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Fall 2007
Spring 2007
Spring
2008
Philosophy
PHIL 105 Western Philosophy
.001 MTH 3:35-4:50PM Tschemplik, A
This is a survey course of Western Philosophy which spans 2500 years. The
focus of the course is about the connection between knowledge and morality
which will provide us with the opportunity to examine a variety of philosophical
concepts. The central concern which we will address throughout the semester
is whether or not there is a connection between what we know and how we act.
We will examine a variety of proposals for knowledge and evaluate the critiques
offered by other thinkers. At the same time we will question why it is that
some thinkers insist on separating knowledge from morality insisting on a
division between "science" and "ethics". If the two are
completely divorced from one another, then what is the point of education?
.002 TF 11:20-12:35PM Gougelet, D
.003 MTH 8:30-9:45AM Springs, J
This course is a historical introduction to the Western philosophical tradition.
Students closely examine classic and contemporary texts on the nature of reality,
truth, morality, goodness, and justice; the possibility of knowledge; faith,
reason, and the existence of God; and the issue of freedom and determinism.
This course is a foundation-level course in the General Education Program, Area 2, Cluster 2: "Traditions that Shape the Western World".
PHIL 200 Introduction to Logic
.001 TTH 8:10-9:25PM Carr, R
This beginning course introduces students to the study of formal logic and
its relation to critical thinking and ordinary language. Logic has been an
important part of the Western philosophical tradition at least since the time
of Aristotle, and developments in the Twentieth Century have given us more
powerful logical tools than were ever available before. We will learn to recognize
“arguments” in ordinary language, to distinguish between inductive
and deductive reasoning, to identify informal fallacies, and to determine
the validity of deductive arguments through the use of truth tables, Venn
diagrams, and the construction of formal proofs using both truth-functional
and quantificational notation. The study of logic improves reasoning and analytical
abilities, and provides intellectual skills that are helpful both in the conduct
of daily affairs and as preparation for further study.
PHIL 220 Moral Philosophy
.001 TF 3:25-4:50PM Schmidt, M
.002H TF 12:45-2:00PM Gougelet, D
(Open only to students in the University Honors Program.)
.003 MTH 3:25-4:50PM Hersey, J
The theories concerning the nature of goodness found in Western philosophy.
The major discussion issues are traditional principles for evaluating goodness
and telling right from wrong; the difference between fact and value; the justification
of normative judgments; objectivity in ethics; and the relationship between
moral and non-moral goodness.
This course is a second-level course in the General Education Program, Curricular Area 2, Cluster 2: Traditions that Shape the Western World.
Prerequisites for General Education credit: Individual Freedom vs. Authority, Work and Community, Western Legal Tradition, Western Philosophy, or Religious Heritage of the West.
PHIL 235 Theories of Democracy & Human Rights
.001 MTH 9:55-11:10AM Springs, J
This course analyzes traditional Western theories of democracy and rights,
both separately and in relation to each other, as well as contemporary approaches
such as Habermasian, post-modern, feminist, and critical race theory. It also
considers the East-West debate on human rights.
This course is a second-level course in the General Education Program, Curricular Area 2, Cluster 2: Traditions that Shape the Western World.
Prerequisites for General Education credit: GOVT105G Individual Freedom vs. Authority, HIST115G Work and Community, JLS110G Western Legal Tradition, PHIL105G Western Philosophy, or RELG105G Religious Heritage of the West.
PHIL 301/601 Modern Philosophy from Bacon to Hegel
.001 W 11:20-2:00PM Stam, J
Readings from principal writings of British empiricists and Continental rationalists,
and the scientific and political theorists of the 17th and 18th century through
Kant. Discussion of background to modernity and post-Kantian directions in
philosophy.
Prerequisites for PHIL-300: PHIL-105 or permission of instructor.
Note for both PHIL-300 and PHIL-600: PHIL-300 or PHIL-600, respectively, is recommended, but not required.-105 or permission of instructor.
PHIL 316/616 Feminist Philosophy
.001 T 5:30-8:00PM Oliver, A
Posing questions about what we can know, how we perceive, and how we experience
our very bodies and interactions with the world is arguably the central preoccupation
of philosophy. Canonical works such as the Confessions of Augustine and Rousseau,
Descartes’ vivid first-person account of his quest for certainty, Merleau-Ponty’s
phenomenological investigation of embodied experience, and Sartre’s
existentialist study of “the gaze” have historically placed narrative
investigation of the nature of human experience at the center of the philosophical
project. One way to understand the distinctive contribution of feminist philosophers
and theorists of the late twentieth century is to see that body of work as
telling “an(other) side of the story” that radically recasts conceptions
of embodiment, identity, ethics, and the body politic. In this course, we
will study feminist narrative approaches to these questions, underlining “the
difference gender makes,” and furthermore examining how differences
in race, class, and sexual orientation defy efforts to assert a single story
of women, thereby revealing the dilemma at the heart of Beauvoir’s question,
“What is a woman?”
Prerequisite for PHIL-316: two courses in philosophy.
PHIL 318/618 Chinese Philosophy
.001 TH 5:30-8:00PM Park, J
The course explores early Chinese thought through a close reading of classical
texts in three traditions of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. We will especially
focus on the topics of identity, language, and ethics, and consider political
theory in early Chinese thoughts.
PHIL 386 Senior Seminar: Love & Friendship
.001 M 5:30-8:00PM Tschemplik, A
This seminar examines the role of love (Eros and Philia) in philosophy. We
will analyze the ancient conception that love is a quintessential part of
moral philosophy and then trace the absence and re-emergence of love in modern
and contemporary philosophy.
Prerequisite: PHIL-105 or permission of instructor.
PHIL 390/590 Independent Reading in Philosophy
Prerequisite: permission of instructor and department chair.
PHIL 391/691 Internship in Philosophy
Tschemplik, A
Prerequisite: permission of instructor and department chair.
PHIL 392/692 Cooperative Education Field Experience
Tschemplik, A
Prerequisite: permission of department chair and Cooperative Education office.
PHIL 486 Colloquium of Philosophy: Miguel de Unamuno
.002 W 5:30-8:00PM Oliver, A
(Meets January 30 – February 27)
Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) was a vitalist thinker and pioneer of existentialism.
His interpretations of Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Spinoza, Schopenhauer,
and James, in The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), powerfully explore
the idea that "The most tragic problem of philosophy is reconciling intellectual
needs with affective and volitional needs."
PHIL 490/690 Independent Study Project in Philosophy
Oliver, A
Prerequisite: permission of instructor and department chair.
PHIL 498 Honors Project in Philosophy
Oliver, A
Prerequisite: permission of department and University Honors Director.
PHIL 520 Ethical Theory
.001 T 5:30-8:00PM Peach, L
Survey of the dominant strands of ethical theory in Western philosophy (i.e.
deontology, utilitarianism, virtue ethics, contractarian and rights) and analysis
of significant critical and alternative approaches, including feminist, pragmatist,
postmodern, postcolonialist, and Buddhist ethics. Application of theory to
contemporary moral issues such as global poverty, war and peace, gender inequality,
environmental protection, and HIV/AIDS.
Prerequisite: PHIL 220 or permission of instructor.
PHIL 525 Modern Moral Problems
.001 W 8:10-10:40PM Gougelet, D
The class is tentatively entitled “Life, Power, Politics: The Birth
of Modern Governmentality.” Drawing in part from Nietzsche’s work
on modern morality, this course has as its main premise the notion that the
very concept of a “modern moral problem” is in need of interrogation.
That is, rather than examine issues such as abortion, euthanasia, the death
penalty, the environment, etc., this seminar will first pose the question
of what constitutes a “modern moral problem” and will attempt
to provide a possible answer by turning to the work of a series of thinkers
(Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, Althusser, Agamben, perhaps Arendt, perhaps
Derrida) who propose a novel model for understanding power, the political,
and the modern relation between governments and their subjects. My ultimate
claim, which we will put to the test, will be that there is perhaps no more
pressing modern moral problem than that of “governmentality,”
that is, the effects produced on the level of the subject such that subjects
are made more governable. In other words, we will examine that modern space
where the ethical and the political meet.
How does the modern state govern? Through what processes and mechanisms are
modern subjects made more governable? Can we identify a space of resistance
within modern relations of power? These are some of the questions we will
be posing over the course of the semester.
The main texts we will be using are Foucault’s 1979 lecture course Security,
Territory, Population, Deleuze and Guattari’s One Thousand
Plateaus, and Agamben’s Homo Sacer, but we will also look
at a variety of other texts from various thinkers.
Prerequisite: PHIL 220 or permission of instructor.
PHIL 797 Master's Thesis Seminar
Prerequisite: permission of department chair.
Religion
RELG 105 Religious Heritage of the West
.001 TF 8:30-9:45AM Schaefer, M
The contribution of religion to Western civilization. An exploration of the
religions that have formed the foundations of Western civilization, including:
Greco-Roman and other Ancient Pagan Traditions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam,
Unitarianism, Mormonism, and American Civil Religion. Where possible, primary
source texts, including the scriptures of the religions, will be used.
This course is a foundation-level course in the
General Education Program, Curricular Area 2, Cluster 2: Traditions that Shape
the Western World.
RELG 185 Forms of the Sacred
.001 MTH 9:55-11:10AM Pathak, S
This survey of five Asian religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism,
and Shinto) centers on classical texts of these traditions (the Bhagavad
Gita, Dhammapada, Tao Te Ching, Analects,
and Kojiki) and considers the relationships between these works and
present-day practices. The course strongly emphasizes comparative analysis.
.002 MTH 2:10-3:25PM Springs,
J
An introduction to the methods of studying the history of religions. A brief
survey of comparative analysis of major eastern religions and philosophies,
including Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Daoism, and Confucianism.
This course is a foundation-level course in the General Education Program, Curricular Area 3, Cluster 2: Global and Multicultural Perspectives.
RELG 210 Non-Western Religious Traditions
.001 TF 11:20-12:35PM Park, J
This course examines how non-Western religious traditions function as systems
of symbols, how they interact with both indigenous religious traditions and
external religious traditions, and how they respond to modernization and imperialism.
The first three weeks will be devoted to create a frame to understand religious
phenomena by reading selections from The Idea of the Holy and Variety
of Religious Experiences and then the class will read selected texts
from Asian religious traditions, examine their interaction with the Western
intellectual world, and explore their modern transformations.
This course is a second-level course in the General Education Program, Curricular Area 3, Cluster 2: Global and Multicultural Perspectives.
Prerequisites for General Education credit: Culture: The Human Mirror, Third-World Literature, Forms of the Sacred, Cross-Cultural Communication, and Views from the Third World.
RELG 220 Religious Thought
.001 TF 3:35-4:50PM Greenberg, G
This course examines the history of Christian thought, according to representative
thinkers and essential issues. Thinkers include the Church Fathers (Tertullian
and Origen), Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, John Wesley, and in the modern period,
Schleiermacher and Bultmann. Issues include the nature of man's relationship
to God, reason and revelation, history and the kingdom of God, holy scripture
and myth, and martyrdom.
This course is a second-level course in the General Education Program, Curricular Area 2, Cluster 2: Traditions that Shape the Western World.
Prerequisites for General Education credit: Individual Freedom vs. Authority, Work and Community, Western Legal Tradition, Western Philosophy, or Religious Heritage of the West.
RELG 372/672 Religion in America
.001 TH 5:30-8:00PM Greenberg, G
This course surveys America’s religions beginning with Christianity
and Judaism and continuing through contemporary developments of Islam and
Buddhism. The course also examines Native American religions, Puritanism,
Mormonism, Catholicism, AME, Seventh Day Adventism, and Freemasonry.
RELG 373/673 Hinduism
.001 MTH 12:45-2:00PM Pathak, S
This introduction to Hinduism focuses on four phases in the development of
this vibrant religious tradition: (1) the internalization of yajna
(sacrifice), (2) the realization of dharma (righteousness), (3) the
diversification of bhakti (devotion), and (4) the reconsideration
of varna (class). Historical and anthropological overviews of each
phase will bookend close readings of selections from its main mythological
and philosophical texts.
RELG 375/675 Religion and Violence
.001 T 8:10-10:40PM Greenberg, G
This course explores the religious dimensions, both ideological and cultural,
to political and military conflict. Themes include sacred geography and literature
as grounds for bloodshed, the sanctity of race, martyrdom/terrorism, and pacifism.
Empirical data is drawn from Germany, Lithuania, the Middle East and the Balkans.
RELG 390/590 Independent Reading Course in Religion
Prerequisite: permission of department chair.
RELG 490/690 Independent Study Project in Religion
Prerequisite: permission of department chair.
RELG 498 Honors Project in Religion
(Open only to students in the University Honors Program.)
Prerequisite: permission of department chair and university honors director.
HNRS 300 Honors Colloquium: Asian Philosophy and Postmodernism
.001H T 5:30-8:00PM Park, J
(Open only to students in the University Honors Program.)
Is there a meeting point between Eastern and Western thought? Can postmodernism
in Western philosophy accommodate such a rendezvous? If Eastern and Western
thought have met at a certain juncture of its history in our time, what would
that mean? Is such an encounter necessary? Is it real or imaginary?
The course explores postmodernism in connection with Asian philosophy. The
goal is to understand the Asian mode of thinking and examine its relevance
with contemporary Western philosophical and cultural paradigms. The course
will discuss these topics in four areas: basic philosophy, cultural implications,
political manifestations, and new ethical paradigm for globalized postmodern
society. Readings include Lyotard, Habermas, Derrida, Kristeva, and Taoist
and Buddhist texts. Combining philosophical discourse with social and political
concerns of our time, the course offers not only the examination of postmodernism
and the Asian mode of thinking, but their implications in inter-cultural communication,
international politics and business, and contemporary American society, by
exploring the Asian-postmodern approaches to the questions of identity, gender,
borders, immigrants, capitalism, consumer society, and more.