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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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