2022-2023 Course List

Restricted to Philosophy Honors students. Permission of department and instructor required.

Prerequisites:

PHIL 495

Restricted to Cognitive Science Majors in their final year.

Individual study of a philosopher or problem.

This course will undertake a close reading and study of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and other texts.

A study of the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Theories of meaning, speech acts and semantics, relation of language to the world.

Major philosophers and philosophies of the late 20th Century.

Discussion of philosophical issues in law by way of connecting legal problems to well-developed and traditional problems in philosophy, e.g., in ethics, political philosophy, and epistemology, and investigates the philosophical underpinnings of the development of law. The course takes an analytical approach to law (as opposed to historical, sociological, political, or legalistic approaches) and devotes a substantial part of the semester to a major work on law written by a philosopher.

Study of philosophy done from a feminist perspective in areas such as metaphysics, epistemology or ethics.

Intensive study of a single philosopher or topic.

In-depth analysis of major European existentialists such as Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Sartre.

Aesthetic principles, theories, and the creative process. Theories of visual arts, music, literature, dance, etc.

This course investigates some of the central philosophical issues in our thinking about film, including questions about narrative, ontology, ethical criticism of film , the role of artistic intentions in interpretation, artistic medium, and the art/entertainment distinction.

The nature of consciousness, mind and body relations, and the free will of action.

This course examines the conceptual and philosophical complexities of efforts to understand the mind in science. Topics include the differences and similarities between humans and other animals, the nature of psychological explanation, and reductive strategies for explaining consciousness, intentionality and language.

Nature of explanations, causality, theoretical entities, and selected problems.

This course examines conceptual and philosophical issues in biology, the nature and scope of biological explanation and conflicts between evolutionary and religious explanations for the origin of life.

Examines the the nature and methods of alternative strategies of theory construction in the social sciences and the metaphysical and epistemological assumptions and implications of such strategies. For example can people, their behavior and norms of rationality be understood in naturalistic terms or must they be understood only in culturally local terms.

Special event of less than semester duration.

Individual study of a philosopher or problem.

Individual service project.

A one semester course which covers the basic principles of physics on a conceptual level and with a minimal amount of math. The course provides an understanding of natural processes and their applications. Topics generally include mechanics, simple machines, atomic structure, heat, light and sound. Lecture and laboratory components.

Goal Areas:

GE-03

Self-paced format. Includes readings on time; telling time from sundials to atomic clocks; Albert Einstein (a biography of the primary developer of the Theory of Relativity); and the Theory of Relativity. All the readings are written to be understood by non-scientists.

Goal Areas:

GE-03

This course is intended for students pursuing a Physics degree. The course offers an introduction to the field of physics, and prepares students for academic success in the program. Students will become familiar with current topics of physics research within the department, and better understand the career paths available with a physics major.