A survey of principal topics and problems in areas such as ethics, theory of knowledge, and philosophy of religion.

An introduction to the philosophical achievements of the ancient world, concentrating on Plato and Aristotle.

An introduction to the philosophical achievements of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, concentrating on such figures as Descartes, Hume, and Kant.

Basic issues of philosophy in Western and non-Western traditions, such as the nature of philosophy, its relation to religion and science, the self, knowledge, and virtue.

A study of non-Western ethics, especially in Hindu and Buddhist traditions.

Theories of human nature, such as those of Plato, Christianity, Marxism, and existentialism. Modern psychological and biological theories are included, as the interplay of nature and nurture in determining human conduct is explored.

Introduction to philosophical issues about the nature of mind and its relation to body: What is mind? Do people have free will? How does psychology relate to neuroscience?

Philosophical examination of selected moral problems arising out of contemporary society and culture.

Examine ethical challenges that have been introduced or exacerbated by recent technological advancements.

A critical examination of various conceptions of God and of the relationship of the human and the divine.

An introduction to major areas of philosophy through the study of selected philosophical thinkers.

Examine the philosophy of Rene Descartes.

Examines the philosophy of John Locke.

An introduction to basic issues in epistemology and metaphysics.

Methods and aims of selected sciences, arts, and philosophy in the attainment of knowledge and in providing the basis for valuation.

Argument as a kind of discourse: deductive and inductive arguments; principles of reasoning; fallacies; practical applications.

Introduction to the theories of games and rational decision, with applications to ethical, social, and political issues.

Logical structure of sentences and arguments; elementary symbolic methods; applications.

Introduction to symbolic logic (through first-order predicate logic); interpretations; formal proofs, consistency; some practical applications.

Sets, relations, functions, sentential and predicate logic, proof techniques, algorithms, and elementary metatheory. Mathematically oriented.

Introduction to formal proofs, semantics, quantifiers, inductive methods, decision theory, and scientific reasoning.

Formulation, analysis, and criticism of philosophical ideas in selected films.

Formulation, analysis, and criticism of philosophical ideas in selected works of literature.

Introduction to scientific method, including discussion of the nature and goals of science.

Classic issues in the philosophy of art and beauty, illustrated from the fine arts and contemporary media: literature, drama, music, painting, film, and television.

Study of basic principles of the moral life, with critical examination of traditional and contemporary theories of the nature of goodness, happiness, duty, and freedom.

Views of major political philosophers on humanity, nature, and society; discussions of contemporary political ideologies.

This course is used to record credit the student earns while enrolled at another institution in a program administered by the University's Study Abroad Office. Credit is recorded as assigned by the study abroad adviser in the Department of Philosophy. University credit is awarded for work in an exchange program; it may be counted as coursework taken in residence. Transfer credit is awarded for work in an affiliated studies program.

Systematic and detailed study of major issues in the theory of knowledge, such as the distinction between knowledge and belief, the criteria of knowledge, the justification of knowledge-claims, and perception.

The historical development and impact of scientific ideas through the modern period to the present.

Survey of ethical theories from ancient times through the nineteenth century.

Problems of substance, change, categories of being, mind, body, space and time, approached either systematically or historically.

Problems concerning the nature of mind and mental phenomena: the relation between mind and body, knowledge of other minds, the computational model of mind, mental causation, intentionality, and consciousness.

Examine philosophical issues pertaining to science, with an emphasis on the metaphysics and epistemology of science.

Examine moral issues concerning the relation of human beings to the environment, including biodiversity, resource depletion, and animal rights.

Apply ethics to problems of medical practice and theory including abortion, euthanasia, sterilization, psychosurgery, genetic engineering, and concepts of health, cure, insanity, and death.

Examines ethical, political, and legal issues surrounding medicine, society, and healthcare.

Major traditional and contemporary ethical theories discussed and critically examined.

Issues in ethics and politics that are relevant to the organization of business and industry and the distribution of power in society; topics include the role of industry; concepts of profit, property, and moral responsibility.

Examine moral, legal, and socio-political implications of developments in the biomedical sciences. Explore health and disease, function and normalcy, evidence-based practice, gene editing and cloning, genetic testing, screening, and counseling, public health and compulsory vaccination.

Examine the practical and theoretical aspects of ethical issues in organizations, including philosophical, psychological, anthropological, and strategic approaches.

Major figures in nineteenth-century European philosophy, including Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Mill.

Intensive study of selected works by Plato.

Examine the significance of Benedict de Spinoza's philosophical system.

Study the philosophy of Aristotle through the examination of key texts.

Traces the origin of the Vienna Circle of Logical Empiricism in nineteenth-century Europe, and introduces central texts and problems of intellectual history and historical epistemology at the roots of today's analytic philosophy.

Development of Western philosophy from the pre-Socratics to the early Christian era; emphasis on Plato and Aristotle.

An intensive study of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, focusing especially on his "Copernican Revolution," his theories of categories and concepts, and his rejection of metaphysics.

This course is used to record credit the student earns while enrolled at another institution in a program administered by the University's Study Abroad Office. Credit is recorded as assigned by the study abroad adviser in the Department of Philosophy. University credit is awarded for work in an exchange program; it may be counted as coursework taken in residence. Transfer credit is awarded for work in an affiliated studies program.

Study the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas through the examination of key selected texts.

An examination of five notable episodes in the history of science: Galileo's conflict with the Catholic Church, Isaac Newton's formulation of the laws of motion, Charles Darwin's proposal of the theory of evolution by natural selection, the development of the atomic bomb, and the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA.

Contemporary theories of meaning and linguistic structure, and their relationships to epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics.

Examine issues concerning the nature of communication, interpretation, and meaning.

Explore political philosophies from the continental tradition (Heidegger/Arendt, Nietzsche, Adorno/Horkheimer, and Agamben/Schmitt) implicated in radical politics and answering to political turning points, with a focus on research and reading in historical contexts.

Explore how Hegel's philosophy contributed to the founding of the modern social sciences and led to innovations in the study of religion, psychology, education, social organizations, and social reform.

Examine the work of Martin Heidegger, focusing especially on his views concerning truth, art, history, humanism, and technology.

Examine the migration of established European intellectuals into the US, due to the Second World War. Explore how they worked against their persecutors for their own cultural heritage and to influence US intellectual life. Investigate the ethical dilemmas faced in transplanting their lives and projects into new contexts.

Critical examination of leading theories of the state, including analysis of such concepts as sovereignty, obligation, rights, and freedom.

Study of the fundamental moral principles that are built into the design of human nature and lie at the roots of conscience.

Explore central philosophical and ethical questions about citizenship.

Examine the theory of liberal democracy through a study of its development in historical, religious, and political contexts.

Introduction to the writings of Karl Marx as well as to those of his intellectual successors in Europe and around the globe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Examine four modern political theories (classical liberalism, Marxism, social democracy, and traditional conservativism), with close reading and analysis of central texts.

Examine philosophical issues pertaining to race and gender.

Examine one or more of the central subjects in political philosophy including liberty, justice, equality, democracy, and constitutionalism.

A second-semester course in symbolic logic: formal syntax and semantics, basic metatheory (soundness, completeness, compactness, and Loewenheim-Skolem theorems), and further topics in logic.

Philosophical issues concerning mathematics and its foundations, such as the correlation of mathematics to logic, mathematical truth, and mathematical knowledge.

The nature and purpose of art and the aesthetic experience.

The significance and function of law in political and ethical contexts; comparison of common and statutory to scientific and moral law; readings from among Plato, Kant, Hegel, Bentham, Austin, Hart, Dworkin, Feinberg, and others.

Introduction (in translation) to thinkers, texts, and ideas from the golden age of Classical Chinese philosophy (circa sixth-second centuries BCE), including how to apply their teachings to current sociopolitical issues.

Examine Chinese ethical and political philosophy, with an emphasis on the Confucian tradition, through close reading of major works. Analyze ideas from the course both philosophically and historically.

Explore one of the most influential books in Indian and global contexts, the Bhagavad Gita, through interpretations, commentaries, and scholarly materials. Navigate ethical dilemmas in the Bhagavad Gita and real-life situations.

Investigate the theories and arguments of major Indian philosophers, considering both their historical positioning and contemporary relevance.

Philosophical thought from Augustine through Cusanus and Vico, with emphasis on its cultural bearing.

Study of recent work in philosophy written from a Christian point of view or that examines philosophical questions that arise within the framework of the Christian faith.

Examines the history of Christian philosophy through classic Christian thought, concerning what can be known and how people should live.

Explore important themes in Buddhist thought, various ways in which Buddhists practice their religion, and the relationships between religious concepts and practices.

Issues in philosophical logic and its applications, such as theories of meaning, logical paradoxes, epistemic logic, deontic logic, modal logic, existence, and identity.

Formulation, analysis, and criticism of philosophical ideas in selected literary works.

History, exposition, and analysis of such fundamental concepts in the natural and social sciences as explanation, prediction, discovery, confirmation, laws, hypotheses, theories.

Examines fundamental questions that appear to transcend the capacities of reason such as semantic paradoxes, theseus' ship, vagueness, infinities, computational intractability, quantum mechanics, fine-tuning arguments, and why mathematics applies to the physical world.

Examine questions about the nature of reality informed by science and metaphysics, such as the nature of time, space, minds, meanings, identity, infinity, abstract vs concrete objects.

Explore how biological theorizing has influenced and, in turn, been modulated by social ideology from the early twentieth century to the present day.

Analyze fundamental results from the early theory of computation such as the unsolvability of the halting problem, uncomputability, computational complexity, and intractability. Question central notions such as 'implementation' of a program, what a program is, what an algorithm is, 'software' versus 'hardware' distinction, and other distinctions. Discuss issues surrounding the relation between computation, thought, and experience. Consider questions such as what artificial intelligence is, whether there is a relevant distinction between 'simulation' of a phenomenon such as intelligence versus the production of genuine intelligence, the ethics of AI, and the status of various 'virtual' entities, such as internet sites, the metaverse, and bitcoin.

Investigate the meaning of life, exploring pre-modern perspectives, modern views including those of the nineteenth through twenty-first centuries, and contemporary problems such as whether AI poses new threats to meaning in life.

Investigate happiness and how it is attained. Examine contrasting perspectives on happiness or human flourishing offered by major thinkers, both religious and secular, representing different epochs, cultures, and theoretical approaches.

Existentialism and its relationship to literature, psychoanalysis, and Marxism.

Study contemporary philosophy of action through a survey of some of its central questions and influential authors.

Explore issues surrounding constitutional theories and interpretations as they relate to the rule of law and the function of a constitution.

Examine David Hume's contributions to Philosophy holistically: metaphysics, knowledge, morality and religion. Explore the systematic nature of his thought, as applied to specific problems including causation, induction, moral belief, and the existence of God.

Examine the later philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein in the context of the development of analytic philosophy in the early twentieth century.

Examine the philosophical principles beneath the several freedoms protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, as well as the applications of those freedoms (speech, religion, press, assembly, and petition) to concrete legal disputes.

Examine selected major works in ethical theory from ancient and modern philosophy. Explicate the argumentative structure of the texts, situate them in their historical contexts, and consider their significance for contemporary moral thought.

Examine one or more of the philosophical approaches to the study of knowledge and rational belief.

Examine foundational questions in metaphysics, including being and existence, essence, real definition, grounding, ontological dependency, form and matter, explanation, causation, and parts and wholes.

Examine selected major works of metaphysical inquiry from an earlier period, from the ancient Greeks to the twentieth century.

Explore the legal, political, and personal dimensions of privacy. Examine the nature of privacy and the value of privacy.

Supervised individual reading for one semester, followed by research and writing to produce a substantial paper on a special topic in philosophy, to be completed during the second semester.

Intensive tutorial study of selected problems in philosophy.

Past topics include pragmatism; postmodernism; contemporary Marxism; critical theory.

Explore core philosophical texts from the nineteenth and twentieth century that ground post-World War II French post-structuralism.

Past topics include major figures and movements in ancient, medieval, early modern, and nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy.

Past topics include basic issues in metaphysics; particulars and universals; identity and individuation; realism and antirealism; mind-body issues.

Past topics include basic issues in epistemology; theories of belief and rationality; justification and truth.

Central problems in philosophy.

A selective examination of works by major figures such as Frege, Moore, Russell, and Wittgenstein.

Past topics include basic issues in value theory; the objectivity of value; literature and philosophy; philosophy of art; literary criticism.

Past topics include basic issues in the philosophy of science; theories and explanations; philosophy of quantum mechanics; philosophy of the social sciences.

Past topics include contemporary ethical theory; theories of justice; philosophy of law; social contract theories; political philosophy.

Examine current theories of identity and identity politics from the US and Europe, deriving from theories of economic and class-based origins of identity.

Mainly a reading course in the works of classical and modern philosophers.

Mainly a reading course for development of a dissertation prospectus.

Rigorous definitions of syntax and semantics. Proofs of soundness and completeness of sentential and predicate logics; other topics in metatheory. May include extensions of and alternatives to classical logic. Philosophical significance of logic and metalogical results.

Past topics include identity and substitutivity; philosophy of logic; discourse representation.

Intensive examination of selected dissertation topics: attention to research methods, presentation, structure, and argument. Student reports on current research.

Preparation of a report to fulfill the requirement for the master's degree under the report option.

Teaching experience developed through an apprentice relationship between student and faculty member.