(Note: Not all courses offered every semester)
611. Ancient Philosophy. (3-0). Credit 3. Greek and Roman philosophy from 600 B.C. to 300 A.D.; emphasis on Plato and Aristotle. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.
614. Medieval Philosophy. (3-0). Credit 3. Christian, Jewish and Islamic thought from 300 to 1450; emphasis on Augustine and Aquinas. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.
616. Modern Philosophy. (3-0). Credit 3. Developments in philosophy from the Renaissance through the Enlightenment: Renaissance humanism and natural science, 17th- and 18th-century empiricism and rationalism, idealism; major thinkers including Descartes, Hume, Kant, Hegel. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.
620. Contemporary Philosophy. (3-0). Credit 3. 19th- and 20th-century philosophical movements: phenomenology, existentialism, positivism, pragmatism, analysis, process thought. May be repeated for credit as content varies. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.
623. American Philosophy. (3-0). Credit 3. The genesis of American philosophical thought from the seventeenth century until the work of Emerson; subsequent concentration on the philosophies of Pierce, James, Royce, Dewey, Mead, Santayana and Whitehead. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.
630. Aesthetics. (3-0). Credit 3. Metaphor, the ontology of artworks, art and artifactuality, aesthetic attitudes, concepts of aesthetic appraisal such as beauty and sublimity and theory of tropes. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.
631. Philosophy of Religion. (3-0). Credit 3. Investigation of metaphysical and epistemological issues concerning religious claims, beliefs and experiences. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.
632. Social and Political Philosophy. (3-0). Credit 3. Theories of justice, equality, liberty and authority in social and political institutions; individualism and the social contract; political philosophy of writers such as Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Locke, Rousseau, Marx, Dewey and Rawls. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.
633. Philosophy of Law. (3-0). Credit 3. Key issues in normative and analytical jurisprudence, including the concept of law; the relationship between law and morality; civil disobedience; the moral obligation to obey the law; punishment. Prerequisite: Approval of Instructor.
635. Ethical Theory. (3-0). Credit 3. Theories of moral value and conduct, moral language and argumentation; consequentialist and deontological approaches to ethics; ethical naturalism; theories of virtue. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.
640. Epistemology. (3-0). Credit 3. Nature and origin of knowledge, skepticism, belief, truth, rationality, justification and reliability and knowledge of necessary truths. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.
641. Mathematical Logic I. (3-0). Credit 3. The metatheory of propositional and first-order logic. Prerequisite: Graduate classification or approval of instructor.
642. Mathematical Logic II. (3-0). Credit 3. Continuation of PHIL 641: Compactness, The Lowenheim-Skolem Theorems, computability theory and Church’s thesis, formal arithmetic, Godel’s Incompleteness Theorems, Tarski’s Theorem, and Church’s Theorem. Other topics covered in the course might include systems of modal logic, intuitionistic logic, and more advanced issues in set theory. Prerequisite: 641 or approval of instructor.
643. History and Philosophy of Logic. (3-0). Credit 3. Selected topics on the historical development of logic; philosophical views of the nature of logical theory; the role of logical metatheory in the development of logic. May be repeated for credit as content varies. Prerequisite: PHIL 341 or PHIL 641 or approval of instructor.
645. Philosophy of Science. (3-0). Credit 3. Philosophy of the natural and social sciences, including the nature of theories and laws, the notion of causation, probability and determinism and the nature of theoretical change. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.
646. Philosophy of a Particular Science. (3-0). Credit 3. Focus on methodological, epistemological and ontological issues in physics, or one of the special sciences, such as biology, psychology, cognitive science, economics. Application of philosophical methods to theoretical issues in the particular science. Relationships between theories and explanations of the particular science more basic sciences or other special sciences. May be repeated for credit for courses focusing on different sciences. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.
650. Metaphysics. (3-0). Credit 3. Classical and contemporary treatments of the nature of reality, God, the existence of universals, space, time, causality; realism and antirealism, the existence and nature of abstract entities, the nature of events, the nature and logic of time and modality, freedom and determinism, and personal identity. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.
655. Philosophy of Mind. (3-0). Credit 3. The mind-body problem, personal identity, thought and intentionality, action and responsibility; materialism, behaviorism, functionalism. May be repeated for credit as content varies. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.
658. Philosophy of Language. (3-0). Credit 3. The nature of language, the various uses of language and their philosophical import, the nature of meaning, truth, reference and issues surrounding formal representations of natural languages. May be repeated for credit as content varies. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.
661. Seminar in the History of Philosophy. (3-0). Credit 3. Intensive study of a current issue in the history of philosophy. May be repeated for credit with variation in topic. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.
662. Seminar in Ethics and Value Theory. (3-0). Credit 3. Intensive study of current issue in ethics, ethical theory, applied ethics, aesthetics, or the work of particular philosophers in one of these areas. May be repeated for credit with variation in topic. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.
663. Seminar in Metaphysics or Epistemology. (3-0). Credit 3. Intensive study of a current issue in metaphysics, epistemology, or other core areas of philosophy. May be repeated for credit with variation in topic. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.
664. Seminar in Applied Philosophy. (3-0). Credit 3. Intensive study of a topic involving the application of philosophical concepts and theories to an issue arising in another scientific or academic field. May be repeated for credit with variation to topic. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.
671. Professional Ethics. (3-0). Credit 3. Basic concepts and theories underlying major contemporary ethical codes with application to ethical problems encountered in professions such as engineering, law, business and teaching. May be repeated for credit as content varies. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.
682. Philosophical Authors. (3-0). Credit 3. Intensive study of works of an individual important philosopher, their historical context, and criticisms and interpretations of them. May be repeated for credit with different authors. Prerequisites: Appropriate background in history of philosophy plus instructor approval.
683. Philosophical Pedagogy. (1-0). Credit 1. Teaching practicum for PhD students in philosophy; detailed examination of all aspects of teaching philosophy to university- and college-level students. Prerequisite: Enrollment in PhD program in Philosophy or approval of instructor.
684. Professional Internship. Credit 1 to 6. Practical experience in an institutional or organizational setting appropriate to analysis and understanding of issues in some area of applied philosophy. Prerequisite: Approval of committee chair and department head.
685. Directed Studies. Credit 1 to 6. Directed studies in specific problem areas in philosophy.
689. Special Topics in… Credit 1 to 4. Selected topics in an identified area of philosophy. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.
691. Research. Credit 1 to 15. Research for thesis. Prerequisites: Approval of department head and committee chair.