SELECTED PHILOSOPHY COURSES
FALL 2008
PHL 1040: CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS
A survey and evaluation of the ideas and principles which guide ordinary thinking. When do we have good reasons for thinking the things we do?
RUBLE MWF 10:00-10:50
PHL 2000: PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY & ETHICS
This course will include a brief introduction to some aspects of ethical theory. Students will acquire skills in applying ethical principles to contemporary moral problems. You will also acquire some knowledge of how principles in ethics are grounded philosophically. Our focus will include a critical assessment of all moral perspectives, including our own. The course does not dwell on changing existing views, although it must be noted that an open mind is prerequisite to moral growth. In that vein, our focus will be directed toward analyzing the rational merits of the moral arguments adduced by the authors, in the context of prevailing moral principles.
MULTIPLE SECTIONS
PHL 2015: ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS
Do humans have obligations to the non-human natural world? If so, what are those obligations and why do we have them? What does it mean to live an ecologically responsible life? This course will provide an introduction to the ethical dimensions of environmental issues. We will study theoretical perspectives such as deep ecology, ecofeminism, and social ecology. We will also study philosophical ethical analyses of environmental issues, including the moral status of non-human nature, wilderness and forests, property rights and natural resources, environmental racism, the treatment of non-human animals, water, corporate responsibility, food, globalization, sustainability, and climate change. The goal of the course is to develop skills of moral reasoning and to understand how those skills can be constructively applied to environmental problems in our world today.
HALL TR 2:00-3:15
PHL 3000: ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY
Ancient Philosophy concentrates on the three major philosophers of classical Greece: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Attention is also paid to the development of philosophy before Socrates as well as the Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics who followed Aristotle.
RUBLE MWF 11:00-11:50 W/MC
PHL 3400: CONTEMPORARY CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY
This course will examine some important philosophers and developments in continental philosophy. Specifically, we will trace how philosophers such as Nietzsche, Sartre, Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty, Young, Foucault, Derrida, Butler, Adorno, Althusser, and Fanon have contributed to philosophical thinking about the body, truth, subjectivity, power, the nature of oppression, mass culture, and agency. In addition, we will consider how some continental philosophers have addressed the following questions: What is philosophy? What is the nature and meaning of community or being-with-others? What is the nature of the relationship between self and other? What is truth? What is the nature of identity – including racial, gendered, and sexual identities? What is the relationship between the self and the body? Our consideration of these and other questions will provide an introduction to philosophical movements such as Phenomenology, Existentialism, Critical Theory, Feminist Theory, Postcolonial Theory, Queer Theory, and Poststructuralism.
HALL MW 2:00-3:15
PHL 3530: PERCEPTIONS, COLOR & SOUND
How is perceptual knowledge possible? What are colors and sounds? How would a theory of color perception differ from a theory of auditory perception? This course will offer a brief introduction to contemporary theories of perception as well as examine the underlying metaphysical and epistemological problems concerning the status of colors and sounds.
BARTEL TR 2:00-3:15
PHL 3531: PHILOSOPHY OF EMOTIONS
This course aims to address some of the fundamental issues that have arisen in the philosophy of emotions. Some questions that will be covered are: What is an emotion? How should the various emotions be classified? Is there a distinction to be drawn between emotions and feelings? Are emotions amenable to scientific study? What sort of structure do emotions share? How do emotions relate to motivation, action, character and morality? To what extent are emotions rational? We will examine works by, Baier, Ben-Ze'ev, Damasio, de Sousa, Ekman, Goldie, Ledoux, Neu, Nussbaum, Rorty, Solomon, Wollheim.
KWONG W 3:30-6:00
PHL 3532: IDEAS IN CLASSICAL GREECE
This course will examine the philosophical and theological ideas about the nature of man, the universe, and the gods which were developed by the authors Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides as well as the Socratic Dialogues of Plato and Xenophon. Special attention will be given to materials not ordinarily covered in Philosophy 3000, Ancient Philosophy.
RUBLE MWF 1:00-1:50