Courses

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.

A survey of central issues arising from the question, Is belief in God rational? Topics include arguments concerning the existence of God, religious pluralism, natural science and religious belief, religious language, and critiques of natural theology from Kierkegaard and Reformed Epistemology.

Examines the place of evidence in religion and assesses the evidential force of religious experience and related phenomena. The main body of the course addresses 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. Surveys some major contributors to the critical study of religious experience, e.g.: William James, Rudolf Otto, and R.C. Zaehner, and examines competing theories for religious phenomena, e.g., psychological and neurophysiological explanations for near-death and visionary experiences.