Philosophy Courses

Faculty | Master's | Doctoral | Courses

All courses carry 3 credits unless otherwise specified.

500 Contemporary Problems

Intensive study of recent work in anglo-American analytic philosophy. Topics may include problems in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, and other areas.

511 Modal Logic

Propositional modal logic: T, S4, S5, subjunctive conditionals, truth value gaps, supervaluations. Quantified modal logic: Barcan formula, contingent identity systems, tense logic, and other topics.

512 Philosophy and Logic

Naive set theory and mathematical induction. Axiomatic presentations of propositional and predicate logic. Interpretations and validity. Completeness theorems for both systems. The Lowenhein-Skolem theorem.

513 Math Logic I

Elementary metamathematics. Completeness and Lowenhein-Skolem theorems. Elementary number theory. Gödel's incompleteness theorems.

514 Math Logic II

Further topics in mathematical logic (e.g., set theory, recursion theory, type theory).

550 Epistemology

Topics may include knowledge, epistemic justification, belief, truth, perception, skepticism.

551 Metaphysics

Topics may include necessity and possibility, universals and particulars, causality, the mental and the physical.

560 Political Philosophy

Topics may include nature and proper role of the state, nature and justification of legal obligation and rights.

561 Aesthetics

Theories on the nature of art and aesthetic evaluation; their epistemological and metaphysical implications.

562 History of Ethics

Intensive study of classic texts in the history of ethics. May include works of such figures as Aristotle, Plato, Aquinas, Hobbes, Hume, Kant, Mill, Moore, and others.

563 Ethical Theory

Critical study of recent work in moral philosophy. May include utilitarian, Kantian, or other normative theories, as well as naturalistic, nonnaturalistic, or emotivist theories in metaethics.

581 Topics in Marxism

Currents in contemporary Marxist thought, such as controversies over the nature of historical materialism, class analysis, and the role of ideology.

582 Philosophy of Science

Critical analysis of structure of scientific method and language of science, respective roles of induction and deduction in science, and the status of theoretical terms.

583 Philosophy of Religion

Topics may include arguments for the existence of God, problem of evil, faith and reason, meaning of religious language, the divine attributes, and religious foundations of morality.

584 Philosophy of Language

Topics may include Frege's theory of sense and reference, Russell's theory of denoting phrases, elocutionary aspects of speech acts, modal and epistemic contexts, theories of tense.

585 Philosophical Theology

Historical and systematic study of the methods and validity of theological thought, through selected problems.

586 Philosophy of Mathematics

Basic issues in philosophy of mathematics. Platonism, nominalism, constructiv-ism. Mathematical knowledge.

591-595 Seminars

596 Independent Study

597 Special Topics

691-695 Seminars

696 Independent Study

697 Special Topics

698 Practicum

699 Master's Thesis

700 Proseminar

Introduction to contemporary methods in philosophical research and writing.

701 Selected Philosopher I

Intensive critical study of work of a major figure in history of philosophy.

702 Selected Philosopher II

Intensive critical study of work of a major philosopher.

703 Problems in History of Philosophy

Intensive critical study of selected topics in history of philosophy.

710 Formal Logic

Selected advanced topics in logic. Consent of instructor required.

750 Metaphysics

Selected topics in analytic metaphysics, such as properties, identity, time, modality, minds, free will.

751 Theory of Knowledge

Critical survey of basic issues concerning knowledge. Representative questions include What is knowledge? Can knowledge be purely a priori? Is there a defensible distinction between the analytic and the synthetic? What is the nature of empirical evidence? Is it possible to justify inductive inference? How can we confirm beliefs about unobservable entities?

760 Ethics

Selected topics in ethical theory. May focus on issues in normative ethics, axiology, metaethics, virture theory, or the epistemology of ethics. Readings may include works of any period from the ancients to the present.

761 Classics of Critical Social Theory

Close textual analysis of several major works in the great tradition of critical social theory. Authors include Marx, Mannheim, and Freud.

780 Existential Philosophy

Representative major works by Heidegger, Kierkegaard, or Jaspers.

781 Philosophy of Education

Critical examination of concepts of learning and teaching; some attention to major past and present theories of education.

782 Philosophy of Religion

Selected topics in philosophical theology that include freedom and foreknowledge, the problem of evil, the divine attributes, classical theistic arguments (e.g., the ontological argument, the cosmological argument), and reformed epistemology.

783 Philosophy of Language

Selected topics in philosophy of language, such as truth, meaning, reference, names, descriptions, demonstratives.

784 Philosophy of Science

Selected topics in the philosophy of science, such as confirmation, laws, causation, explanation, and scientific realism.

785 Philosophy of Mind

Selected topic in the philosophy of mind, such as intentionality of the mental, relation between the mental and the physical, connection between thought and action, and ways of verifying the existence of various mental states.

791-795 Seminars

796 Independent Study

797 Special Topics

891-895 Seminars

896 Independent Study

897 Special Topics

899 Ph.D. Dissertation

Credit, 18.