For current class offerings, times, and additional information, visit the Office of the Registrar.

Spring 2010 Course Offerings

Philosophy

Philosophy is concerned with examining the meaning of human existence. This means that philosophy is most interested in the fundamental questions that arise when one attempts to make sense of his or her experience, for example, "Who am I and how should I live? What is the meaning of the good, of friendship, of dignity? Is my society a just one?" Philosophy does not always answer these questions! Often, the most important feature of philosophy is that the activity of asking philosophical questions gives rise to even more questions than answers. In exploring these and other questions we will read and analyze classic texts of philosophy and literature from the Western tradition, we will discuss the meanings of these texts in detail, and you will provide further written analysis of these texts. 

.002 TF 9:55-11:10AM Koishikawa, K
.003 TF 11:20-12:35PM Gougelet, D
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 TF 9:55-11:10AM Romanovskaya, T
Basic principles of inductive and deductive reasoning. Text and exercises supplemented by readings and discussions in history, philosophy, and applications of logic.

PHIL 220 Moral Philosophy
.001 MTh 11:20-12:35PM Reiman, J
In this course, we will read four of the greatest works in the Western philosophical tradition, with the aim of exploring some of the major theories of the good and the just found in Western philosophy. Among issues to be discussed are the moral evaluation of actions and persons; the justification of moral judgments; the possibility of objectivity in ethics; and the relationship between moral goodness, virtue, and happiness. We will read Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Mill’s Utilitarianism, and Mill's On Liberty.

.002 MTH 2:10-3:25PM Weis, L
.003H MTh 12:45-2:00PM Tschemplik, A
.004  W 11:20-2:00PM Feder, E
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: GOVT-105 Individual Freedom vs. Authority, HIST-115 Work and Community, JLS-110 Western Legal Tradition, PHIL-105 Western Philosophy, or RELG-105 Religious Heritage of the West.

PHIL 230 Meaning and Purpose in the Arts
.001  TF 9:55-11:10AM Erfani, F
.002  TF 2:10-3:25PM Gougelet, D
Leading theories of the nature, purpose, and meaning of artistic activities and objects examined through writings of philosophers, artists, and critics of ancient and modern times. Both Western and non-Western viewpoints are considered. Student projects apply critical ideas to particular works in an art form familiar to them.

This is a second-level course in the General Education Program, Curricular Area 1, Cluster 2: Understanding Creative Works. Prerequisites for General Education credit: ARTH-105 Art: The Historical Experience, COMM-105 Visual Literacy, LIT-120 Interpreting Literature, or LIT-135 Critical Approach to the Cinema.

PHIL 235 Theories of Democracy
.001  TF 12:45-2:00PM Raven, F
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: Western Heritage and Institutions. 
Prerequisites for General Education credit: GOVT-105 Individual Freedom vs. Authority, HIST-115 Work and Community, JLS-110 Western Legal Tradition, PHIL-105 Western Philosophy, or RELG-105 Religious Heritage of the West.

PHIL 240 Ethics in the Professions
.001  MTH 3:35-4:50PM Leighton, K
This course provides a framework for thinking generally about ethics, and more specifically about professional ethics. In addition, it addresses ethical dilemmas that arise in the professions of government, law, business, medicine, the media, and the academy.

This course is a second-level course in the General Education Program, Curricular Area 4, Cluster 1: Social Institutions and Behavior.
Prerequisites for General Education credit: COMM-100 Understanding Mass Media, ECON-100 Macroeconomics, GOVT-110 Politics in the United States, or SOCY-150 Global Sociology.

PHIL 301/601 Modern Philosophy: Bacon to Hegel
.001  W 5:30-8:00PM  Tschemplik, A
The rise of early modern science in the beginning of the Seventeenth Century marks an important turning point in Western Philosophy. The collapse of the mediaeval religious-philosophy synthesis and the rise of a new understanding of the universe gave birth to philosophic movements which still influence contemporary discourse. British empiricists such as Locke, Berkeley, and Hume develop philosophies which contrast sharply with the rationalism of such continental philosophers as Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibnitz. The Eighteenth-Century Enlightenment figures prepare the ground for the French Revolution and Kant and Hegel attempt new comprehensive philosophic syntheses which rival their mediaeval predecessors.

Prerequisites for PHIL-300: PHIL-105 or permission of instructor.

PHIL 303/603 Twentieth Century Philosophy
.001  T 8:10-10:40PM  Gougelet, D
Explores the fundamental themes of contemporary, continental Western philosophy. Includes existentialism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, deconstructionism, and postmodernism.

Prerequisite for PHIL-303: PHIL-105 or permission of instructor.

PHIL 314 American Philosophy
.001  TH 5:30-8:00PM Carr, R
From the time of the Civil War to the outbreak of WWII, three American philosophers made original entries into the encyclopedia of philosophy. The entries come under the heading "Pragmatism", a theory of meaning that accounts for the ways in which thinking enters into experience and experience determines the truth of our concepts and beliefs. Charles Peirce (1839-1914), William James (1842-1910), and John Dewey (1859-1952) are the classical pragmatists and their works are the subject of this course. Some consideration will be given to Alain Locke, a little heralded pragmatist of this period who was the intellectual spokesman of the Harlem Renaissance, and neo-pragmatism.

Prerequisite for PHIL-314: one introductory course in philosophy.

PHIL 316/616 Feminist Philosophy
.001  W 11:20-2:00PM Weis, L
Explores some of the challenges posed by feminist philosophers to traditional constructions of subjectivity through interrogation of one or more areas of philosophical thought: ethics, political theory, epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, or philosophy of language.

Prerequisite for PHIL-316: two courses in philosophy.

PHIL 386 Selected Topics in Philosophy
.001  Senior Seminar: Authenticity 
TF 2:10-3:25PM Erfani, F
This senior seminar focuses on the question of authenticity and selfhood. As a cap for students' philosophical journey, the class pays attention to the question of what it means to be a genuine, true, authentic self through re-reading philosophical works from Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Kant, Nietzsche, and Sartre.

PHIL 386/686 Selected Topics in Philosophy
.003  Dialectic: Method and History
M 5:30-8:00PM  Stam, J
This course examines the nature of the dialectical method, the history and different meanings of the term, and the application of the dialectical approach in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It begins with the exposition of dialectical logic in the introductory sections of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit and Science of Logic, contrasting this with the principles of traditional logic in Aristotle and with critics of all dialectical method. The class then moves to examples of dialectic in early Socratic dialogues, exploring pre-Socratic background, then to late Plato and the method of division in the Sophist, to various understandings of dialectic from Aristotle to Kant, and back to Hegel and more particular aspects of his dialectical philosophy including reactions in Feuerbach, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche; and Marx-Engels and their followers. The course concludes with twentieth century dialectical philosophies, including Sartre, Frankfurt School, Gadamer and others.

.004  Hegel: Phenomenology of Spirit
TH 5:30-8:00PM Bisticas-Cocoves, M
This course is a close reading of G.W.F. Hegel's 1807 Phenomenology of Spirit.

Prerequisite for PHIL-386: PHIL-105 or permission of instructor.

PHIL 391/691 Internship in Philosophy
Feder, E

Prerequisite: permission of instructor and department chair.

PHIL 392/692 Cooperative Education Field Experience
Feder, E

Prerequisite: permission of department chair and Cooperative Education office.

PHIL 486 Colloquium of Philosophy:
.001  Philosophy and the City 
Feder, E
M 8:10-10:40PM on January 25, February 8, and April 5
Sat 1:00-6:00PM on March 20
The city has had an important role in philosophy; it has been backdrop to its most significant production and it has also been an important focus of philosophical analysis--political, ethical, and aesthetic. In this colloquium, students explore the interrelationship between philosophy and the city, examining some of the enduring questions of the discipline contextualized by urban space. The class reads selected texts, historical and contemporary, and engages in the historically peripatetic enterprise by taking philosophy into the streets.

.002  Logical Anatomy 
Carr, R
MTH 3:35-4:50PM on January 25 & 28; February 8, 11, 22 & 25; March 22 & 25, and April 5 & 8
This is a short course on the logic of bad arguments. The subject is the identification, appreciation, and vivisection of bad arguments, philosophical and otherwise. Dissecting a bad argument is the best training for crafting a good one.

PHIL 498 Honors Project in Philosophy
Feder, E

Prerequisite: permission of department and University Honors Director.

PHIL 525 Seminar on Modern Moral Problems
.001 W 5:30-8:00PM  Leighton, K
Investigation of moral philosophers' attempts to analyze specific moral problems (e.g., abortion, euthanasia, pornography, surrogate parenting, capital punishment, economic justice, affirmative action, research with human subjects, genetic research, government secrecy and deception) and to formulate general principles for ethical analysis of social policies and professional ethics (for lawyers, doctors, etc.).

Prerequisite: PHIL-220 or permission of instructor.

PHIL 693 Global Ethics
.001 T 5:30-8:00PM  Berry, E
The integrative seminar for the M.A. in Ethics and Peace. Discussion of ethics, ethical systems, and the presuppositions of mediation from a cross-cultural perspective. Completion and presentation of a major integrative research paper is required.

PHIL 797 Master's Thesis Seminar

Prerequisite: permission of department chair.

Religion

RELG 105 Religious Heritage of the West
.001 TF 3:35-4:50PM 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 8:30-9:45AM Berner, L
.002 MTH 11:20-12:35PM Berner, L
.003 TF 11:20-12:35PM Berry, E
This course is an introduction to the methods of studying the history of religions and 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 MTH 2:10-3:25PM Barrett, N
This course looks at how non-Western religious traditions function as systems of symbols, how they interact with both indigenous religious traditions and external religious traditions such as Islam and Christianity, and how they respond to modernization and imperialism.

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: ANTH-110 Culture: The Human Mirror, LIT-150 Third-World Literature, RELG-185 Forms of the Sacred, SIS-140 Cross-Cultural Communication, and SOCY-110 Views from the Third World.

RELG 220 Religious Thought
.001 MW 8:10-9:25PM 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 386/686 Topics in Religious Discussion
.001 Peace and Religion
T 8:10-10:40PM  Greenberg, G
This course analyzes the meaning and role of peace in Judaism, Christianity and Islam; Hinduism, Jainism and Sikhism. Drawing from the respective scriptures, developed historically, students gain insight into an essential theme of religious identity and tap sources for understanding international conflicts and peace efforts.

.003 Religion and Social Justice
Th 5:30-8:00PM  Schaefer, M
This course examines some of the twentieth century influences in Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism for social justice contemplation and action. Drawing on religious texts, the lives of key figures, and social justice movement history, students explore a variety of religious and ethical frameworks for action.

RELG 498 Honors Project in Religion
(Open only to students in the University Honors Program.)

Prerequisite: permission of department chair and university honors director.