Courses at the 300-level

In this survey of philosophy in America from the colonial period to the present, some of the major works of significant American philosophers are read and discussed. Among the philosophers considered are Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey.
4 credit hours

The use of the logic of propositions, classes, and relations is studied. Alternate systems and notations of two-valued logics are analyzed. Some multivalued logics are validated.
3 credit hours

• PHIL 205
• or consent of the department chair

Theories about the nature and possibility of ethics are discussed. Topics may include relativism, egoism, intuitionism, moral realism, the nature of the moral person, moral development, feminist ethics, and the significance of evolution.
3 credit hours

• PHIL 206
• or consent of the department chair

The concept of knowledge and its relationship to the world of experience is investigated. Various theories of the nature of truth are presented and analyzed. Students are introduced to epistemology.
3 credit hours

• Any 200-level philosophy course

The concept of evidence, types of reasoning, and standards of proof are examined. Topics include types of evidence, evaluating evidence, eyewitness claims, expert testimony and memory, appraising reasoning, and standards of proof.
3 credit hours

• Any 200-level philosophy course
• or consent of the department chair

Induction and probability, causality and the laws of nature, as well as the nature of explanation and justification are covered.
4 credit hours

• Consent of instructor

Students examine social and political theories and the philosophical issues they raise concerning the origin of society and man’s nature as a “political being” and “social being.”
3 credit hours

Conceptual problems regarding law and legal systems are examined. Topics may include the nature of law, law and morality, civil disobedience, positivism, naturalism, personhood under the law, rights, punishment, and criminal responsibility.
3 credit hours

• Any 200-level philosophy course
• or consent of the department chair

Theories and reality, ideology and action, and values and facts are examined. Focus is on rational policy decision making.
3 credit hours

• Any 200-level philosophy course
• or consent of the department chair

This is a problem-oriented introduction to some of the central issues of contemporary metaphysics. Topics may include ontology (what exists), necessity, causation, free will/determinism, space and time, and identity-over-time.
3 credit hours

• Any 200-level philosophy course
• or consent of the department chair

The status and role of mind in relation to body is studied. Diverse theories, such as mind/body dualism, identity theory, behaviorism, functionalism, and emergence, are discussed.
3 credit hours

• Any 200-level philosophy course
• or consent of the department chair

The origins of philosophy in Greek thought are explored. Works of philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle are read. (Formerly Plato, Aristotle, and Greek Thought.)
4 credit hours

• Any 200-level philosophy course

The development of philosophy in Greece and Rome, from the death of Aristotle to the medieval period, is studied. Emphasis is on Epicurean, Stoic, and Neoplatonic ethics, epistemology, and ontology. (Formerly Hellenistic Philosophy.)
3 credit hours

• Any 200-level philosophy course

The origins of medieval thought are traced. The institutionalization of philosophic thought is analyzed. The works of Aquinas and Augustine are studied. (Formerly Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Medieval Thought.)
4 credit hours

• Any 200-level philosophy course

Works from European philosophers from Descartes to Kant are read. (Formerly Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Philosophers.)
4 credit hours

• Any 200-level philosophy course

Selections from the works of Hegel and Nietzsche are analyzed and critiqued along with other nineteenth-century philosophers, such as Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Marx, and Freud.
4 credit hours

• Any 200-level philosophy course

In addition to the analysis of current existentialist, positivist, analytic, and religious philosophers, some of the germinal thinkers and forces of nineteenth-century life are studied. (Formerly Philosophy 357.)
4 credit hours

• Any 200-level philosophy course

Focus is on late nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophers of language, with particular emphasis on their technical works in analytical philosophy.
3 credit hours

• Any 200-level philosophy course

Concepts, individual thinkers, or institutional movements may be chosen to be explored intensively.
3 or 4 credit hours

• Consent of instructor and department chair

The student, working with a faculty advisor, selects a topic for study and researches the topic in depth.
1-4 credit hours

• Consent of instructor and department chair