Course Descriptions

Philosophy

PHI100E Introduction to Philosophy

A course designed to familiarize the student with that activity called philosophy, the study of the meaning of life and the human condition. There is an examination of the beginning, the method, and the goal of philosophy. A division of philosophy into its specialized problem areas is included.

PHI190E Logic

We are constantly bombarded with ideas, whether in religion, politics, law, morality, science, sound investing, or life itself. How does one evaluate the argument? Is it valid? Is it sound? Are the premises true? What about the evidence? Are there certain rules to follow in constructing or evaluating a logical argument? What about the ambiguities of our everyday language? Logic is the study of the rules of right reasoning that are used to construct a good argument, or to evaluate the validity of an argument. This logic course is an exercise-filled study of formal deductive logic.

PHI 201E Philosophical Psychology

The method of studying life in philosophical psychology and its place in the complete study of life with experimental psychology and biology. Main problems of the discipline and solutions offered by Greek and modern philosophers. 3 credit

PHI 202E Ethics

Is everything relative? Do we determine for ourselves what is right and what is wrong, or is there something beyond the individual? An exploration of the question, "How should I live?" Classical, modern, and contemporary positions are examined in an attempt to understand the best human life.

PHI204E God and the Philosophers

An examination of the ways that philosophers have understood the divine. Topics may include arguments for the existence of God, critiques and defenses of classical theism, the appropriate language to speak of the divine, the problem of evil, the nature of religious experience, why miracles may be problematic, and science and God. How does one’s understanding of the existence and character of the divine bear on one’s self-understanding and how one lives?

PHI310E Love & Friendship

An investigation of the kinds of love, their causes and effects. The necessity, nature, forms, and properties of friendship.

PHI320E Professional Ethics

A review of the main theories of ethics and justice, with a focus on the application of these theories to business. The course examines case studies and legal decisions involving issues of the rights and responsibilities of business with regard to the employee, the consumer, and government. Topics include business in modern society, societal responsibility and the environment.

PHI380E          Contemporary Women in Philosophy

This course introduces students to the philosophical ideas of four contemporary thinkers: Simone Weil, Edith Stein, Hannah Arendt, and Iris Murdoch. Each woman’s work involves a quarrel with modernity, occasioned by experience, whether proximate or remote, of the second World War and its aftermath, but in each case the grounds for the quarrel differ. Our analysis evokes these differences, and also considers the affinities between them.