Philosophy (PHIL)

(3-0) Cr. 3. F.S.SS.

It has been rumored that the unexamined life is not worth living. Philosophy is an attempt to begin examining life by considering such questions as: What makes us human? What is the world ultimately like? How should we relate to other people? Is there a god? How can we know anything about these questions? Understanding questions of this kind and proposed answers to them is what this course is all about.

(3-0) Cr. 3. F.

Basic principles of critical reasoning and argument evaluation. A consideration of basic forms of argumentation in science and everyday life. Application to contemporary issues and controversies.

(Cross-listed with LING). (3-0) Cr. 3. F.S.

Introduction to fundamental logical concepts and logical symbolism. Development of natural deduction through first order predicate logic with identity. Applications to arguments in ordinary English and to philosophical issues. Linguistics majors should take LING/PHIL 207 as early as possible.

(3-0) Cr. 3. F.S.SS.

Investigation of moral issues in the context of major ethical theories of value and obligation; e.g., punishment, abortion, economic justice, job discrimination, world hunger, and sexual morality. Emphasis on critical reasoning and argument analysis.

(3-0) Cr. 3. F.S.

This course will examine a range of arguments on diversity issues. Topics will include: the social status of women, the moral status of sexuality and homosexuality, the nature and role of racism in contemporary society, the relationship between biology, gender roles and social status, and various proposals for change from a variety of political perspectives.
Meets U.S. Diversity Requirement

(Cross-listed with CL ST). (3-0) Cr. 3. F.

Prereq: 3 credits in PHIL or Permission of Instructor
Survey of ancient Greek philosophy, focusing on the pre-Socratics, Plato, and Aristotle. Questions concerning being, knowledge, language, and the good life are treated in depth.

(3-0) Cr. 3. Alt. S., offered even-numbered years.

Readings from philosophers such as Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Locke. Changing conceptions of knowledge, self, and deities in response to Galileo's new science and post-reformation challenge to ecclesiastical authority.

(3-0) Cr. 3. Alt. S., offered odd-numbered years.

Readings from philosophers such as Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. Development of Enlightenment thought. Issues include idealism, causation, freedom, and knowledge regarding science, ethics, and deities.

(3-0) Cr. 3. F.

Prereq: 3 credits in PHIL or Permission of Instructor
The thought of Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and their contemporaries. Various perspectives on the philosophy of history, the nature of reason and subjectivity, the contrast between dialectical and nondialectical philosophy, and the relationship between philosophy and society.

(3-0) Cr. 3. S.

Prereq: 3 credits in PHIL
Major movements in recent and contemporary philosophy such as realism, logical positivism, ordinary language philosophy, and naturalism. Russell, Wittgenstein, Quine and other leading figures. Topics include knowledge of the material world, mind, language, values, and philosophical method. PHIL 201 recommended.

(3-0) Cr. 3. F.

Prereq: 3 credits in PHIL or Permission of Instructor
History, development and forms of existential thought. Consciousness, free will, authenticity and bad faith. Readings of major figures in existentialism, such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Heidegger, Sartre, and de Beauvoir.

(3-0) Cr. 3. F.

Prereq: 3 credits in PHIL or Permission of Instructor
Study of major theories of morality and the good life. Includes such topics as moral psychology, practical reasoning, and virtue theory.

(3-0) Cr. 3. S.

In-depth study of some of the central moral problems arising in medicine, e.g., abortion, euthanasia, patients' rights, health care professionals' duties and responsibilities, allocation of medical resources. Major moral theories will be examined and applied.

(Cross-listed with C J). (3-0) Cr. 3. F.S.

Prereq: 3 credits in PHIL or Permission of Instructor
Extent of our obligation to obey the law; what constitutes just punishment; how much of the immoral should be made illegal? Relation of these questions to major theories of law and the state. Discussion of such concepts as coercion, equality, and responsibility.

(Cross-listed with ENV S). (3-0) Cr. 3. F.

Prereq: 3 credits in PHIL or Permission of Instructor
Thorough study of some of the central moral issues arising in connection with human impact on the environment, e.g., human overpopulation, species extinction, forest and wilderness management, pollution. Several world views of the proper relationship between human beings and nature will be explored.

(3-0) Cr. 3. F.

Prereq: 3 credits in PHIL or Permission of Instructor
Foundational moral issues of social and political life. Topics include justice, political economy, liberty and equality, and democracy, rights, and authority.

(3-0) Cr. 3.

Prereq: 3 credits in PHIL or Permission of Instructor
In-depth study of some central moral issues in the life sciences, e.g., genetic screening and testing, genetically engineered plants and animals, risk analysis, biotechnology patents, research ethics, biodiversity, the impact of biotechnology on society and the environment. Major moral theories will be discussed and applied.

(Cross-listed with WGS). (3-0) Cr. 3. F.

A critical, theoretical examination of the philosophical and intellectual commitments that underlie feminist projects. Questions of identity, knowledge, and ethics will be considered from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Topics will include sex and gender, self and other, nature and nurture, masculinity and femininity, equity and justice, patriarchy, oppression, and intersectionality. 3 credits in PHIL or WGS recommended.

(Cross-listed with C J, POL S). (3-0) Cr. 3. F.S.

Competing conceptions of liberty in American political thought. Debates about how liberty should be protected by the law, in fields such as health care, drugs, property, speech, religion, and sex.

(3-0) Cr. 3. F.

Aesthetic theory and applies it to everyday life. Theoretical topics include the nature of aesthetic experience, criticism, and expression. Aesthetic experience of such forms of art as poetry and painting, as well as interactions with nature, sports, architecture, and campus sculpture.

(3-0) Cr. 3. F.S.

Moral and other philosophical problems related to developments in technology. Topics may include conditions under which technological innovations contribute to human emancipation, relationship of technology and democracy, utility and limits of technical rationality, and problems of ensuring that benefits of technological advance are communally shared. Topics discussed with reference to such issues as contemporary developments in microelectronics, technology transfer to the Third World, etc.

(Cross-listed with RELIG). (3-0) Cr. 3. F.

Prereq: 6 credits in PHIL or Permission of Instructor
The value and truth of religious life and belief. Mystical experience; religious faith and language; arguments for God's existence; the problem of evil; miracles; and religion and morality. Historical and contemporary readings.

(3-0) Cr. 3.

Prereq: 3 credits in PHIL or Permission of Instructor
Examination of metaphysical issues that commonly arise in science fiction and related areas of popular culture, such as the relationship between mind and reality, metaphysical personhood, time, and causation.

(3-0) Cr. 3. S.

Prereq: 6 credits in PHIL or Permission of Instructor
A survey of classical and contemporary views on some basic metaphysical issues. Issues discussed include: Does God exist? Do you have a mind and, if so, how does it relate to your body? What is the nature of cause and effect? Do objects have any essential properties? How can we account for properties objects have in common?.

(3-0) Cr. 3. F.

Prereq: 6 credits in PHIL or Permission of Instructor
This course focuses on significant topics in theory of knowledge, including the value of true beliefs, the role of sense experience in supporting our theoretical views, and the place of reason in human nature. Historical and contemporary views will be considered.

(3-0) Cr. 3. F.

Prereq: 6 credits in PHIL or Permission of Instructor
Introduction to the philosophy of science. A variety of basic problems common to the natural and social sciences: the nature of explanation, the structure of theories, the unity of science, and the distinction between science and nonscience.

(Cross-listed with HIST). (3-0) Cr. 3. Alt. S., offered odd-numbered years.

Prereq: 3 credits in PHIL or Permission of Instructor
The emergence of empirical science as the authoritative methodology for production of knowledge about the natural world in the period between Copernicus and Kant. Scientific progress achieved during the period, including the work of Galileo, Descartes, and Newton. The re-shaping of epistemology in the Western intellectual tradition. Implications for philosophy and historiography.

(3-0) Cr. 3. Alt. F., offered odd-numbered years.

Prereq: 3 credits in PHIL or PSYCH, or Permission of Instructor
Philosophical foundations of 20th century psychology and psychiatry. Introduction to competing schools of thought in psychology and their philosophical assumptions. Examination of philosophical assumptions in the study of psychopathology/abnormal psychology.

(Cross-listed with CL ST). (3-0) Cr. 3. S.

Prereq: 6 credits in PHIL or CL ST, or Permission of Instructor
Prominent theories of soul and mind developed by Greek philosophers in the classical period, roughly 500 BCE-200 CE, and how the philosophers located these theories within their general metaphysical views. Relationship between mind and body and the roles of reason, desire, and emotion. Philosophers to be studied include Plato, Aristotle, and selected others.

(3-0) Cr. 3. S.

Prereq: 3 credits in PHIL or Permission of Instructor
Theoretical and normative topics in ethics or political philosophy.

(Dual-listed with PHIL 535). (Cross-listed with POL S). (3-0) Cr. 3. S.

Prereq: 6 credits in PHIL or POL S, or Permission of Instructor
Examination of theories of justice proposed by contemporary political philosophers. Analysis of the philosophical foundations of perspectives such as egalitarianism, libertarianism, and socialism. Normative assessment of social and political institutions.

(3-0) Cr. 3. F.

Personal identity, agency, free will, moral responsibility, causation, future contingents, and time will be discussed. What makes a person the same person over time? Do humans have free will? Are we not morally responsible if our actions are inevitable consequences of the past and the laws of nature? What distinguishes causes from non-causes? Are there facts about the future? PHIL 207 strongly encouraged.

(3-0) Cr. 3. F.

Examination of concepts such as computability, intelligence, programming, and free will; and of arguments about whether any human capacity is forever beyond realization in a machine. 3 credits in PHIL recommended.

(3-0) Cr. 3. S.

Prereq: 6 credits in PHIL or Permission of Instructor
Topics in epistemology. Possible topics include skepticism about the external world, the extent of a priori knowledge, rival accounts of moral knowledge, feminist perspectives on the theory of knowledge, and the value of true belief. Topics vary each time offered.

(3-0) Cr. 3. Alt. S., offered even-numbered years.

Prereq: 3 credits in PHIL or PHYS, or Permission of Instructor
Conceptual and philosophical issues relating to the interpretation of theories in classical and modern physics. May include one or more of the following topics: the relationship between mathematics and the physical world; Newtonian physics (determinism and predictability); thermodynamics and statistical physics (the nature of probability; entropy and the direction of time); relativistic physics (indeterminism; realism and nonlocality; consciousness and the role of the observer).

Cr. 1-4. Repeatable, maximum of 9 credits.

Prereq: 6 credits in PHIL; Permission of Instructor
Guided reading and research on special topics selected to meet needs of advanced students. No more than 9 credits of PHIL 490 may be counted toward graduation.

Cr. 1-4. Repeatable, maximum of 9 credits.

Prereq: 6 credits in PHIL; Permission of Instructor
Guided reading and research on special topics selected to meet needs of advanced students. No more than 9 credits of PHIL 490 may be counted toward graduation.

Cr. R. F.S.

Prereq: Senior classification
Final presentation for graduation and the future. Outcomes assessment activities. Offered on a satisfactory-fail basis only.

(Dual-listed with PHIL 435). (Cross-listed with POL S). (3-0) Cr. 3. S.

Prereq: 6 credits in PHIL or POL S, or Permission of Instructor
Examination of theories of justice proposed by contemporary political philosophers. Analysis of the philosophical foundations of perspectives such as egalitarianism, libertarianism, and socialism. Normative assessment of social and political institutions.

Cr. 2-4. Repeatable.

Prereq: Permission of instructor, 9 credits in philosophy

Cr. 2-4. Repeatable.

Prereq: Permission of instructor, 9 credits in philosophy

Cr. 2-4. Repeatable.

Prereq: Permission of instructor, 9 credits in philosophy

Cr. 2-4. Repeatable.

Prereq: Permission of instructor, 9 credits in philosophy

Cr. 2-4. Repeatable.

Prereq: Permission of instructor, 9 credits in philosophy

(2-0) Cr. 2. SS.

Topics include moral theory, pedagogical issues in teaching bioethics, and substantive current issues in bioethics.