Philosophy Courses

PHILOSOPHY 507

Special Topics: Social Ethics Seminar

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PHILOSOPHY 512

Issues in Contemporary Philosophy

The primary purpose of this course is to acquaint students with important philosophical developments in Western Anglo-American philosophy during the twentieth century. These include analytic philosophy, ordinary language philosophy, and recent developments questioning the traditional value and role of philosophy. The writings of major philosophers will be studied throughout, and emphasis will be placed upon epistemological, metaphysical, and linguistic issues.

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PHILOSOPHY 513

British Empiricism

This course consists of a close read of substantial portions of the seminal writings of John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume, who are known for their articulation of empiricism in its classical form. The course includes a reading of a famous 20th century defense of empiricism, and a critic of the whole movement.

 

PHILOSOPHY 514

Reason and Enlightenment

This course will provide an overview of the ideas of three philosophers from the modern rationalistic tradition of the 17th century Enlightenment-Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. As we discuss each author's ideas, we will evaluate their positions on: the role of faith, the limits of reason, the existence of God, the divisibility of reality, the meaning of nature, and the ethics and politics of human life.

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PHILOSOPHY 515

Contemporary Political Philosophy

In PHIL 515 students study selected texts by major contemporary political philosophers.

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PHILOSOPHY 520

Social and Political Philosophy

This course shall provide an examination of foundational ideas and problems in the entire Western tradition of political philosophy.While undertaking close readings of major texts of this tradition, we shall discuss and evaluate the classical, medieval, and modern approaches to the state, the citizen, democracy, liberty, equality, authority, obligation, natural right, and disobedience.Finally, we shall understand the applicability of these ideas as Christians facing the challenges of the 21st century.

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PHILOSOPHY 521

Post-Modern Philosophy

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PHILOSOPHY 550

Symbolic Logic

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PHILOSOPHY 560

Philosophy of Language

This course will examine a range of topics within philosophy of language. There will be an overview of several works considered classics in the field (e.g. Wittgenstein, Quine, Searle, Alston, Grice), as well as critical review of major schools of thought in regard to language and criticism. Insights from linguistics and related disciplines, including textlinguistics and sociolinguistics, will be considered in evaluating the schools of thought.

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PHILOSOPHY 570

Epistemology

A descriptive and critical inquiry into the theory of knowledge, including such topics as the problem of universals, criteria of truth, the possibility of synthetic a priori knowledge, skepticism and knowledge of the external world. Classical and contemporary readings.

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PHILOSOPHY 571

Aesthetics

This course doesn’t merely sensitise students to the value, pleasures, and risks of the human imagination; it also explores different views on the nature, value, and meaning of artworks and of aesthetic experience. The first few weeks of the course will survey various notions of beauty and explore some of the reasons why beauty has became incidental to the arts and Aesthetics in general. We will then turn to Eaton’s book and begin examining some of the central philosophical notions and theories that are essential to an informed grasp of the field of Aesthetics. Next we will have class presentations on topics deriving from Higgin’s anthology, and finally I will offer a brief history of outlooks on the nature, value, and role of imagination in artistic creation.

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PHILOSOPHY 573

Reason and Belief in God

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PHILOSOPHY 583

Religious Experience Seminar

The purpose of this course is to examine the place of evidence in religion, and to develop tools for assessing the evidential force of religious experience and related phenomena. The main body of the course will address the evidential force of such experiences as near-death experiences, visions, mystical states of consciousness, as well as the Shroud of Turin as a unique religious artifact. The topics that have been selected have been the focus of either recent or on-going public attention.

This course will introduce students to some of the figures that have contributed to the critical study of religious experience, e.g., William James, Rudolf Otto, and R.C. Zaehner, as well as to people who have described their experiences. It will critically examine competing theories for religious phenomena, e.g., psychological and neurophysiological explanations for near-death and visionary experiences. Although a number of the topics to be studied are of particular relevance to the Christian faith, their relevance to broader questions about God or a transcendent reality will also be considered.

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PHILOSOPHY 584

Philosophy of Religion

This course examines some key issues pertaining to suffering and belief in God. Topics include the problem of evil, arguments from suffering original sin, everlasting suffering and providence.

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PHILOSOPHY 590

Philosophy of Mind

What are we talking about when we speak of mind? What is the nature of the human mind? Does it even have a nature? Does it exist as something separate from the human brain? Is it a property of the human brain? Is it identical to the human brain? Or is it merely an abbreviated way of talking about bodily behaviours? More particularly, how is our phenomenologically rich and existentially weighted point of view on the world related to the neurophysiological conditions that underwrite it (or as one writer put it, “how is the water of the brain transubstantiated into the wine of consciousness?”)? And as Christians (if we are such), how does the way we understand the answers to these questions inform our belief that humans bear God’s image? Is dualism the only acceptable anthropological option for Christians? Or may a Christian believe that the mind is really merely an incredibly complex neurophysical entity (i.e., the brain) or just a vastly sophisticated computer? And how does theology bear on our understanding of our bodies’ relationship to our minds? God created human being by breathing into a handful of dust; He will resurrect our human bodies in the eschaton. What might this tell us about the bodily nature of our personal mindfulness? These are some of the more general issues we will be concerned with in this class.

Given the centrality this course gives to class discussion and student presentations, its value is highly sensitive to student input. Since this course involves a rather large amount of reading, only students who are ready to invest the requisite energy and time should, in all fairness to fellow students, take this class.

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PHILOSOPHY 591

Existentialism

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PHILOSOPHY 600

CORE SEMINAR - Human Nature: Competing Philosophical Views

Today, more than ever, the question of human nature is hotly contested. Not only are there many competing claims as to the nature of human being, there is no consensus on whether in fact humans possess an essential nature at all. This seminar is designed to examine some of the most influential views of human nature advanced by philosophers and scientists in the history of Western civilization, and to explore implications of these views for ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics. Plato and Aristotle are considered to have been seminal in shaping western views of human nature, and Christianity has drawn from ancient Greeks in articulating its own views. This backdrop to the modern period in philosophy will first be examined before moving into seminal views advanced in modernity and postmodernity. Among the latter will be both philosophical views and scientific views on human nature, views held by Rationalists, Kantians, Empiricists, Darwinians, Behaviorists, Existentialists, Marxists, Freudians, Pragmatists, Evolutionary Psychologists, Post-structuralists, and Transhumanists.

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PHILOSOPHY 601

Foundation of Ethics

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PHILOSOPHY 602

Philosophy and Religion

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PHILOSOPHY 603

Social Ethics Seminar

This course is dedicated to examining ethical questions concerning life and death.Throughout the course, special emphasis will be placed on understanding and evaluating moral and legal perspectives on these questions, within the larger tradition of Western philosophy, and in the face of the current technological revolution.Issues will include: the moral status of humans, the meaning of personhood, sanctity of life versus quality of life, genetic engineering, reproductive technologies, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, abortion.Students are expected to read the assigned texts and prepare to discuss them before each class.

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PHILOSOPHY 604

Science and Religion Seminar

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PHILOSOPHY 605

Philosophy of Body

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PHILOSOPHY 606

Ethics and Politics

This course is dedicated to examining the complex relation between political philosophy and timeless moral questions.  While discussing major texts of political philosophy from antiquity to the present, we shall examine the philosophical rationale for the following issues:  the ethical implications of church-state separation, the ancient-modern quarrel over the place of ethics in politics, the tension between “Athens” and “Jerusalem” over the meaning of political morality, the role of virtue in political leadership, and the “secularization” of biblical morality in modern politics. 

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PHILOSOPHY 607

Special Topics - Medieval Cosmology

This course presents a comprehensive understanding of the development of the notions of 3sign2 and 3nature2 in the evolution of the cosmological outlook of medieval worldviews. The Latin Age in philosophy is studied as beginning with Augustine's definition of signum and culminating in John Poinsot's Treatise on Signs. The semiotic developments of the Latin Age are placed in context by also studying how medieval cosmology views nature. Modern understandings of the nature of the universe are limited by modern notions of space and time and so this course explores the outlook of medieval cosmology on such topics in order to recover an understanding of naturans.

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PHILOSOPHY 607

Existence, Truth and Possibility

Survey contemporary (i.e. late 20th-21st century) treatments of some core areas of philosophical investigation: namely, existence or being in its most basic categories, identity conditions for individual objects, truth, and modality (the nature of possibility and necessity).

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PHILOSOPHY 607

Neoplatonism and Early Christianity

For better or worse, the respective fates of theology and philosophy have been inextricably linked since their convergence in the first few centuries A.D. What was the nature of this encounter? Did the early Christians overly correlate theological truth with Neoplatonic frameworks, as some recent advocates of "post-metaphysical" theology claim? How did the early Christian theorists understand the difference between Neoplatonic philosophy and revealed truth? This course will attempt to answer such questions through readings both in Neoplatonic philosophy and early Christian theory. Beginning with readings in Plotinus and Porphyry, the student will begin to form an understanding of the basic contours of Neoplatonic philosophy. The subsequent readings in Origen, Athanasius, and Augustine provide varying perspectives on how the Church Fathers made use of Greek philosophy in the service of faith. The Proclus reading will then provide an expression of mature Neoplatonism. The course will close by reading Aquinas' Commentary on the Book of Causes, which will provide a useful historical summary of the cumulative early Christian response to Neoplatonism. In sum, the purpose of this course is twofold: to familiarize the student with the key issues in Neoplatonic philosophy, as well as to locate key points at which the early Christian thinkers diverged/assimilated Neoplatonic philosophy.

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PHILOSOPHY 610

Research Design/Seminar

Under the direction of the student’s approved thesis advisor, a course of reading and study which leads to the development of both a significant bibliographical essay (or annotated bibliography) and a thesis proposal. The latter includes at least the following: major question(s) to be addressed; significance of the issue(s); methodologies to be used; theories to be addressed and primary sources to be examined.

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PHILOSOPHY 611/612

Thesis

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PHILOSOPHY 613

Major Essay

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PHILOSOPHY 645

Religion and Philosophy

This course will explore the foundations of religious belief and faith, particularly the issue of the rationality of religion. The role of methodology will be examined, including the value of deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning; also the question whether the method applicable to religious belief is unique to it. The work of recent philosophical theologians and their critics will be examined and evaluated.

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New MAIH Student Assistant Position (2010 - 2011):
 
An average of 6 - 7 hour per week, stipend of $3,000 for the year.  The role of the assistant would be to assist the program in all or some of the following areas:
 
Recruitment
  • Write a personalized letter to potential students who enquire about the MAIH, providing a student perspective on the program.
  • Assist with hosting any prospective student who visits the campus (e.g. arrange a lunch or coffee with students etc) providing an invitation to ask questions.
  • Assist Jayne and Bob to keep our website up to date (new announcements etc.).  Our web site is proving to be effective as a recruitment tool and so regular      attention is needed.  
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Orientation of new students
  • Help us orient new students in September (and January) including providing a campus tour etc. 
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Student Communication & Socials
  • Social Events ~ Help Jayne to organize and to promote such events among MAIH students.
  • MAIH Colloquiums ~ Help to organize and promote among MAIH students.