Required Courses

PH 211 Ethics

What are the reasons that people give for the moral choices that they make? Where did these reasons come from, what presuppositions are embedded in them, and how do you decide if they are justified? In this course, we will examine the ethical theories underlying the variety of positions that people adopt when confronting contemporary moral issues. This course will enable one to formulate and critically assess one’s own stance with respect to concrete moral dilemmas, to critically evaluate the positions of others, and to understand the logic of ethical argumentation. P: Sophomore standing or permission of the instructor. General Education choice for Part B. Generally offered yearly. 3 credits each

RS 211 Introduction to the Variety of Christian Experience

This course explores the impact that the development of the modern world, including the scientific revolution, the building of nation states, and the exploration of the natural world, has had on shaping our understanding of ourselves and our capacity to know and appreciate the world(s) in which we live. By drawing on the work of prominent modern philosophers, students will endeavor to understand and critically evaluate the modern understanding of the self and its place in the world. General Education choice for Part B. Generally offered in alternate years. 3 credits each

RS 221 Introduction to World Religions

A consideration of the religious dimension of human existence, and an attempt to appreciate the experience of being human according to axial age traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam. P: Sophomore standing or permission of the instructor. General Education choice for Part B. Generally offered every year. 3 credits

PH 220 Introduction to Western Philosophy

What does it mean to look at the world philosophically? In this course, we will examine the nature of philosophical inquiry and the major philosophical questions that have animated much of Western philosophy, such as: What does it mean to be a human being? What is love? Is it better to question or to follow tradition? In the West, it was the ancient Greeks who first struggled to engage such questions. The course will focus on their struggle, examining the works of the Pre-Socratics, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and others. General Education choice for Part B. Generally offered in alternate years. 3 credits

PH 224 Modern Philosophy

This course explores the impact that the development of the modern world, including the scientific revolution, the building of nation states, and the exploration of the natural world, has had on shaping our understanding of ourselves and our capacity to know and appreciate the world(s) in which we live. By drawing on the work of prominent modern philosophers, students will endeavor to understand and critically evaluate the modern understanding of the self and its place in the world. General Education choice for Part B. Generally offered in alternate years. 3 credits

PH 111 Logic

This course provides an introduction to classical and symbolic logic with an emphasis on deciding which arguments are valid. Same as MA 241. Generally offered every two years. 3 credits

PH 223 The Age of Faith and Reason

Are faith and reason complementary, antithetical, or simply unrelated? How one addresses this question carries implications for how one views the world, society, and the self, and for how one conceives and carries out natural, social-political, moral, and theological inquiry. Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than in Western Medieval thought. In this course, we will engage this question and its implications by exploring the works of Augustine, Aquinas, and others. P: Sophomore standing or permission of the instructor. General Education choice for Part B. Generally offered in alternate years. 3 credits

PH 225 Contemporary Philosophy

If the modern period was one of optimism in which people came to believe that through the use of reason and the advances of science it would be possible to build a better world, the postmodern age is one in which such dreams are viewed with skepticism. On the other hand, we find in postmodernity an invitation to think differently and to thereby discover new ways of being in the world and with one another. This course provides an opportunity to explore these new paths of thinking by drawing upon the works of such 19th and 20th century thinkers as Nietzsche, Marx, Kuhn, Heidegger, Foucault, Butler, and Irigaray, thinkers who encourage us to reappraise human beings’ relation to themselves, nature, society, and the divine. P: Sophomore standing or permission of the instructor. General Education choice for Part B. Generally offered in alternate years. 3 credits

PH 240 Modernism and Post-Modernism

This course examines the set of projects that make up ‘modernity.’ Its aim is to provide the student with a keener understanding of the world in which we live, the histories that led up to it, and the sorts of questions it gives rise to from a moral and philosophical standpoint. Students will become familiar with key themes consistent throughout various aspects of modernity (individualism, democracy, free thinking, progress, etc.) and are asked to think critically about the successes and/or failures of those projects. General Education choice for Part B. Generally offered yearly. 3 credits each

PH 261 Social and Political Philosophy

What is the best form of government? What makes a government legitimate? What should the relationship be between the individual and the state, and between states and other states? In this course, we will trace the development of social and political theory in an attempt to consider critically the possible responses that one can offer to such questions. P: Sophomore standing or permission of the instructor. General Education choice for Part B. Generally offered in alternate years. 3 credits

PH 315 Environmental Ethics

How do we best understand humanity’s relationship to the environment, and what actions and policies should follow from that understanding? This course will focus on the responses of various ethical traditions and will consider ways that traditional anthropology and cosmology and even theology are being transformed in response to perceived environmental degradation. P: Sophomore standing or permission of the instructor. General Education choice for Part C. Generally offered in alternate years. 3 credits

PH 331 Philosophy of the Human Being

What does it mean to be a human being? Do human beings have a fixed, determinate nature that is unchanging? Does what it mean to be a human being change through time and across cultures? In this course, we will attempt to make sense of human existence by drawing upon resources from philosophy (ancient and contemporary), sociology, psychology, and sociobiology and by engaging the insights of various cultural perspectives. P: Sophomore standing or permission of the instructor. General Education choice for Part C. Generally offered in alternate years. 3 credits

PH 347 Being and Existence

What does it mean “to beâ€