Philosophy (PHIL)

PHIL 50003. Ancient Greek Philosophy. 3 Hours.

Pre-Socratics, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Graduate degree credit will not be given for both PHIL 40003 and PHIL 50003. Prerequisite: Three hours of philosophy coursework. (Typically offered: Fall)

PHIL 50203. Medieval Philosophy. 3 Hours.

Includes Augustine, Bonaventure, Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham. Graduate degree credit will not be given for both PHIL 40203 and PHIL 50203. (Typically offered: Irregular)

PHIL 50303. Modern Philosophy-17th and 18th Centuries. 3 Hours.

British and Continental philosophy, including Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. Graduate degree credit will not be given for both PHIL 40303 and PHIL 50303. (Typically offered: Spring)

PHIL 50903. Special Topics in Philosophy. 3 Hours.

This course will cover subject matter not covered in regularly offered courses. Graduate degree credit will not be given for both PHIL 40903 and PHIL 50903. Course cannot be repeated when topic is the same as one for which the student has been previously enrolled. (Typically offered: Irregular) May be repeated for degree credit.

PHIL 51003. Modern Jewish Thought. 3 Hours.

A survey of the main trends in Jewish thought from the seventeenth through the nineteenth century. Graduate degree credit will not be given for both PHIL 41003 and PHIL 51003. (Typically offered: Irregular)

PHIL 51103. Social and Political Philosophy. 3 Hours.

Selected philosophical theories of society, the state, social justice, and their connections with individuals. Graduate degree credit will not be given for both PHIL 41103 and PHIL 51103. (Typically offered: Irregular)

PHIL 51203. Classical Ethical Theory. 3 Hours.

Study of classical texts in the history of philosophical ethics from Plato to Nietzsche. Philosophers covered may include Plato, Aristotle, Butler, Hume, Kant, and Mill. Graduate degree credit will not be given for both PHIL 41203 and PHIL 51203. Prerequisite: 3 hours of philosophy. (Typically offered: Irregular)

PHIL 51303. Contemporary Ethical Theory. 3 Hours.

A study of contemporary texts in philosophical ethics from G.E. Moore to the present. Philosophers covered may include Moore, Stevenson, Hare, Foot, and Rawls. Graduate degree credit will not be given for both PHIL 41303 and PHIL 51303. Prerequisite: 3 hours of philosophy. (Typically offered: Irregular)

PHIL 51403. Philosophy of Law. 3 Hours.

A philosophical consideration of the nature of law, theory of adjudication, concepts of legal responsibility, liberty and the limits of law, and selected moral-legal issues (abortion, affirmative action, punishment, etc.). Graduate degree credit will not be given for both PHIL 41403 and PHIL 51403. (Typically offered: Irregular)

PHIL 51503. Theories of Legal Punishment. 3 Hours.

Examines the ways in which political states frequently exercise the power to punish their citizens. Explores the question, what is punishment, and what licenses the state to punish its citizens? Considers and evaluates different responses to these and related questions. (Typically offered: Irregular)

PHIL 51903. Existentialism. 3 Hours.

Explores texts by major existentialist philosophers including Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, and relevant literary works. Topics may include critiques of traditional views of human nature, the self, the meaning of life and existing authentically. (Typically offered: Irregular)

PHIL 52003. Theory of Knowledge. 3 Hours.

An examination of skepticism, the nature and structures of knowledge and epistemic justification, human rationality, and the justification of religious belief. Graduate degree credit will not be given for both PHIL 42003 and PHIL 52003. Prerequisite: 3 hours of philosophy. (Typically offered: Irregular)

PHIL 52103. Philosophy of Science. 3 Hours.

Examination of issues related to scientific explanation, empirical foundations of science, observation and objectivity, nature of laws and theories, realism and instrumentalism, induction and confirmation, models, causation, and simplicity, beginning with historical survey set in the context of the history of science but emphasizing works from the 1930s to the current period, often including issues in recent physics. Graduate degree credit will not be given for both PHIL 42103 and PHIL 52103. (Typically offered: Irregular)

PHIL 52303. Philosophy of Language. 3 Hours.

A survey of mainstream philosophical theories of meaning, reference, truth, and logical form. Attention given to the views of such figures as Frege, Russell, Tarski, Searie, Dumett, and the advocates of possible world's semantics. Graduate degree credit will not be given for both PHIL 42303 and PHIL 52303. (Typically offered: Irregular)

PHIL 52403. Speech, Power, and Politics. 3 Hours.

Discusses the meaning of pejorative speech, how such speech derogates, and how speech could embody an ideology, function as propaganda, erode democratic norms, oppress marginalized people, and enable or even constitute a form of violence. (Typically offered: Irregular)

PHIL 52503. Symbolic Logic I. 3 Hours.

Rigorous analyses of the concepts of proof, consistency, equivalence, validity, implication, and truth. Full coverage of truth-functional logic and quantification theory (predicate calculus). Discussion of the nature and limits of mechanical procedures (algorithms) for proving theorems in logic and mathematics. Informal accounts of the basic facts about infinite sets. Graduate degree credit will not be given for both PHIL 42503 and PHIL 52503. Prerequisite: PHIL 22003 or MATH 26103. (Typically offered: Fall)
This course is cross-listed with MATH 52603.

PHIL 53003. Philosophy of Religion. 3 Hours.

Types of religious belief and critical examination of their possible validity, including traditional arguments and contemporary questions of meaning. Graduate degree credit will not be given for both PHIL 43003 and PHIL 53003. (Typically offered: Irregular)

PHIL 53103. Contemporary Jewish Thought. 3 Hours.

A survey of trends in Jewish thought in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, focusing on the ways in which Jewish thinkers have responded to the events affecting Jews and the conditions of Jewish life from approximately 1900 to the present. Graduate degree credit will not be given for both PHIL 43103 and PHIL 53103. (Typically offered: Irregular)

PHIL 53203. Philosophy of Race and Gender. 3 Hours.

Examines the metaphysical, ethical, aesthetic, political, and legal dimensions of race and gender. Topics include theories of race and gender, Latinx feminism, the ethics of racist humor and removing historical monuments, misogyny and misandry, transgender and nonbinary identities, and the role of self-interpretation in sexual orientation. (Typically offered: Irregular)

PHIL 53303. Feminist Philosophy. 3 Hours.

Explores feminist contributions in traditional philosophical areas such as ethics, political philosophy, and epistemology. Topics include feminist analyses of the family, pornography, sexual harassment, violence against women, and race relations; and ways different schools of feminist thought describe women's oppression, its causes, and resistance to it. (Typically offered: Irregular)

PHIL 54003. Philosophy of Art. 3 Hours.

Varieties of truth and value in the arts and aesthetic experience, focusing on the creative process in the art and in other human activities. Graduate degree credit will not be given for both PHIL 44003 and PHIL 54003. (Typically offered: Spring)

PHIL 54203. Philosophy of Mind. 3 Hours.

An examination of such topics such as the relationship between mind and body, the mentality of machines, knowledge of other minds, the nature of psychological explanation, the relationships between psychology and the other sciences, mental representation, the nature of the self, and free will and determinism. Graduate degree credit will not be given for both PHIL 44203 and PHIL 54203. (Typically offered: Irregular)

PHIL 54303. Philosophy of Psychology. 3 Hours.

Explores philosophical issues concerning the domain, foundations and methodology of psychology, and the relation of psychological explanations to other scientific and philosophical investigations of the mind. Topics include cognitive architecture and the evolution of minds, extended or embodied cognition, perception and introspection, consciousness and attention, social cognition, thought and language. (Typically offered: Irregular)

PHIL 56003. Metaphysics. 3 Hours.

Theory and critical analysis of such basic metaphysical problems as mind and body, universals and particulars, space and time, determinism and free will, self-identity and individualism, with emphasis on contemporary perspectives. Graduate degree credit will not be given for both PHIL 46003 and PHIL 56003. Prerequisite: 3 hours of philosophy. (Typically offered: Irregular)

PHIL 58203. Seminar: Spinoza. 3 Hours.

Seminar: Spinoza (Typically offered: Irregular)

PHIL 58803. Seminar: Wittgenstein. 3 Hours.

Seminar: Wittgenstein (Typically offered: Irregular)

PHIL 59803. Philosophical Seminar. 3 Hours.

Various topics and issues in historical and contemporary philosophy. (Typically offered: Fall and Spring) May be repeated for up to 3 hours of degree credit.

PHIL 6000V. Master's Thesis. 1-6 Hour.

Master's Thesis. (Typically offered: Fall, Spring and Summer) May be repeated for degree credit.

PHIL 6900V. Graduate Readings. 1-6 Hour.

Supervised individual readings in historical and contemporary philosophy. (Typically offered: Fall, Spring and Summer)

PHIL 7000V. Doctoral Dissertation. 1-18 Hour.

Doctoral Dissertation. Prerequisite: Candidacy. (Typically offered: Fall, Spring and Summer) May be repeated for degree credit.