Courses

This course surveys central issues in philosophy of language, including: theories of truth and reference, the relationship between language, thought, and mind, constructivist and structuralist accounts of language. A sub-theme for the course is the relationship between the philosophy of language and other core areas of philosophy.

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 studies the role of business in contemporary society where multiple demands are placed upon it, the responsibility of a corporation to its many constituencies, and responsiveness to changing cultural climate. The course studies a biblical basis for business ethics.

This course explores the philosophically perplexing tasks of finding a place for human consciousness in, and the mind’s causal relations to, the natural world. It also investigates the theories put forward to address these tasks, e.g., dualistic theories like substance dualism, dual-attribute theory, epiphenomenalism, and emergentism, and the monistic theories like physicalism (reductive, eliminative, and non-reductive), lived-body phenomenology, and neutral monism.

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

This course acquaints 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 are studied throughout, and emphasis is placed upon epistemological, metaphysical, and linguistic issues. Some attention is given to examining the relationships between these philosophical movements and others, e.g., those that characterize postmodernism. Attention is occasionally given to points that carry implications for Christian faith.

Studies the modern philosophy of British empiricism, with a primary focus on the works of Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Analyzes the relevance of empiricism to contemporary philosophical debates pertaining to metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics and evaluates the enduring strengths as well as the persistent limitations of this tradition.

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.