Courses

This course studies key texts from Thomas Aquinas. The focus is on the Summa Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas, but special attention is paid to his commentaries on Aristotle and on his Christian interpretation of ancient philosophy. The challenge that modern science and modern philosophy presents to Thomistic metaphysics is also discussed, with special attention paid to the highly influential critique made by Immanuel Kant.

This course addresses what it means to say that human beings are persons having freedom and subjectivity; examines the different powers of the human person, including the powers of understanding, willing, feeling, and loving; studies the difference between body and soul, as well as the unity of the two in humans; and explores the question of the immortality of the soul. Some classic texts from the tradition of Western philosophy are read.

A critical investigation of the philosophical questions and assumptions that underly the relationship among culture, media, and technology. Students will investigate the philosophical underpinning and the anthropological import of various views of culture, media, and technology, asking critical moral questions about their tendencies to change and shape our human way of being.

An examination of ethical issues that pertain to social justice, addressing such topics as the distribution of wealth, the difference between equality and equity, the effects of globalization, and the morality of war.

A study of empiricist philosophy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Selected writings of Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume are analyzed and interpreted. As we discuss each author’s ideas, we will evaluate their positions on the limits of knowledge and experience, the intelligibility of revelatory truth, the existence of God, the divisibility of reality, the role of nature, and the ethics and politics of human life.

A study of rationalist philosophy in the European Enlightenment period of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Selected writings of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz are analysed and interpreted. As we discuss each author's ideas, we will evaluate their positions on: the limits of reason, the intelligibility of revelatory truth, the existence of God, the divisibility of reality, the role of nature, and the ethics and politics of human life. In the process of dialoguing about these ideas, we shall also study the historical importance of the Enlightenment in modernity as well as the original intent of the philosophers in question with attention to their historic context. We shall also assess the enduring relevance of the Enlightenment to the modern age.

A study of the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, focusing primarily on Kant's seminal work, Critique of Pure Reason.

An examination of foundational ideas and problems in political life and thought. Both classical and contemporary texts are used. Concepts to be treated include the state, society, the citizen, democracy, liberty, equality, authority, obligation, and disobedience.

Explores the theological and philosophical dimensions of the doctrine of creation and from there highlights the various philosophical shifts of outlook that helped usher in modern naturalism and its notions of nature. We will investigate the metaphysics behind the fact/value dichotomy, various environmental ethical frameworks, the case for the moral status of non-human animals and abiotic entities, the evolution of the ecological crisis, the conceptual substructures of some popular contemporary environmental frameworks, and some of the agendas of response to our current ecological crisis.