Courses

A study of rationalist philosophy in the European Enlightenment period of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Selected writings of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz are analyzed and interpreted. As we discuss each author's ideas, we will evaluate their positions on: the limits of reason, the intelligibility of revealed 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.

An examination of twentieth century political philosophy through reading of texts by major contemporary political philosophers.

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.

An in-depth investigation into major postmodern texts. Authors considered include Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida, and their critics. Both the philosophical and historical foundations of modernism and postmodernism will be explored. The historicist focus on the origins and contexts of these ideas will receive considerable attention.

The problem of determining standards of right and wrong as well as the problem of determining what is of value in itself. The moral theories of prominent philosophers, both ancient and modern, are examined.

This course acquaints students with the elements of symbolic logic and its methods of deduction, including: the quantificational calculus, definite descriptions, identity, and the logic of relations. The significance of symbolic logic is examined in relation to logical atomism as advanced early in the twentieth century by Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell.

Examines a range of topics within philosophy of language. Includes 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 text linguistics and sociolinguistics, are considered in evaluating the schools of thought.

A descriptive and critical inquiry into the theory of knowledge, including such topics as foundationalism, relativism, evidence, warrant, cognitive reliability, skepticism, and the relationship of cognitive science and psychology to philosophical accounts of knowledge and rational inquiry.

This course doesn't merely explore different questions about the nature, value, and meaning of beauty, artworks, and aesthetic experience; it also sensitizes students to the value, pleasures, and risks of moving through the world with deep perceptual attention coupled to an expansive imagination.