism boasts a long philosophical and literary tradition that extends from Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky and Nietzsche, to such formidable later figures as Miguel de Unamuno, Nicholas Berdyaev, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. Does life have any meaning? Are we free to shape our own lives? How do concepts such as existence, essence and free will affect our world views? In this class, we’ll read the great Existentialist writers in English, but approach the subject with international breadth. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. (H.) PHIL/MATH-260. Logic An introduction to the concepts and techniques used in symbolic reasoning, primarily through the study of first-order logic, the translation of sentences of ordinary English into a formal language, and the construction of derivations. Topics include: formalization, proofs, mathematical induction, propositional and predicate logic, quantifiers, and sets. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. (R.)
The philosopher’s toolkit is a treasure trove of helpful skills: close reading, precise writing, detailed analysis, argumentation. The course includes an introduction to the concepts and techniques used in symbolic reasoning, primarily through the study of first-order logic and explores how these concepts can be applied to reasons and arguments in philosophical texts and day-to-day life (in editorials, Supreme Court decisions, conversations with friends, etc.), with a particular focus on the metacognition of argumentation. In addition to engaging in philosophical analysis, students will develop the ability to understand and communicate what kind of philosophical “move” t
Zombies, robots, and Martians… oh my! All of these figures will be discussed during our semester-long journey into philosophy of mind. How ought we understand the mind? Is it distinct from our brains and bodies? What does it mean to be conscious? Can robots have minds? Can they be conscious? These are just some of the interesting questions we will explore! Three hours per week Four semester hours. (H.)
This course explores questions in social and political epistemology. Many say we are in an unprecedented and toxic belief environment: a post-truth area of “alternative facts”, an information landscape in which seemingly inescapable echo chambers threaten our ability to access and respond rationally to evidence, a time in which extreme political and social polarization make agreement about the nature of the world be live in incredibly difficult. In this class, we will investigate this characterization of our epistemic lives. Whom should we trust? What is an expert? What should we do in the face of disagreement? What is an echo chamber, and can we know if we are in one? I
Phenomenology is the study of lived experience. What that means for this course is an interrogation of essence of embodiment. What do bodies mean? What does it mean to be embodied as human? What essential features and ways-of-being are unique to humans and set them apart from non-human animals? Are all homo sapiens human? This course engages in a philosophical examination of perception and the science of lived experience including the content of perceptual experience, the partiality of perception, the role of sense-data and sensations in meaning-making. This course will largely focus on Merleau-Ponty’s writings on the lived body and will interrogate those writings with r
Individual study of one or more selected topics in the philosophical literature. May include preparation of a bibliography for a proposal for subsequent research. Requires consent of a member of the department who will serve as adviser. This course is graded S/U. One semester hour.
Individual study of one or more selected topics in the philosophical literature. May include preparation of a bibliography for a proposal for subsequent research. Requires consent of a member of the department who will serve as adviser. This course is graded S/U. Two semester hours.
Topics may include special issues and movements. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. (H; possibly CCAP, DN, GN, or O, depending on topic.) PHIL/EDUC-310W. Educational Theory and Philosophy A study in the theories and philosophies that have shaped educational practice and policy, both historically and in current times. Students will engage in close reading of primary texts in seminar-style classes and through extensive written work. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. (H.)
Group study of an important or classic philosophical book or a selection of articles centered around a philosophical topic. This course is graded S/U. One semester hour PHIL/RELS-313. Marx, Nietzsche, Freud Nietzsche writes, “We are not ‘men of knowledge’ with respect to ourselves.” Marx calls for the abolition of religion in order that we may “abandon a condition which requires illusions.” Freud insists that we are not “masters in our own houses”: his theory of the unconscious challenges the comfortable notion that we have unmediated access to knowledge of ourselves. Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud turn their critical energies in different directions, but they share the conviction that our consciousness is fundamentally false consciousness. For these thinkers, what we think we know about ourselves, others, and the world around us requires constant critique, and our certainties PHIL/GWSS-317. Trans Theory The past few years have seen unprecedented conversations on a national scale about the fluidity of gender and what it means to be trans. Increasing awareness of the complexities of gender has saturated mainstream media and led to an explosion of scholarship in the field of transgender studies. Attending to individual narratives and artifacts of popular culture as well as to theories of embodiment, power, identity, and difference, this course surveys theoretical works alongside history, memoir, and fiction. We will pay specific attention to the intersections of gender identity and gender presentation with categories of race, class, and sexuality. Prior coursework in Gende PHIL/RELS-323. What Really Matters in Life? Are you curious about what makes for a good life? Everyone wants to be happy, but the pursuit of happiness may be illusory if not guided by critical thinking. In this course, we will think together about what goods and ends ought to be pursued to live an intellectually and morally satisfying life. We will explore questions such as: Is it really possible for one to be happy without cultivating a concern for the well-being of others? Can self-interest co-exist with the ethical life? What are the marks of a life lived with authenticity? We will struggle with these questions and students will be also asked to think about and reflect on such matters in their own lives. This c
A close examination of one or more controversial issues and theories in metaethics. Among the possible topics are: the nature of moral theory, the foundations of normative judgment, the “internalism” or “externalism” of practical reasoning, realism vs. anti-realism in ethical theory, the roles of reason and emotion in morality, moral skepticism, virtue theory, utilitarianism, and Aristotelian or Kantian moral views. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. (H.)
An intensive investigation of one or more topics in ethics-such as well-being, autonomy, rights, consequentialism, Kantian ethics, virtue ethics, and other topics. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. (H.)
Is it ever ethical for a novelist to base characters on real people, possibly violating their expectations of privacy? Why does fiction move us even though what happens in a novel is not “real”? Can fiction ever argue for something? This course examines such questions in the light of philosophical thinking in ethics, the theory of knowledge, political theory, and aesthetics. Other topics may include exploration of the concepts of style, metaphor and criticism. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. (H.)
An intensive investigation of a few topics in metaphysics-such as personal identity, possibility and necessity, universals and particulars, causality-or in epistemology-such as skepticism, a priori knowledge, the problem of induction, knowledge as justified true belief. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. (H.) PHIL/GWSS-371. Identity, Credibility, Knowledge, Power: Feminist Epistemologies This course explores feminist approaches to questions concerning knowledge, justification, and rationality. We will look in particular at feminist standpoint theory, feminist empiricism, and feminist analyses of epistemic oppression and justice. In doing so, we will engage with the following questions: Does a person’s social identity (e.g., gender or racialized identity) impact what they know? What are they justified in believing? Whether they are credible with respect to certain topics? Are certain social locations epistemically privileged? Is rationality gendered? Is knowledge socially constructed? Are we ever obligated to believe someone? Three hours per week. Four se
An academic/work experience under the supervision of an internship adviser and an on-site supervisor. Students must document their experience according to the requirements delineated in the College catalogue section on Internships. Contact the chair of the department for further details. Open to juniors and seniors. The term during which the internship work is performed will be noted by one of the following letters, to be added immediately after the internship course number: A (fall), B (winter), C (spring), or D (summer). Internships undertaken abroad will be so indicated by the letter I. The intern must complete a minimum of 120 hours of work. Prerequisite: approval of
An academic/work experience under the supervision of an internship adviser and an on-site supervisor. Students must document their experience according to the requirements delineated in the College catalogue section on Internships. Contact the chair of the department for further details. Open to juniors and seniors. The term during which the internship work is performed will be noted by one of the following letters, to be added immediately after the internship course number: A (fall), B (winter), C (spring), or D (summer). Internships undertaken abroad will be so indicated by the letter I. The intern must complete a minimum of 160 hours of work. Prerequisite: approval of
Independent work on a philosophical topic, under the supervision of a faculty advisor. A substantial written final product is required. Prerequisites: at least three Philosophy courses at the 200 level or above, a written project proposal, and permission of a department faculty member who will serve as advisor. Four semester hours (XLP.)
The aim of this capstone course is to explore in great depth an area of philosophical concern using all the tools students have developed as philosophy majors. There will be several papers and oral presentations. Open only to senior philosophy majors or by departmental permission. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. Four semester hours. (CCAP, H.) PHIL/POL-437W. Seminar in Political Philosophy This capstone course is an intensive study of a special topic in political philosophy emphasizing original research and substantial oral and written work. Prerequisites: junior or senior status and one 300-level course in political philosophy. Three hours per week. Four semester hours. (SS.)
