Fall 2021 Courses

PHIL 101: Logic 
Colin Patrick MWF 9:10am-10:10am
Colin Patrick MWF 3:00pm-4:00pm

Analyses of arguments with an emphasis on formal analysis. Propositional and predicate calculus, deductive techniques, and translation into symbolic notation.

Prerequisites: None. 

PHIL 102: Introduction to Philosophy
J.M. Frtizman MWF 9:10am-10:10am

Introduction to problems and fields of philosophy through the study of major philosophers’ works and other philosophical texts. Specific content varies with instructor.

Prerequisites: None. 

PHIL 103: Ethics
Colin Patrick MWF 11:30am-12:30pm
Phillip Barron MWF 12:40pm-1:40pm

Fundamental issues in moral philosophy and their application to contemporary life.

Prerequisites: None 

PHIL 203: Philosophy of Art and Beauty 
Jay Odenbaugh TTH 9:40am-11:10am

Theorizing about art. Puzzles in art that suggest the need to theorize; traditional discussions of art in Plato and Aristotle and critiques of them (Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, Collingwood); critical perspectives on these discussions (Danto). Specific discussions of individual arts: literature, drama, film, music, dance, the plastic arts.

Prerequisites: None

PHIL 207: Indian Philosophy
J.M. Fritzman MWF 10:20am-11:20am 

Survey of India’s classical philosophies as well as introductions to the Vedas, the Upanishads, Carvaka, Jainism, Buddhism, and recent Indian philosophers.

Prerequisites: None

PHIL 217: Selfhood and Personal Identity
Phillip Barron MW 3:00pm-4:30pm 

Introduces students to philosophy through a specific theme or topic. Students investigate how philosophy is represented and enacted in a specific area as well as by participating in its enactment. Possible topics include philosophy and existentialism, philosophy and Latin America, philosophy and literature, philosophy and race, gender, class.

Prerequisites: None. 

PHIL 250: Philosophical Methods
Joel Martinez MWF: 9:10am-10:10am

Some of the main methods, concepts, distinctions, and areas of systematic philosophical inquiry. Including basic tools for argument, such as validity, soundness, probability, and thought experiments; basic tools for assessment, such as the rule of excluded middle, category mistakes, and conceivability; and basic tools for conceptual distinctions, such as a priori versus a posteriori and analytic versus synthetic. Includes methods, such as the history of philosophy, naturalized philosophy, conceptual analysis, and phenomenology, as well as areas of systemic philosophical approach, such as empiricism, rationalism, naturalism, realism, idealism, internalism, externalism, and nominalism.

Prerequisites: PHIL 101. 

PHIL 315: Philosophy of Science 
Jay Odenbaugh TTH 1:50pm-3:20pm

Issues concerning scientific knowledge and its epistemological and ontological implications from the perspective of history and practice of the natural sciences, such as explanation, testing, observation and theory, scientific change and progress, scientific realism, instrumentalism.

Prerequisites: PHIL 101. PHIL 250. PHIL 102 or one course in the history of philosophy sequence (PHIL 301 through PHIL 307) recommended.

Restrictions: Sophomore standing required 

PHIL 452: Ethics in Latin America Philosophy 
Joel Martinez MWF 11:30am-12:30pm 

Advanced study of classical and current philosophical issues and problems in value theory, including the philosophy of art and beauty, ethics and morality, philosophy of religion, social and political thought, and the philosophy of law. May be repeated with change of topic.

Prerequisites: PHIL 101. PHIL 250. One 300-level philosophy course.

Restrictions: Sophomore standing required