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Undergraduate
Philosophy 101: INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY
A probing of fundamental philosophical questions, such as : Are there rational grounds for the existence of God ? Can the notion of God be reconciled with the presence of evil ? How do we know what we know ? What is a cause ? Could there be disembodied thoughts ? Is human behavior free or is it determined ? Are there objective grounds for values ? What makes a society just ? What counts as a good explanation ?
Philosophy 102: ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY
Major periods or movements in history of ancient philosophy; Pre-Socratic philosophy, Plato and the Academy, Socrates and the Socratic schools, Aristotle and the Lyceum, Stoics and Epicureans, Roman philosophy, Neoplatonism and Plotinus; philosophical foundation of ancient science; relationship between development of philosophy in period and historical context including political, social, religious and scientific developments.
Philosophy 103: MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE PHILOSOPHY
Survey of thought from St. Augustine through the sixteenth century; introduction to the major medieval thinkers such as Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Duns Scotus and Ockham; topics include God, freedom, immortality, universals, nominalism, essence, existence.
Philosophy 104: MODERN PHILOSOPHY
Survey of the main philosophical movements from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries; rationalism, empiricism, French Enlightenment, Kantian revolution, idealism, romanticism.
Philosophy 105: CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY
Survey of the major philosophical thinking of the twentieth century; analytic movement, existentialism; British, Continental and American philosophers are considered.
Philosophy 106: LOGIC
Introduction to symbolic logic with consideration given to major areas of traditional logic.
Philosophy 107: PHILOSOPHY OF KNOWING
A philosophical examination of the nature, objects and certainty of knowledge.
Philosophy 108: PHILOSOPHY OF BEING
A systematic and historical examination of metaphysical approaches to reality.
Philosophy 109: PHILOSOPHY OF UNCREATED BEING
A survey of approaches to God by unaided reason from the Pre-Socratic through the twentieth century.
Philosophy 110: MORAL PHILOSOPHY
Introduction to some fundamental concepts, issues and major works in ethics and morality; topics such as good and evil, moral principles of justice, pleasure, self interest, self fulfillment.
Philosophy 111: PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
Emotion, will, motive, imagination, learning, perceiving, dreaming, in light of current philosophical analyses of these concepts and current psychological research and theorizing.
Description of History of Philosophy Courses
Philosophy 201: ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY , 7 TO 5 CENTURY B.C.
Survey of primary source material where available for the Earlier Ionian, Pythagorean, Eleatic, Later Ionian Schools; the Atomists, Sophists, Socrates and the Socratic Schools.What does it mean to struggle with the problem of the one and the many ?
Philosophy 202: ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY, 5 TO 4 CENTURY B.C.
Plato, Platonic Schools, Aristotle, Peripatetic School, Hippocrates, Democritus, Sophists.Survey reading of representative texts.
Philosophy 203: ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY, 3 CENTURY B.C. TO 4 CENTURY A.D.
An attempt to grapple with this long period of time with many entwining schools of thought into which Christianity found itself; Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics, Eclectics, Cynics, Cicero, Neo-Pythagoreanism, Neo-Platonism, Plutarch, Plotinus, Porphyry, Lucretius, Seneca, Aurelius, Jewish Hellenistic philosophy. Was there a radical break in contemporary thought with Christianity or was it business – thinking as usual ?
Philosophy 204: EARLY CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY, 1 CENTURY TO 5 CENTURY
Consideration of Patristic philosophy, Gnosticism, Manicheism, Clement, Origen, St. John Damascus, Greek and later Fathers, St. Augustine. Could Mani be found in the DSM IV today ? Could we have an Augustine without Mani ?
Philosophy 205: EARLY MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY
This is the time between the sixth through the eleventh century popularly known as the Dark Ages. How really dark were they ? Readings of Boethius, Alcuin, Fredegis, Pseudo-Dionysius, Rhabanus Maurus, Erigena, Gerbert, Alfarabi, Avicenna, Avicebrol. How did St. Anselm quiet the monks in his monastery ? Why did Erigena’s students stab him to death with their pens ?
Philosophy 206: THE TWELFTH CENTURY
Attention will be given to the philosophical ideas of the School of Chartres, School of St. Victor, William of Champeaux, Abelhard, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, John of Salisbury, Peter Lombard, the Mystic School, Maimonides, Averroes. Why couldn’t Bernard leave Heloise and Abelhard alone ?
Philosophy 207: THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY
What was happening with students and faculty at the University of Paris ? William of Auvergne, Albert the Great, Alexander of Hales; after reading Roger Bacon you will know why a Franciscan was the detective in Eco’s Name of the Rose; other Franciscans, St.Bonaventure; did ice run in St. Thomas Aquinas’ veins ? Connect the terse writings of the “Big Ox” with the passion of his Mass of Corpus Christi; God, freedom, immortality, universals, essence, existence; Grosseteste, Giles of Rome, Henry of Ghent; looking beyond the words to the real issues.
Philosophy 208: THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY
In spite of the Black Death, scholarship still carried on. John Duns Scotus, Aureolus, Ockham, Ockhamist movement: John of Mirecourt and Nicholas of Autrecourt; Durandus, nominalism; the scientific movement; Marsilius of Padua, Petrach.
Philosophy 209: THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
Consideration is given to speculative mysticism, the Renaissance, revival of Platonism. Plethon, Ficinus, Pico della Mirandola, Savanarola, Aristotelianism, Pomponazzi, Nicholas of Cusa, Brethren of the Common Life.
Philosophy 210: THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
Philosophy of Nature. Why was Giordano Bruno burned at the stake ? Paracelsus, Bohme; scientific movment of the Renaissance, Galileo, Copernicus, Francis Bacon; the Reformation; political philosophy: Machiavelli, Thomas More, Hooker, Grotius; Francis Suarez.
Philosophy 211A & 211B: THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
The Rationalists believed that we could come to know significant truths about God, nature and ourselves by reason alone: Descartes, Malebranche, Spinoza, Leibniz; Pascal; British Empiricists: Locke, Berkeley, Hume; Newton; Cambridge Platonists; scientific knowledge; the nature of reality and the will, Hobbes, religious and ethical problems.
Philosophy 212A & 212B: THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
The French Enlightenment, Deistic controversy, Voltaire, the Encyclopaedia materialists: Diderot and d’Alembert; the British Moralists, Montesquieu and law, d’Holbach, natural history, Rousseau, the German Enlightenment, Lessing; break with Enlightenment, rise of philosophy of history, Vico, Condorcet; position of Kant and major themes in his works.
Philosophy 213A & 213B: THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Immediate effects of the Kantian revolution, post-Kantian Idealist systems, Romantic movement, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schleiermacher; reaction against Metaphysical Idealism, Schopenhauer; transformation of idealism, Feuerbach, Marx and Engels; Kierkegaard; non-dialectical materialism, Haeckel; Neo-Kantian movement, revival of metaphysics, Fechner, Wundt; Nietzsche; British empiricism, utilitarian movement, Bentham, Mill; Darwin, Huxley, Spencer; idealist movement in Britain; traditionalist reaction in France to the Revolution, the ideologists, Maine de Biran, eclecticism, social philosophy, Comte, positivism in France, idealism, spiritualist movement.
Philosophy 214A & 214B: THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Consideration of Bergson, Blondel, Thomism in France, Marechal, philosophy of science, Poincare, philosophy of values, metaphysics, personalism, Teilhard de Chardin, Marcel, existentialism of Sartre, the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, Levi-Strauss, Husserl, Scheller, Heidegger; in Britain the revolt against idealism, Whitehead; Moore and analysis, Russell; Wittgenstein; Santayana; Freud.
Philosophy 215: THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
In the making.
Description Of Specific Philsopher Courses
Philosophy 302A&B: PLATO
On his return to Athens in 388, Plato founded his famous Academy, the first true university. Some one said the history of philosophy has been footnotes on Plato. Selected primary readings based upon instructor and student interest: Apology, Euthyphro, Ion, Protagoras, Gorgias, Meno, Cratylus, Phaedo, Republic, Symposium, Parmenides, Sophist, Theaetetus, Phaedrus, Politicus, Philebus, Timaeus, Critias, Laws. c/p: Phil. 202
Philosophy 303A&B: ARISTOTLE
Aristotle was tutor to Alexander the Great, graduate of the Academy and founder of the Lyceum. The corpus of Aristotle’s writings touch upon almost all philosophical problems of his time and ours. Depending upon interest, selections from certain works will be read while other works will be read in their entirety. On Logic, Organon, Categories, Topics, On Sophistical Refutations; on Psychology, On the Soul, Parva Naturalia; on Metaphysics, The Metaphysics; in Ethics and Social Psychology, Nichomachean Ethics, Magna Moralia, Politics; in Aesthetics, Rhetoric, Poetics. c/p: Phil. 202
Philosophy 306A&B: ST. AUGUSTINE
Professor Robert Pollock said ” that without Christianity, Augustine would have been nothing but a ‘two bit’ rhetor.” The basic elements and orientations of Augustine’s thought; its importance for subsequent philosophical and cultural development. Life and writings; knowledge, God, the world, moral theology, the state; consideration of the following works and others in whole or in part: On Free Will, Concerning the Teacher, Confessions, On Christian Doctrine, Enchiridion, On Faith, Hope and Love, City of God, On the Trinity J.L Chretian, italics: St. Augustine; J.F. Lyotard, italics: The Confessions of St. Augustine; C. DePaulo, italics: The Influence of Augustine on Heidegger; J.L. Chretian, italics: Unforgettable and the Unhoped For, (See Theology 831 A & B) . c/p: Phil. 204.
Philosophy 311A&B: ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
Aquinas baptized Aristotle: centering his philosophic activity around the determination, interpretation, and defense of Aristotle’s system of thought while adapting it to the needs of the 13th century; life, philosophy, theology, mysticism; principles of created being, proofs of God’s existence, God’s nature, creation, metaphysics, psychology, knowledge, moral theory, political theory; aesthetics: three factors are associated with the beautiful, harmony, perfection brilliance; On Being and Essence, On Truth, Summa Contra Gentiles, Divine Names, Summa Theologica, On the Eternity of the World, On Separate Substances. c/p: Phil. 207.
Philosophy 320: DESCARTES
Life, works, a reading of the central texts, method, innate ideas, methodic doubt, existence of bodies, substances, relation between mind and body, subjectivity, sovereignty of construction, God, matter, space, infinity, mind, idea, will, freedom; Discourse on Method, Geometry, Meditations, Principles of Philosophy, Passions of the Soul, Letters, The World, or Treatise on Light, Rules for the the Direction of the Mind. c/p: Phil. 211A
Philosophy 330A&B: KANT
Life, writings; Newtonian Physics, the problems of the Critique of Pure Reason, its significance in context of general problem in philosophy: scientific knowledge; metaphysics under fire; morality and religion; aesthetics and teleology; Remarks on the Opus Postumum; Dissertation Concerning the Form and Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible Worlds, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, Idea of a Universal History, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Metaphysical Principles of Natural Science, Critique of Practical Reason, Critique of Judgment, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone. c/p: Phil. 212B.
Philosophy 331A&B: HEGEL
An intensive study of some of Hegel’s writings with special emphasis on the nature of Hegelian dialectic and philosophical method. Phenomenology of Spirit, tracing the Hegelian dialectic as it develops into a complete system: a movement from consciousness through self-consciousness to reason – as individual and historical phenomenology; the working out of a complete ontology through the dialectic of thought; System of Science, Science of Logic, Objective Logic, Subjective Logic, Philosophy of Right, Philosophy of Religion, History of Philosophy, Philosophy of Fine Art, Philosophy of History. c/p: Phil. 213A.
Philosophy 351 HEIDEGGER
A rediscovery of the meaning of being via an understanding of human nature; human existence ( Dasein ) , rediscovery of Being (Sein); uses of freedom; authentic, inauthentic; care, anxiety; conscience; eksistenz, extases of time; past, present, future; Verstehen, Zuhandenen; nothingness; “why is there anything at all and not rather Nothing ?” word as revelatory. In Ek-sistenz poet and thinker support each other: the thinker pronounces Being; and the poet names the Holy. Being and Time, On the Essence of Reason, What is Metaphysics ?, On Essence of Truth, Introduction to Metaphysics, What is Thinking ?, On Question of Being, What is Philosphy ?, Identity and Difference, Composure, On Way to Speech, Question Concerning the Thing, Phenomenology of Theology, Views.
c/p: Phil. 214A or B.
Description Of Philosophical Discipline Courses
Philosophy 401: COSMOLOGY
Origin, structure of universe, creation, everlastingness, vitalism or mechanism; nature of space, time, and causality; historical approach, Scholastic, Wolff, Hegel, A.E.Taylor, Whitehead; more recently cosmologists have tended to be astronomers, theoretical physicists, mathematicians, Bondi, Gold, Hoyle, Gamow et al.
Philosophy 402: PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
Philosophical arguments for and against religion; belief; rational, anti-rational conceptions of faith; the will to believe in the ethics of belief; evil, omnipotence; myth, miraculous; to what extent can belief in God be rationally justified ? What if anything, does the fact of evil tell us about God’s nature ? Is religious discourse ordinary sppech or in some way metaphorical or symbolic ? Aquinas, Pico della Mirandola, Thomas Paine, Jefferson, Holbach, Kant, Herder, Schleiermacher, Feuerbach, Comte, Kierkegaard, Ritschl, Troeltsch, Haeckel, Hoffding, Freud, Durkheim, Santayana, Otto, Cassirer, Barth, Brunner, Reinhold Niebuhr, Richard Niebuhr, Suzuki, Tillich, N.Smart, Braithwaite, Hare.
Philosophy 403: NATURAL THEOLOGY
Traditional arguments for and against the existence of God from the Pre-Socratics through the Twentieth century. Philosophical attempts at the nature and attributes of God. This course presupposes that the student has the historico-philosophical background to appreciate the arguments and the systems from which they arise.
c/o: several courses in the history of philosophy; Phil. 404 is recommended.
Philosophy 404: METAPHYSICS
Investigation of theories of being, causation, ontology, necessity, possibility, substance, identity, freedom and determinism, reality, experience, order of universe, universals and particulars; notion of being in general; the transcendentals, categories, types, relations; hierarchy of being. Consideration of philosophers most concerned with ontology; questions raised by Carnap, Quine et al.
Philosophy 406: TRADITIONAL LOGIC
This course give the fundamental notions in logic; topics include signification, concepts and terms; categories and predicables ; forming definitions; propositions; propositional properties and compound propositions; argumentation and the syllogism; fallacies; square of opposition; some consideration is given to comparison with modern views.
Philosophy 407: SYMBOLIC LOGIC
Translating from English into formal languages and testing arguments for validity; the meta-theory of first order logic; logical properties and relationships of sentences studied by means of the construction of a symbolic language for sentential and predicate logic; meta-theory for both sentential and predicate logic; limitations of predicate logic; tense logic and modal logic.
Philosophy 408 A ETHICS- THEORETICAL
What is the good life ? What principles should guide actions ? Can we reach agreement on the answers as we can in scientif questions ? Subjective factors in moral life: ethics, conduct, responsibility, conscience; the objective good in moral life: good, pleasure, convenience, consequences, intuition, reason, law, duty, freedom, situation, love, habit, happiness.
Philosophy 408 B ETHICS- PRACTICAL
Rights, life, health, truthfulness; social life: society, family, sex; political life: state, government, protest; socioeconomic life: property, contracts, work, Capitalism, Marxism, earth; international society: nations, war, peace. c/p: Phil. 408A
Philosophy 414: PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN (Philosophical Anthropology)
Contemporary theories of human nature; social and political animal; theories of human nature and the conception of the natural world; human considered as a living organism, endowed with sense knowledge and sense appetite possessing an immortal intellect; free will, immortality; data will be drawn from experimental and clinical psychology.
Philosophy 415: PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY
Emotion, will, motive, imagination, learning, perceiving, dreaming, in the light of current philosophical analyses of these concepts and current research and theorizing.
Philosophy 418 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
This course covers such topics as to how people should be governed; human nature and political consequences; major philosophical positions concerning the nature and purpose of the state. the major political philosophers from the Greeks to the present will be surveyed and critiques from various perspectives.
Philosophy 419: AESTHETICS
What is a work of art ? How does one know if it is good or bad ? What is the purpose of art? Philosophical interpretation of aesthetic experience both creative and appreciative; aesthetic value, nature of art, interpretation, imagination, creativity, style, artistic truth; nature of beauty and the sublime; philosophy of Western and non-Western art; genius.
Philosophy 420: PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL SCIENCE
Methodological issues; study of methods, assumptions, and limits of natural science with examples from the history of science; explanation, laws, prediction, confirmation, theories; status of theoretical entities; theoretical reduction; concept formation and problem of demarcation; deductive and inductive models; indeterminism, probability and induction; functional explorations; wave particle debate and theories of the atom.
Philosophy 421: PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE
Problem of concept and theory formation in social science; nature of social reality; logic of explanation in social sceince; conditions of objectivity and validity of social knowledge; basic concepts of the social sciences such as causation and functional explanation, prediction, rationality , reduction, objectivity; origins of society and its proper organization as well as perspectives on justice, rights and obligations.
Philosophy 424: EPISTEMOLOGY
Examination of the nature, objects, and certainty of knowledge; theories of knowledge; what knowledge is and how, if at all, we know things; skepticism, perception, problem of meaning and truth; rationalism, empiricism; coherence theory; naive and critical realism; foundationalism versus contextualism; genetic epistemology (Piaget).
Philosophy 435: PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE
An exploration of the creative expressions of mankind over time from a philosophical standpoint. The critique of various thinkers on culture will be considered.
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