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Undergraduate

University Requirement: The University requires that every student complete a two course requirement in Philosophy—first an introductory course (10100, 10101, 20101) and second, a more focused, advanced 2xxxx level course. 

Philosophy majors and minors must take 30101. 30102 or 30313 before registering for 3xxxx or 4xxxx level courses.

Fall 2013 Course Descriptions

Introduction to Philosophy
10100 01 (12627) 
Sullivan
2:00-2:50 TR (F)
First Year Students Only
co-requisite 12100,  Sections 1-18

In this class, you will learn about some key debates in the history of philosophy.  Questions we'll consider include:

(1) Epistemology: What is knowledge?  What kinds of truths can we be certain of?  How does persistent disagreement affect the rationality of our religious, moral, philosophical and political beliefs?

(2) Philosophy of Religion: Does a god exist?  Can we prove it either way?  If the God of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam exists, then how do we explain the seemingly gratuitous evils that occur every day?  

(3) Metaphysics: What is it to be a person?  Are human agents free? If so, what is it precisely to have free will?  Is the future fixed or open? What kinds of changes can a person survive?

(4) Ethics: Should we always act to promote the greatest good for the greatest number?  Do we have any absolute moral duties?  What is it to lead a virtuous life?   Are there objective moral truths?  How can we determine if a moral theory is true?  

By the end of the course, you will know prominent arguments defending particular stances on these issues.  You will be able to identify weaknesses in these arguments using tools from informal logic.  And you will be able to construct and defend original arguments on these issues. More info can be found on the course website: https://sites.google.com/site/sullivanmeghan/introduction-to-philosophy-10100

Introduction to Philosophy
10101 01 (11699) 
Murphy
8:20-9:10 MWF
First Year Students Only

Introduction to Philosophy
10101 02 (11704) 
Fisher, N.
11:35-12:25 MWF
First Year Students Only

Introduction to Philosophy
10101 03 (11009) 
TBA
11:35-12:25 MWF
First Year Students Only

Introduction to Philosophy
10101 04 (10997) 
Rodgers
12:50-1:40 MWF
First Year Students Only

Introduction to Philosophy
10101 05 (10434) 
Rodgers
2:00-2:50 MWF
First Year Students Only

Introduction to Philosophy
10101 06 (10435) 
Gustin
10:30-11:20 MWF
First Year Students Only

Introduction to Philosophy
10101 07 (10453) 
TBA
9:30-10:45 TR
First Year Students Only

Introduction to Philosophy
10101 08 (10454) 
Potter
11:00-12:15 TR
First Year Students Only

Introduction to Philosophy
10101 09 (12545) 
Hagaman
11:00-12:15 TR
First Year Students Only

Introduction to Philosophy
10101 10 (12546) 
Potter
12:30-1:45 TR
First Year Students Only

Introduction to Philosophy
10101 11 (13200)
Hagaman
12:30-1:45 TR
First Year Students Only

Introduction to Philosophy
10101 12 (13208) 
Fisher, J.
3:30-4:45 TR
First Year Students Only

Introduction to Philosophy
10101 13 (13925)
McCollum
3:30-4:45 TR
First Year Students Only

 

Introduction to Philosophy
10101 14 (14077) 
McCollum
5:05-6:20 TR
First Year Students Only

Introduction to Philosophy
10101 15 (14078) 
Fisher, J.
5:05-6:20 TR
First Year Students Only

Introduction to Philosophy
10101 16 (14079) 
Gustin
9:25-10:15 MWF
First Year Students Only

Introduction to Philosophy
10101 17 (15313)
TBA
9:25-10:15 MWF
First Year Students Only

Introduction to Philosophy
10101 18 (15314) 
Fisher, N.
12:50-1:40 MWF
First Year Students Only

Philosophy University Seminar
13185 01 (12085) 
Joy
11:00-12:15 TR
First Year Students Only

What is a philosophical problem?  How are philosophical problems related to what we study in the social sciences, the natural sciences, and religion?  This introduction to Philosophy focuses on classic strategies for conducting philosophical inquiry, including those of Aristotle, Descartes, Mill, and several 21st-century thinkers.  Readings will cover the history of philosophy as well as recent writings in ethics and the neurosciences.

Requirements:  This University Seminar satisfies the 100-level Philosophy requirement.  Class participation and regular attendance are important to success in the course.  Classes will consist of both lecture and discussion.  Written work includes four papers and one revised paper.

Philosophy University Seminar
13185 02 (12086)
Bays
9:30-10:45 TR
First Year Students Only

There's an old tradition in Western philosophy which says that people can't *really* be moral (or happy or virtuous or excellent) unless they spend a lot of time thinking, both about morality itself and about certain more purely intellectual subjects (for instance, mathematics and philosophy). The majority of this course will examine some classical---i.e., Greek---developments of this idea. At the end, we'll examine some more-modern responses to it.

Philosophy University Seminar: The Philosophy of Socrates
13185 03 (12087) 
Karbowski
2:00-3:15 TR
First Year Students Only

Plato’s early Socratic dialogues are some of the most engaging philosophical works ever written. They can be approached on many different levels and in many different ways, but their charismatic nature makes them an attractive tool for introductory philosophy courses. This course aims to introduce students to philosophical questions and puzzles by a close study of the views and methods of Socrates and his interlocutors in the early Socratic dialogues. We will read the Apology, Euthyphro, Crito, Protagoras, Gorgias, Meno, and Phaedo. The issues examined will include the nature of the best human life, the structure of knowledge, the immortality of the soul, the justifiability of civil disobedience, hedonism, among other things.

Requirements:
There will several writing assignments of various lengths. Please email the instructor for more details about the course assignments.

Required Texts:
Plato: Five Dialogues (Hackett)
Protagoras (Hackett)
Gorgias (Hackett)

Philosophy University Seminar
13185 04 (12088)
Stubenberg
2:00-3:15 TR
First Year Students Only

This course is an introduction to philosophy. We will start off by reading a contemporary set of meditation on philosophy that focus on ideas about knowledge and the self. To fill out this picture a bit more, we will read a number of additional pieces on these topics--most notably, two of Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy (1641)--the originals on which Hetherington's meditations are based.

The second unit of the course is devoted to a study of one of the famous text: Bishop George Berkeley's Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous. Berkeley argues for immaterialism (or idealism)--the view that matter is not real. This is hard to believe, and just hard to refute. We will end this section with two other perspectives in idealism, one critical, one in support of the doctrine.

The third section of the course engages with the philosophy of mind. We will read a recent book by the contemporary philosopher Alva Noë (Berkeley). He defends that thesis that consciousness--your thinking, feeling, and sensing--does not arise in the brain, nor is it located in the brain. On the face of it, his seems to contradict many recent scientific findings.

We will close the course by reading a brief book on the question how to live one's life--Frankfurt's provocative book The Reasons of Love. Frankfurt argues that while morality does have something to say about this question, it is not what ultimately matters. 

Philosophy University Seminar
13185 05 (14324) 
Holloway
12:30-1:45 TR
First Year Students Only

This course is a problems oriented introduction to philosophy.   This semester we will be considering three philosophical problems:  The Foundations of Morality; Freedom and Determinism; and The Existence of God.  One goal of the course is for you to gain an understanding of what philosophy is by seeing how philosophers go about formulating and answering a philosophical question.  Another goal of the course is for you to be able to read, on your own, a philosophical piece of writing and be able to (1) identify the philosophical question the author is trying to answer, and what the author’s answer is;  (2) identify what the authors arguments are for the answer he/she gives to the philosophical question;  (3) assess how good the authors arguments are; and (4) state and argue for your own answer to a philosophical question.  

Philosophy University Seminar
13185 06 (18769) 
O'Callaghan
12:30-1:45 TR
First Year Students Only

 

The purpose of this course is to introduce the student to certain major philosophical themes through the examination of key figures in Western philosophy.  It will also introduce logical concepts and techniques for philosophical argument.  The 20th century English philosopher Whitehead wrote that all of philosophy is little more than a footnote to Plato, the 4th century BC Greek philosopher.  We will consider philosophers Aristotle, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, and Nietzsche as themes in their work touch upon themes in Plato.  We will examine a number of historical texts in order to begin to see the ways in which central questions about the world around us have been asked, and how answers to these questions have been proposed.  Among these questions have been the relationship of power to questions of justice, and right and wrong, education in society, the interrelationship of teaching and learning, the relation between what can be known by reason and what can be known by faith alone, and whether the existence of a creator God matters in any way for how one would go about answering these questions.
 
The course aims at the understanding of certain fundamental philosophical themes, through the development of the skills of reading, writing, and arguing in a manner appropriate to philosophy.
 

Honors Philosophy Seminar
13195 01 (12089) 
Speaks
9:30-10:45 TR
First Year Students Only

We will begin the seminar by discussing the central arguments for and against the existence of God. The philosophical questions we discuss for the remainder of the semester will be chosen by the class, and may include topics like: the existence of free will, and its relationship to determinism and divine foreknowledge; the relationship between persons and their bodies, and the possibility of life after death; whether or not rightness and wrongness are "relative", and what this might mean; and particular moral dilemmas, such as the nature of our obligations to the poor. In most cases, we'll be discussing in sequence a number of arguments for opposing views on these topics. Students will be asked to understand these arguments, and form and defend their own views about which among them are most successful. We will spend a bit of time at the beginning of the course, and occasionally throughout, discussing what good arguments are, and why they might be worth pursuing.    
 
Texts. Students will be required to purchase Peter van Inwagen's Metaphysics. Other readings will be made available in PDF form via links from the syllabus.
 
Assignments. There will be four written assignments. The first will be a short 1-2 page assignment worth 10% of the grade; the next three will each be 5-7 pages in length, and worth 25% of the grade each. Late papers will be penalized 3 points/day, including weekends. The remaining 15% of the grade will be given on the basis of class attendance and participation. 
 

Honors Philosophy Seminar
13195 02 (12090) 
Loux
11:00-12:15 TR
First Year Students Only

A first course in philosophy, focusing on problems about the rationality of religious belief, the nature of the human person, the foundations of ethical values, and the justification of political authority.
 
Readings will include selections from classical philosophers as well as more recent writings on these topics. Weekly  papers are required.

 

Honors Philosophy Seminar
13195 03 (12091) 
Roeber
11:00-12:15 TR
First Year Students Only

This course will explore the nature and relevance of philosophy, as well as major themes in Western philosophy, including the existence of God and the origins of the universe, knowledge of the external world, the mind-body problem, personal identity, free will, morality, happiness, and love. It also aims to teach how to think, read, and write critically about philosophical issues.

Honors Philosophy Seminar
13195 04 (12092) 
Weithman
12:30-1:45 TR
First Year Students Only

This course is an introduction to philosophy for students in the Honors Program who are seeking to fulfill the first of their university philosophy requirements.  The course is intended to introduce you to philosophical questions, to make you aware of how some of history's greatest philosophers have approached those questions and what they have had to say about them, to help you articulate philosophical concerns of your own and, most importantly, to learn how to address them.  Among the areas of philosophy will explore this semester are ethics, political philosophy, metaphysics and theory of knowledge.  Readings will include selections from the works of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke and Kant.

Honors Philosophy Seminar
13195 05 (12263) 
Blanchette
2:00-3:15 TR
First Year Students Only

This seminar is an introduction to several central issues in philosophy, using both historical and contemporary texts. Topics to be treated will include some subset of these: The nature of human knowledge, the existence of God and the rationality of faith, the nature of the human mind (and its relation to the brain), ethical theory.
 
Requirements include active seminar participation, a number of short and medium-length writing assignments, quizzes, and exams.

 

Honors Philosophy Seminar
13195 06 (13206) 
Watson
3:30-4:45 TR
First Year Students Only

This seminar is an introduction to several central issues in philosophy, using both historical and contemporary texts. Topics to be treated will include some subset of these:

The nature of human knowledge, the existence of God and the rationality of faith, the nature of the human mind (and its relation to the brain), ethical theory.

Requirements include active seminar participation, a number of short and medium-length writing assignments, quizzes, and exams.

Honors Philosophy Seminar
13195 07 (14948) 
Cross
2:00-3:15 TR
First Year Students Only

The course introduces some central philosophical concepts and methods by tracing the origins of Ancient Greek thought, beginning with the pre-Socratic philosophers and advancing through the most important philosophers up to the time of Augustine.  In addition to this, the course allows some time to be devoted to close readings of extracts from Thomas Aquinas on topics related to those discussed in the earlier thinkers.  The emphasis will be two-fold: while endeavoring to understand and appreciate the historical milieu within which the questions considered first arose, we will, at the same time, seek to determine for ourselves where we should agree, and where we should disagree, with the theses promulgated.  Among the questions given sharp formulation in our period are: Is morality relative? Or are there moral facts? What does morality have to do, if anything, with religion? Are there defensible reasons for being a theist? Or is theism somehow essentially irrational and indefensible? 

Honors Philosophy Seminar
13195 08 (18770) 
Franks
5:05-6:20 TR
First Year Students Only

A text-based introduction to philosophical thinking. We will read and discuss some writing from antiquity and some writing from the last century. The common feature in everything we read is the invitation to look at things in a different way, to ask new questions (or to stop asking old ones). We will aim both to understand the details of what these texts suggest and to cultivate an ability to re-frame inquiry and make good on this shift in perspective.
 
You will be evaluated on your contributions to our discussions and on the quality of five short written papers.

 

Introduction to Philosophy
20101 01 (11537) 
TBA
9:30-10:45 TR

Introduction to Philosophy
20101 02 (11538) 
TBA
11:35-12:25 MWF

Introduction to Philosophy
20101 03 (11539) 
TBA
12:30-1:45 TR
 

Introduction to Philosophy
20101 04 (11540) 
TBA
2:00-3:15 TR

Introduction to Philosophy
20101 05 (11541) 
TBA
3:30-4:45 TR

Introduction to Philosophy
20101 06 (11056)
TBA
5:05-6:20 TR

Introduction to Philosophy
20101 07 (11542) 
Rodriguez
8:20-9:10 MWF

Introduction to Philosophy
20101 08 (11543) 
Rodriguez
9:25-10:15 MWF

Introduction to Philosophy
20101 10 (10417) 
Stanbury
12:50-1:40 MWF

Introduction to Philosophy
20101 11 (13183) 
Stanbury
2:00 - 2:50 MWF

Philosophy of Human Nature
20201 01 (12067) 
Reimers
8:20 -9:10 MWF

In our age, the nature of the human person has become increasingly important theme in philosophical anthropology. Is there a difference between being a member of the species homo sapiens and being a person? If a person is an animal with an inner life, can members of other species be considered as persons? Or must we say that contemporary sciences have shown that personhood is a kind of subjectivist illusion, that we are basically organic machines? Is there a spiritual ‘self’, and if so what must this be like? We will consider the nature of the human person in the light of contemporary challenges such as scientific materialism, Cartesian dualism, and political totalitarianism.

Texts will be drawn from the Vatican Council's Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, Karol Wojtyła Love and Responsibility, Adrian J. Reimers The Soul of the Person, and a course packet of readings.
Course requirements: six quizzes, one term paper, and a final exam.

Philosophy of Human Nature
20201 02 (12068) 
Reimers
9:25 - 10:15 MWF 

In our age, the nature of the human person has become increasingly important theme in philosophical anthropology. Is there a difference between being a member of the species homo sapiens and being a person? If a person is an animal with an inner life, can members of other species be considered as persons? Or must we say that contemporary sciences have shown that personhood is a kind of subjectivist illusion, that we are basically organic machines? Is there a spiritual ‘self’, and if so what must this be like? We will consider the nature of the human person in the light of contemporary challenges such as scientific materialism, Cartesian dualism, and political totalitarianism.

Texts will be drawn from the Vatican Council's Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, Karol Wojtyła Love and Responsibility, Adrian J. Reimers The Soul of the Person, and a course packet of readings.
Course requirements: six quizzes, one term paper, and a final exam.

Existentialist Themes
20202 01 (16524) 
Ameriks
11:00-12:15 TR

This course focuses on writings from three main figures: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Sartre. The contrast of aesthetic, ethical and religious views, as discussed from an existentialist perspective, is the main thematic focus of the course. 

Students are advised to purchase texts in the editions that are on order for the course at the Notre Dame bookstore.

Requirements: The main requirements are two papers, two tests, and a final.

Existentialist Themes
20202 02 (18771) 
Ameriks
2:00-3:15 TR

This course focuses on writings from three main figures: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Sartre. The contrast of aesthetic, ethical and religious views, as discussed from an existentialist perspective, is the main thematic focus of the course. 

Students are advised to purchase texts in the editions that are on order for the course at the Notre Dame bookstore.

Requirements: The main requirements are two papers, two tests, and a final.

Chinese Ways of Thought
20218 01 (19300) 
Jensen
9:30-10:45 TR

This lecture and discussion course on the religion, philosophy, and intellectual history of China that introduces the student to the world view and life experience of Chinese as they have been drawn from local traditions, as well as worship and sacrifice to heroes, and the cult of the dead. Through a close reading of primary texts in translation, it also surveys China's grand philosophical legacy of Daoism, Buddhism, "Confucianism" and "Neo-Confucianism," and the later religious accommodation of Christianity and Islam.

Paradoxes
20229 01 (19302) 
Snapper
3:30-4:45 TR

This course introduces students to a wide variety of philosophical topics by examining paradoxes.  A paradox is a collection of sentences each of which seems true, yet also seem like they cannot all be true.  The paradoxes we will consider involve freedom, fatalism, divine foreknowledge, space, time, time travel, material objects, knowledge, moral responsibility, trinity, motion, truth, and vagueness.  In addition to gaining a rigorous exposure to these topics, students will also improve their ability to critically analyze arguments.  The course will be a mixture of lecture and discussion.  There will be a mid-term and a final exam, as well as two short papers.

Paradoxes
20229 02 (19301) 
Snapper
5:05-6:20 TR

This course introduces students to a wide variety of philosophical topics by examining paradoxes.  A paradox is a collection of sentences each of which seems true, yet also seem like they cannot all be true.  The paradoxes we will consider involve freedom, fatalism, divine foreknowledge, space, time, time travel, material objects, knowledge, moral responsibility, trinity, motion, truth, and vagueness.  In addition to gaining a rigorous exposure to these topics, students will also improve their ability to critically analyze arguments.  The course will be a mixture of lecture and discussion.  There will be a mid-term and a final exam, as well as two short papers.

Plato and His Predecessors
20232 01 (19865) 
Corwin
4:30-5:45 MW

This course surveys some of the literary, rhetorical, scientific, and philosophical predecessors of Plato and some of Plato’s responses to these predecessors. The course aims to help students to see the urgency of the philosophical problems that made a radical intellectual revolution seem compelling and necessary to Plato, and to better understand Plato himself as a result. It begins with three parts dealing with Plato’s relationship to (1) epic poets, (2) rhetoricians and sophists, and (3) pre-Socratic philosophers. In each part, we will read some of these thinkers and investigate how and why Plato appropriates and criticizes them. We will then turn more directly to Plato’s philosophy in a fourth and final part, where we will take up these three lines of influence and critique as guides to a clearer understanding of some of his own most significant doctrines and their motivation.

Because he is so uniquely foundational to the Western tradition of philosophy that followed him, motivating Plato’s philosophical innovations in this way will also indirectly illuminate the motivations of that tradition itself, and thus hopefully show why it might be worthwhile to think about that tradition and its relation to other artistic, rhetorical, and scientific endeavors. If nothing else, students can expect to get a clearer picture of why people have wanted to do philosophy in the first place and of how it might differ from these other disciplines.

Ethics
20401 01 (12047) 
Delaney
12:30-1:45 TR

Overview: This semester we will be reflecting on some ancient and modern texts that offer us some answers and observations concerning how we ought to live. The course might as well be called “A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life”, seeing as the thinkers we will be considering include the person/character of Socrates in the first half of the course, then in the second half of the semester later thinkers who can be broadly classified as Stoics, including Epictetus and the remarkably thoughtful Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. We will end the course with a reading of Friedrich Nietzsche’s provocative attempt at an intellectual autobiography Ecce Homo (“Behold the Man!”). Nietzsche will prove relevant to our structured journey through Socrates and the Stoics that Socrates influenced insofar as Nietzsche took himself to be (or have created) a kind of “artistic Socrates”, and as such indicates/advocates a way one might live and attitude towards living that has been highly influential amongst writers and artists since the late 19th century. I emphasize that this is a modern ethics class that revolves around some “mulling” of provocative texts in the ancient and modern Western intellectual tradition; it is emphatically not a course in the history of philosophy. All texts are being read in the best English translations.

Course Requirements: Two (2) 10 page papers, one due at mid-term break and one due at the end of the semester. There will also be a short take-home Final Examination which will be due at the end of the examination period (of course it can be turned in early for travel planning purposes).

Required Texts: There are 6 texts, all of which are available at the ND Bookstore. These include:

  • Plato, The Last Days of Socrates.
  • Ahbel-Rappe and Kamtekar, A Companion to Socrates.
  • Epictetus, The Handbook (The Encheiridion)
  • Long, Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life.
  • Marcus Aurelius, The Emperor’s Handbook.
  • Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo.

In addition to these texts I will be distributing handouts throughout the course. These too are required reading.

Office Hours: Very liberally by appointment. I hold my office hours at Legends and can usually meet with you anytime between 11-3 on MWF.

Ethics
20401 02 (13201) 
Delaney
3:30-4:45 TR

Overview: This semester we will be reflecting on some ancient and modern texts that offer us some answers and observations concerning how we ought to live. The course might as well be called “A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life”, seeing as the thinkers we will be considering include the person/character of Socrates in the first half of the course, then in the second half of the semester later thinkers who can be broadly classified as Stoics, including Epictetus and the remarkably thoughtful Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. We will end the course with a reading of Friedrich Nietzsche’s provocative attempt at an intellectual autobiography Ecce Homo (“Behold the Man!”). Nietzsche will prove relevant to our structured journey through Socrates and the Stoics that Socrates influenced insofar as Nietzsche took himself to be (or have created) a kind of “artistic Socrates”, and as such indicates/advocates a way one might live and attitude towards living that has been highly influential amongst writers and artists since the late 19th century. I emphasize that this is a modern ethics class that revolves around some “mulling” of provocative texts in the ancient and modern Western intellectual tradition; it is emphatically not a course in the history of philosophy. All texts are being read in the best English translations.

Course Requirements: Two (2) 10 page papers, one due at mid-term break and one due at the end of the semester. There will also be a short take-home Final Examination which will be due at the end of the examination period (of course it can be turned in early for travel planning purposes).

Required Texts: There are 6 texts, all of which are available at the ND Bookstore. These include:

  • Plato, The Last Days of Socrates.
  • Ahbel-Rappe and Kamtekar, A Companion to Socrates.
  • Epictetus, The Handbook (The Encheiridion)
  • Long, Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life.
  • Marcus Aurelius, The Emperor’s Handbook.
  • Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo.

In addition to these texts I will be distributing handouts throughout the course. These too are required reading.

Office Hours: Very liberally by appointment. I hold my office hours at Legends and can usually meet with you anytime between 11-3 on MWF.

Ethics
20401 03 (16817) 
TBA
2:00-2:50 MWF
Crosslist: HESB 30263 03 (16817)

 

Ethics
20401 04 (19303) 
Deem
3:30-4:45 MW

This course provides an intensive introduction to the central topics and views in normative ethics. Some of the questions we will consider are: What reasons are there to be moral? Is it in one’s own self-interest to be moral? What is the connection between virtue and action, character and behavior? How are morality and happiness related? What makes an action right or wrong? How do we deal with apparent moral dilemmas and practical conflicts? What are the prospects for a universal morality and what considerations speak in favor of moral relativism? What role, if any, should moral theory play in handling the practical concerns of everyday life?

We will consider historical and contemporary answers to these and related questions, paying attention both to traditional views in normative ethics and to alternative perspectives that have emerged from reflection on contemporary ethical problems. The course will be organized under seven main topics: Morality and Self-Interest, Virtue Ethics, Natural Law Theory, Kantian Ethics, Consequentialist Ethics, Feminist Ethics, and Continental Ethics. Upon completion of the course, students will have gained a broad acquaintance with the central views in normative ethics and will have acquired the tools to critically analyze and assess philosophical arguments in ethical theory.

Ethics
20401 05 (19920) 
Baldwin
9:30-10:45 TR

 

This class has three parts. In the first part we consider theories about the status of morality, including ethical relativism, moral nihilism, moral objectivism, as well as topics such as the relationship between morality and religion, questions of moral value, and conceptions of ‘the good life.’ The second part of the course focuses on normative ethical theories, including Utilitarianism, Kantianism, and Virtue Ethics, as well as Natural Law Ethics and Ethical Pluralism. Third, we turn our attention to applied ethics, including topics such as euthanasia, abortion, our obligations to the poor, animal rights, and terrorism, torture, and war.

 

Ethics
20401 06 (17230) 
Baldwin
12:30-1:45 TR

 

This class has three parts. In the first part we consider theories about the status of morality, including ethical relativism, moral nihilism, moral objectivism, as well as topics such as the relationship between morality and religion, questions of moral value, and conceptions of ‘the good life.’ The second part of the course focuses on normative ethical theories, including Utilitarianism, Kantianism, and Virtue Ethics, as well as Natural Law Ethics and Ethical Pluralism. Third, we turn our attention to applied ethics, including topics such as euthanasia, abortion, our obligations to the poor, animal rights, and terrorism, torture, and war.

 

 

Moral Problems
20402 01 (19304) 
Rettler
11:00-12:15 MW

In this course, we will will discuss practical cases that pose problems for moral theories. During the first couple weeks, we'll consider the most prominent moral theories -- consequentialism, virtue ethics, divine command theory, and deontology. Then we'll consider what these positions say about contemporary ethical issues like euthanasia, abortion, pornography, affirmative action, economic justice, freedom of speech, stem-cell research, cloning, genetic engineering, animal rights, violence, terrorism and war. We will compare what we want to say about these cases with what the theories say, in order to make our ethical views consistent.

Moral Problems
20402 02 (19306)
Rettler
12:30-1:45 MW

In this course, we will will discuss practical cases that pose problems for moral theories. During the first couple weeks, we'll consider the most prominent moral theories -- consequentialism, virtue ethics, divine command theory, and deontology. Then we'll consider what these positions say about contemporary ethical issues like euthanasia, abortion, pornography, affirmative action, economic justice, freedom of speech, stem-cell research, cloning, genetic engineering, animal rights, violence, terrorism and war. We will compare what we want to say about these cases with what the theories say, in order to make our ethical views consistent.

Moral Problems
20402 03 (19305) 
Immerman
3:30-4:45 MW

This course will focus on ethical issues related to the environment, technology, and globalization. In particular, we will examine twelve questions, four from each of these three areas. The questions we will examine are:

• What are the environmental arguments against eating meat?
• What are our duties with regards to climate change?
• Do we have a duty to maintain biodiversity?
• Should native peoples be allowed to use the Earth as they wish?
• What level of governmental surveillance is acceptable?
• Is the American use of drone strikes morally acceptable?
• Is the use of stem cells morally acceptable?
• Can machines achieve a moral status?
• Do we have an obligation to provide aid to other countries and if so how much?
• What should our policies be with regards to immigration?
• Is it morally acceptable to test medicine on people in poorer countries?
• When is military intervention morally acceptable?

In the course of examining these topics, we will focus on developing various philosophical skills, including: (i) reading a text to find the main arguments and conclusions and (ii) analyzing the strengths and weakness of arguments.

Philosophy of Law
20408 01 (16525) 
Warfieild
8:20-9:10 MW (F)
co-req: PHIL 22408

We will examine some philosophical issues arising in criminal law and may also explore some issues in other areas of the law. Specific topics will include some of the following:

1. the debate over the justification of laws against some kinds of drug possession and/or use.

2. an exploration of the extent to which rules of criminal procedure and evidence do or do not match up well with the set of rules that would best serve the purpose of discovering the truth about an alleged criminal act.

3. the law of self-defense

4. legal issues associated with life and death (born-alive rules, legal standard of death, legal approaches to life and death medical controversies, etc.)

This course includes a mandatory Friday discussion section. Students will write short to medium length papers and take in class exams. 

Self and Society
20423 01  (19936) 
Rush
11:00-12:15 TR

 

An examination of the relation of individuals to the social entities to which they belong.  The investigation is partly historical (i.e., we shall consider several treatments of this issue that have been proposed in the past).  It is also partly conceptual (i.e., we shall consider various contemporary responses to the question).  
Texts from: Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Rawls, Nozick, Geertz, et al.
 
Required text: Political Thought, ed. Rosen & Wolff (Oxford UP).

History of Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
20430 01  (16988) 
Rush
9:30-10:45 TR
Crosslist: PHIL 43325 01 (16989) 

Course description: a conceptual-historical survey of aesthetic theory and the philosophy of art that beginning in antiquity and concluding in the Renaissance.  The main readings will be historical sources in both philosophy and art theory more broadly construed, with ample attention to various types and genres of art and in-depth consideration of several individual works.  Topics discussed: the relation of art to truth the nature of artistic representation, tragedy and comedy, natural and artistic beauty, ethics and art, genius and sublimity, social roles of art and of the aesthetic response to nature, etc. 

Requirements: This course is designed to both fulfill the second philosophy course requirement for general education and as a stand-alone majors’ course.  Writing requirements will differ, depending on which version of the course one opts for. 

Please note: this is the first of a two-semester series of lectures. The second part covers aesthetics and philosophy of art from the Reformation, through modernism, up to the most contemporary materials.  Neither part is a prerequisite for the other; they may be taken individually, both serially, or both but out of order.

Medical Ethics
20602 01 (12035) 
Solomon
10:30-11:20 MW (F)
Crosslist: CST 20602 01 (14132), HESB 30237 01 (13726), STV 20245 01 (13047)
co-requisite 22602

An exploration, from the point of view of ethical theory, of a number of ethical problems in contemporary biomedicine. Topics to be taken up will include: 1) euthanasia, 2) abortion, 3) the allocation of scarce medical resources, 4) truth telling in the doctor - patient relationship, 5) the right to medical care, and 6) informed consent and human experimentation. No previous work in philosophy will be presupposed.

Requirements: Two short (4-6 pp.) problem papers, a mid-term, and a final exam.

Texts: Munson, Intervention and Reflection: Basic Issues in Medical Ethics.

Science, Technology, and Society
20606 01 (13056) 
Jurkowitz
12:50-1:40 MW (F)
co-requisite: PHIL 22606
Crosslist: STV 20556 (12031), HESB 30246 (14134)

This course introduces the interdisciplinary field of science and technology studies. Our concern will be with science and technology (including medicine) as social and historical, i.e., as human, phenomena. We shall examine the divergent roots of contemporary science and technology, and the similarities and (sometimes surprising) differences in their methods and goals. The central theme of the course will be the ways in which science and technology interact with other aspects of society, including the effects of technical and theoretical innovation in bringing about social change, and the social shaping of science and technology themselves by cultural, economic and political forces. Because science/society interactions so frequently lead to public controversy and conflict, we shall also explore what resources are available to mediate such conflicts in an avowedly democratic society.

Robot Ethics
20632 01 (18773) 
Howard
2:00-3:15 TR

Robots or “autonomous systems” play an ever-increasing role in many areas, from weapons systems and driverless cars to health care and consumer services. As a result, it is ever more important to ask whether it makes any sense to speak of such systems’ behaving ethically and  how we can build into their programming what some call “ethics modules.” After a brief technical introduction to the field, this course will approach these questions through contemporary philosophical literature on robot ethics and through popular media, including science fiction text and video.

Special Topics: Philosophical Issues 
26999 01 (10126) 
Holloway

*** Unless otherwise indicated, you must have taken or be taking 30301 or 30302 or 30313 to register for 3xxxx and 4xxxx level courses in philosophy. To declare a major or minor, sign up to meet with Professor Speaks in 100 Malloy Hall.

Ancient & Medieval Philosophy
30301 01 (11988) 
Freddoso
2:00-3:15 MW
Crosslist: MI 30301 01 (13049) 

Open to phil, mphi, or PHTH majors. New and non majors need permission from the Director of Undergraduate Studies.

An introductory survey of western philosophy from the 6th-century B.C. Presocratics to the 16th-century Scholastics. The lectures will focus primarily on Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas, using the twin themes of nature and human nature as an occasion for (a) formulating with some precision the main metaphysical and ethical problematics that emerge from the works of Plato and Aristotle, (b) investigating the influence of Plato and Aristotle on the Catholic intellectual tradition, and (c) exploring in some depth the relation between faith and reason as articulated by the medievals.

Because the lectures will not try to cover all the important figures (though there will be ample references to them, as well as to key early modern philosophers), the students will be required to read all of the assigned secondary source, viz., James Jordan's Western Philosophy: From Antiquity to the Middle Ages, as well as the primary sources assigned for the lectures. In addition, the requirements include (a) two 6-7 page papers on assigned topics, and (b) two exams.

This course is meant primarily to introduce philosophy majors to important figures and issues in the history of philosophy, and so the course will be taught at a higher level of sophistication than ordinary second courses in philosophy. As long as they understand this, however, non-philosophy majors, as well as the undecided, are welcome.

History of Modern Philosophy
30302 01 (11323) 
Newlands
2:00-3:15 TR

The sweeping scientific revolution of the 17th and 18th centuries paralleled the development of sweeping new approaches to philosophy. Of particular concern to these so-called “modern philosophers” was to understand the relationship between human beings and the natural world, especially in the light of the emerging new scientific picture. In this course, we will explore many facets of this relationship: the relationship between the mind and the body; the nature, role and knowledge of God; skepticism and knowledge of the external world; the possibility of human freedom; the possibility of miracles; causation; and the nature of the fundamentally real. As we will see along the way, many of the new methods, problems and proposed solutions surrounding these topics are the very methods, problems, and solutions still driving contemporary philosophy.

Readings will be drawn mainly from Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant.

Textbook: Modern Philosophy: An Anthology of Primary Sources, eds. Ariew and Watkins, Hackett Publishing

Requirements: 2 papers, 2 exams, occasional short writing exercises


Formal Logic
30313  01 (18774) 
Franks
3:30-4:45 TR

In this class we develop a formal system of classical first-order logic with identity, study this system's syntax and semantics, and become proficient at constructing derivations in the system. We also will critically analyze the system's expressive strength by investigating the relationship between formal and informal validity and entailment.
 
Requirements: Write several take home exams.


Gender, Race, and Science
30354  01 (18775) 
Kourany
5:05-6:20pm MW

Thanks to former Harvard University President Lawrence Summers and his suggestion, back in 2005, that women are neither motivated enough nor smart enough to succeed in science (at least not as motivated and smart as men), widespread attention has again been directed to the “gender gap” in science.  At the same time, widespread attention continues to be absent regarding what might be called the “race gap” in science.  In this course we shall try to uncover some of the key factors, past and present, that have kept the female/male and minority/majority (especially black/white) success gap in science in place.  We shall focus, however, on the significance of those gaps:  the difference it has made or might make to both scientific knowledge and the society shaped by that knowledge when those gaps are narrowed.  In the process we shall find reason to question the prevailing house philosophy in both science and philosophy of science, the one that assumes that such differences as gender and race have no bearing on the production of scientific knowledge. 

This will be a discussion class informed by readings drawn from a variety of sources, including natural and social scientists as well as historians and philosophers of science, and the requirements will include three papers. 

Text:  J. Kourany (ed.), The Gender of Science as well as articles placed on e-reserve. 

Aristotle 's Epistemology
43111 01 (18777)
Karbowski
12:30-1:45 TR 

This course is a survey of the main elements in Aristotle's epistemology and philosophical methodology. Among the topics to be explored will be his distinction between scientific and dialectical reasoning and the extent of the application of each of these in his own philosophical treatises. We will read selections from the Posterior Analytics, Topics, De Anima, the biological works, and the ethico-political treatises. Students will be expected to write two papers (not including a final) and give a brief oral presentation on the material. 

Romancing Plato  
43112 01 (19602)
O'Connor
11:00-12:15 MW

The course will focus on how Plato enters into the dialectic between skepticism and idealism in Romanticism. Plato's Symposium and Phaedrus be our lenses to look at five writers from the Romantic tradition of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who cross the lines between philosophy and literature: Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Butler Yeats, and Wallace Stevens. We may also read some of John Henry Newman and Walter Pater. We may also need a bit of Shakespeare, especially A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, and The Tempest. The course will be a true seminar, with everyone in the seminar reading and responding to writing from the other seminar participants, including the instructor, who is working on a book manuscript on this topic.

Aquinas on Angels
43144 01 (18778)
Freddoso
3:30-4:45 MW

A close reading, in a new translation by the instructor, of the 24 questions of the first part of the Summa Theologiae that deal with purely spiritual substances.  Unlike those philosophers who glory in the 'species-ist' despair of a 'disenchanted' world (read:  no God, no soul, and especially no angels), St. Thomas believes in a more interesting and variegated world, one that includes as an irreplaceable part those purely spiritual substances known as angels, both the good ones and the bad ones in all their hierarchical splendor.  We will discuss angelic cognition and affection, how angels are related to places and bodies, how they move around, how they speak to one another, how they go bad, what their jobs are, how they take care of us or, as the case may be, try to corrupt us, etc.  Moreover, by studying angels and the ways in which St. Thomas takes them to differ from us, we can get a better grasp of his philosophical anthropology. As is normal for the first part of the Summa, the questions we will be studying provide a fairly comprehensive survey of St. Thomas's metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophical psychology, along with lots of enticing tidbits about space and time, motion, causality, communication, temptation, etc.

Boethius and His Commentators
43162 01 (19603)
Gersh
12:30-1:45 TR

The first part of this course will provide an introduction to Boethius' life and works, and to his relation to the earlier Greek and Latin traditions. Although we will consider De Consolatione Philosophiae to be his most important text, devoting some weeks to the reading of the work sequentially through its five books, some attention will also be paid to Boethius'  theological opuscula and to his writings on logic, rhetoric, music, and arithmetic.  The second part of the course will be devoted to the tradition of Latin commentary on Boethius during the western Middle Ages between the early Carolingians and the thirteenth century with special reference to the writings of Eriugena, Remigius of Auxerre, Bovo of Corvey, and William of Conches.  Again, the primary emphasis will be placed on the afterlife of De Consolatione, although there will also be some opportunity to consider the commentaries on the theological treatises, and also the numerous Boethian citations and resonances in literary, theological, and philosophical works that are not "commentaries" on this author in the strict sense. Students may write their required final essays on Boethius himself or on the Latin or vernacular traditions of Boethian reading. 

Continental Philosophy
43201 01 (18779)
Watson
5:05-6:20 TR

This 400 seminar will be devoted to a survey of the major movements contributing to recent Continental philosophy. To be included are phenomenology, hermeneutics, existentialism, critical theory, poststructuralism.
 
Requirements: midterm, final, 10 page research paper.  

Environmental Justice
43308 01 (16536)
Shrader-Frechette
3:30-6:15 T
Crosslist: BIOS 50544 01 (16930), GH 60544 01 (17281), HESB 43537 01 (16711), IIPS 50901 01 (16969), PHIL 63308 01 (16819), STV 43396 01 (19861) 

“Environmental injustice” (EIJ) refers to the fact that children, minorities, and poor people receive higher exposures to environmental toxins that damage their health and kill them. This course is designed to understand and to address EIJ, and it is for people interested in environmental problems and the resulting social injustices that they cause. It will cover flaws in scientific method and in ethics that cause EIJ. Course is hands-on, practical, and dedicated to showing students how to do environment-related social-justice analysis and how to analyze environmental-impact assessments. Students choose individual projects on which to work, and these projects determine most of the course grade. These projects also are designed to help influence environmental policy or to serve the needs of pollution-threatened poor or minority communities. For more information, see the syllabus at www.nd.edu/~kshrader/courses/

Course Prerequisites: Permission required if not a philosophy, science, or engineering major (via email to kshrader@nd.edu) to register for course.

Course Requirements: There are weekly quizzes; but no tests and no exams, 2 short, analytic papers; participation in classroom analysis, and one student-chosen project. Students each choose an EJ project on which to work, so that they can use techniques (learned in the course) to promote real-world social justice and improved use of scientific methods in specific poor or minority communities who are victimized by pollution. There are no exams.

Course Texts include Peter Singer, One World; Shrader-Frechette, Environmental Justice; and a variety of articles from scientific and medical journals.

History of Aesthetics & Philosophy of Art 1: : The ancient, medieval, and renaissance contexts
43325 01 (16989) 
Rush
9:30-10:45 TR
Crosslist: PHIL 20430 01 (16988)

Course description: a conceptual-historical survey of aesthetic theory and the philosophy of art that beginning in antiquity and concluding in the Renaissance.  The main readings will be historical sources in both philosophy and art theory more broadly construed, with ample attention to various types and genres of art and in-depth consideration of several individual works.  Topics discussed: the relation of art to truth the nature of artistic representation, tragedy and comedy, natural and artistic beauty, ethics and art, genius and sublimity, social roles of art and of the aesthetic response to nature, etc. 

Requirements: This course is designed to both fulfill the second philosophy course requirement for general education and as a stand-alone majors’ course.  Writing requirements will differ, depending on which version of the course one opts for. 

Please note: this is the first of a two-semester series of lectures. The second part covers aesthetics and philosophy of art from the Reformation, through modernism, up to the most contemporary materials.  Neither part is a prerequisite for the other; they may be taken individually, both serially, or both but out of order.

Justice Seminar
43404 01 (12058)
Weithman/Keys
12:30 -1:45 MW
Crosslist: POLS 43640 01 (12056)

The Justice Seminar undertakes a critical examination of major theories of justice, using both contemporary works (e.g., John Rawls' A Theory of Justice and Kenneth Arrow's seminal papers on voting theory) and historical classics (e.g., Aristotle's Politics and the Lincoln & Douglas debates). The seminar requires substantial participation of students both in the form of seminar papers and in oral discussion. This is the core course for the minor in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (P.P.E.).

Metaphysics
43501 01 (12190)
van Inwagen
5:05-6:20 TR

Metaphysics is the part of philosophy that attempts to get behind all appearances and to arrive at reasoned judgments about how things really are. Metaphysics asks what the most general features of the world are, why there is a world that has those features, and how we human beings fit into that world. Some metaphysical questions that will be investigated are: Is the apparent existence of a multitude of things a real feature of the world, or is reality somehow "one" and individuality an illusion? Is there a real physical world outside the mind? Is there a mind-independent truth? Why is there a world: Why does anything at all exist? Is the physical world the work of an intelligent designer? How are our thoughts and feelings related to our bodies? Have we free will?

Texts: Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman (eds.), Metaphysics:The Big Questions; Peter van Inwagen, Metaphysics

Written work: An hour examination and a term paper. There will be no final examination.

Epistemology
43601 01 (18780)
DePaul
12:30-1:45 TR

Next November the University of Notre Dame is hosting the Midwest Epistemology Workshop.  Information about the MEW is available online @ http://www.wcas.northwestern.edu/epistemology/mew/ and http://www.facebook.com/pages/Midwest-Epistemology-Workshop/41129909011 .

The keynote speaker next fall will be Alvin Goldman (Rutgers) and the other speakers will be James Joyce (Michigan), Jennifer Lackey (Northwestern), Kirk Ludwig (Indiana), Jennifer Nagel (Toronto), E.J. Coffman (Tennessee), Thomas Senor (Arkansas), and Ted Warfield (Notre Dame).

The main point of the course will be to prepare advanced undergraduate students to benefit from attending at least some of the talks.

To that end, we will begin with a general introduction to epistemology and then proceed to read whatever papers for the conference are appropriate along with the necessary background literature.  (I can't be more specific about the content because we do not even have topics from the MEW speakers yet.)

Course papers will consist of a comment on one of the papers from the workshop.  I plan to discuss drafts of these papers in class before the final versions are due.

Bio-Medical Ethics, Scientific Evidence & Public Health Risk
43708 01 (12826)
Shrader-Frechette
3:30-6:15 M
Crosslist: BIOS 50545 (13255), GH 50545 (17047), HESB 43548 (13935), PHIL 63708 (14630), STV 40216 (13229)

This course is designed for those interested in social-justice, medical, and health problems, especially premedical students and those studying the environment, science, and engineering. It will survey ethical and scientific issues associated with current public-health problems such as pollution-induced cancers, occupational injury and death, threats to children’s health, and inadequate emphasis on disease prevention, nutrition, and environmental health. For more information, see the syllabus at www.nd.edu/~kshrader/courses/

Course requirements: Weekly quizzes but no tests and no exams, 3 short papers, readings for every class, participation in classroom analysis.

Course prerequisites: Instructor’s permission required if not premed or philosophy major/minor/phth (obtained via email to kshrader@nd.edu).

The Life and Works of Darwin
43711 01 (18781) 
Ramsey
9:30-10:45  MW
Cross List: STV 43111 01 (18869)

It is now more than 200 years since Darwin’s birth and the 150 years since the publication of his On the Origin of Species. The Origin has had a profound effect, not just on biology, but also on how we think about ourselves, about human nature and about morality. In this class we will read the complete Origin. Additionally, we will read biographical material about Darwin, which will give us a deeper understanding of the birth and context of Darwin’s ideas and their on-going significance in the Twenty-first Century.
 
Assignments include in-class presentations and a term paper.


Philosophy of Science and Public Policy
43715 01 (18783) 
Shrader-Frechette
12:30-3:15 W
Crosslist: PHIL 93725 01 (18792), HPS 93825 01 (18726)

This course will (1) introduce students to classic readings in philosophy of science (by Carnap, Cranor, Hempel, Kitcher, Kuhn,  Laudan, Longino, Machamer, Mayo, Schaffner, Scriven, Woodward, and others, and (2) provide an overview and analysis of different accounts of scientific explanation (e.g., deductive-nomological, mechanistic, unificationist, counterfactualist, etc.). It also will (3) investigate the role of epistemic and ethical values in contemporary science – and how these values affect both scientific method and public policy based on science.  Finally, the course will (4) show how misuse of scientific method -- and ignoring classic philosophy-of-science insights -- causes flawed science and flawed science-based, public policy.  Case studies will come from contemporary policy disputes in biology, epidemiology, hydrogeology,  and toxicology.  These case studies will assess the validity of  scientific methods used to assess theory choice in science, esp. theory choices about climate change, pollution-induced deaths, species losses, and nuclear accidents. The main course work will be students’ continually revising a short course paper, whose topic is chosen by the student.  Students will also do very short comments on the papers of others.  There are no exams. For more information, see syllabi at www.nd.edu/~kshrader/courses/ 
  
Course prerequisites: Course is mainly for philosophy, science, and engineering majors, but those in other majors can register with instructor’s permission (obtained via email to kshrader@nd.edu).
 
Course requirements include several short, analytic papers that evaluate the work of others; participation in classroom analysis, and one 12-page paper, revised several times, so that it is continually improved.  There are no exams.
 
Course texts include (1) classical philosophy of science articles by authors such as Carnap, Cranor, Hempel, Kitcher, Kuhn,  Laudan, Longino, Machamer, Mayo, Schaffner, Scriven, and Woodward (supplied in electronic form by professor) and two books (2) McGarrity’s and Wagner’s Bending Science (Harvard U Press, 2008) and Shrader-Frechette’s Taking Action, Saving Lives (Oxford U Press, 2007).


Philosophy and Medicine
43719 01 (18783) 
Warfield
9:30-10:45 MW

We will examine philosophical issues arising within medical practice and medical issues with philosophical dimensions. The course begins with an exploration of some diagnostic and conceptual issues arising within psychiatry. We’ll then move on to examine some attempts to challenge conventional wisdom about the medical understanding of death, options for end of life situations and organ transplantation guidelines. The end of the semester will be spent on case studies of medical decision making and doctor-patient interactions concerning these decisions.

Requirements: several papers in various formats.

Philosophy of Religion
43802 01 (18784) 
Rea
11:00-12:15 MW

In this course we will examine four central and interconnected issues in the philosophy of religion:  the problem of evil, the problem of divine hiddenness, the significance of religious and mystical experience, and the rationality of religious belief. The relationships between these issues are straightforward.  The existence of evil and the (apparent) absence of compelling, publicly available evidence for God’s existence seem to provide very good evidence against the existence of God and therefore against the truth of Christianity and other monotheistic religions. Mystical and other forms of religious experience seem to many people to provide some sort of positive evidence for God’s existence; but, at the same time, these experiences are not confined to just one religious tradition, and so it is hard to know what to make of their significance.  Moreover, religious belief seems to persist (and, many would say, reasonably so!) despite the absence of other forms of evidence and despite the difficult problems posed by the existence of widespread pain and suffering.  Thus, we face challenging general questions about the rationality of religious belief.  In this course, we will try to think clearly and carefully about all of these issues, with the goal of better understanding the complex relationships between religious faith and the available evidence.  Texts:  Pojman & Rea, Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology, 7th edition; Murray & Rea, Introduction to Philosophy of Religion.

Format:  Lecture with (hopefully!) a lot of discussion.
Requirements:  Probably three papers and a final exam.

Creation Ex Nihilo
43816 01 (19882) 
O'Callaghan
12:30-1:45 MW

The doctrine of Creation Ex Nihilo has been at the heart of orthodox Catholic belief since the early centuries of the Church.  It is the doctrine that anything that exists apart from God owes its existence to God ("creation"), and that God's creative act causing things to exist does not require the existence of anything apart from God for its exercise.  The doctrine developed out of the Church's rejection of Gnositicism.  However, it is a philosophical doctrine open to philosophical analysis and critique.  It distinguishes the Church's thoughts on God from Greek and Roman accounts of the origins of the world.  It is also at the heart of the thesis that there can be no conflict between God's creative act and the workings of natural causes in the world.  But it is denied by prominent contemporary thinkers reflecting upon modern cosmology, most prominently Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow in The Grand Design.  This course will begin by looking at Hawking's and Mlodinow's claim that the world is created from nothing, but not by God.  It will then  examine the history and the nature of the doctrine of Creation .  It will end by seeking to engage the doctrine with Hawking's and Mlodinow's account.  The main resource for the doctrine will be the thought of Thomas Aquinas.  But the course will also look at the thoughts of Plato and Aristotle on the origins of the world, as well as the medieval Islamic thinker Ibn Rushd.

Intermediate Logic
43907 01 (14498) 
Bays
11:00-12:15 TR
Crosslist: PHIL 83901 01 (11008)

An introduction to the metatheory of first-order logic up through the completeness, compactness and Lowenheim-Skolem theorems.  A survey of basic set theory is also be included.
 
Grades for the course are based on problem sets, a midterm and a final.
The midterm and final are take-home, open-book, open note; the problem sets are to be done in groups.
 
Meaning, Vulnerability & Human Identity
43915 01 (19307)
Montemaggi
2:00-3:15 TR
Crosslist: LLRO 40107, ENGL 40157, LIT 73526, LLRO 63107, MI 40584, RLT 40241, THEO 40837

This course explores the contribution that the coming together of theological and literary reflection can make to our understanding of the nature of meaning. Focusing on the work of Augustine, Aquinas, Dante, Primo Levi, Dostoevsky and Shakespeare, students will address questions such as "What is it we are doing when speaking, reading, using language?," 'How do the intellect and the imagination work in relation to literary texts?', 'How might all this relate to our ways of thinking about God, human nature, and the relationship between them?' Such questions will be addressed, in particular, through reflection on how the texts studied invite us to think about the nature of love, forgiveness, vulnerability and creativity.

History and Philosophy of Logic
43918 01 (18785)
Blanchette
9:30-10:45 TR
Crosslist: PHIL 94924 01 (19935)

Modern logic begins in 1879 with the work of Gottlob Frege, and quickly becomes an essential tool both for people interested in the foundations of mathematics, and for those interested in such philosophical issues as the nature of knowledge, of language, and of truth.  By the early years of the twentieth century, logic is also a subject of philosophical interest in its own right: one wants to know what the laws of logic have to do with e.g. the validity (in some ordinary sense) of ordinary arguments, and also of what the philosophical implications are of some fairly astonishing modern results (various kinds of completeness and incompleteness theorems, for example). The purpose of this course is to investigate the major developments in modern logic from Frege through Tarski and Gödel, with an emphasis on coming to understand why and how we have ended up doing logic the way we do it now, what the alternatives are, and what the philosophical import is of various modern results.

Requirements: A few homework assignments, several essays, and an in-class presentation.

Directed Readings
46497 01 (11544) 
Holloway

Directed Readings
46497 02 (10092) 
Holloway

Senior Thesis
48499 01 (10919) 
Speaks

* The 3xxxx and 4xxxx level courses are typically for majors only and carry the major core courses as prerequisites. They are more difficult than 20000 level courses which should be used for completing university requirements. If you are a non-major interested in taking one of these courses, you must sign up for an appointment with Professor Speaks, the Director of Undergraduate Studies.