Philosophy Courses

Section	Instructor	Day and Time	Location
001	Chris Blakely	T Th 9:00-10:20am	220 Stubbs Hall
002	Chris Blakely	T Th 10:30-11:50am	220 Stubbs Hall
003	Emily Cogburn	M W F 12:30-1:20pm	100% Web-Based
004	Chris Wells	M W F 2:30-3:20pm	209 Coates Hall
005	Chris Wells	M W F 3:30-4:20pm	209 Coates Hall
006	Daniel Felty	M W 4:30-5:50pm	209 Coates Hall
007	Ed Hackett	TBA	100% Web-Based
008	Deborah Goldgaber	T Th 12:00-1:20pm	220 Stubbs Hall
009	Daniel Felty	T Th 3:00-4:20pm	104 Audubon Hall
010	Gabriel Connor	T Th 9:00-10:20am	132 J. C. Miller Hall

Formal and informal reasoning; introduction to propositional logic; formal and informal fallacies; scientific reasoning.

 

Classical propositional and first-order predicate logic; syntax and semantics of formal languages; translation between formal languages and English; formal methods of proof.

 

Section	Instructor	Day and Time	Location
001	Jeffrey Roland	T Th 12:00-1:20pm	127 Tureaud Hall

What am I morally obligated to do? What should I care about and pursue for its own sake? This course introduces students to the philosophical study of ethics by investigating these fundamental and perplexing questions of human existence. Our aim will be not only to understand in theory the questions above, but to grapple with how they challenge us to live our lives, give us meaning, and determine what we value. Our task is to consider who we are and who we want to (or, perhaps, who we ought to) become.

 

Section	Instructor	Day and Time	Location
001	Anthony Kelley	T Th 10:30-11:50am	241 Himes Hall
002	Chris Blakely	T Th 1:30-2:50pm	209 Coates Hall
003	Chris Wells	M W F 9:30-10:20am	209 Coates Hall
004	Chris Wells	M W F 10:30-11:20am	209 Coates Hall
005	Chris Wells	M W F 11:30am-12:20pm	209 Coates Hall
007	Daniel Felty	100% Web-Based	--
008	Anthony Kelley	T Th 9:00-10:20am	241 Himes Hall
009	Gabriel Connor	T Th 12:00-1:20pm	211 Tureaud Hall
010	Ed Hackett	100% Web-Based	--

In this course, we will look at the works of Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, the ancient skeptics, and Stoics. We will focus on ethics, what they have to say about a good and happy life, and we will also cover important contributions these philosophers make to metaphysics and epistemology. We will be reading the texts closely, seeking to understand their claims and their reasons for making those claims.

 

Section	Instructor	Day and Time	Location
001	Michael Ardoline	T Th 3:00-4:20pm	220 Coates Hall

Existentialism is the perfect confluence of the questions that drive our lives and how those questions are asked and answered by philosophy. Such questions include: Why do we exist? What is the meaning or point of life? Why do we suffer and die? What is the point of art? What is the basis of individual identity? Is it possible to live authentically? How do we pursue meaning in an absurd and meaningless world? The purpose of this course is to introduce the main questions, concepts, theories, problems, themes, and theories of Existential philosophy. Through this engagement we will strengthen our capacity of self-reflection and in-depth philosophical examination. I anticipate that you will also bring to class your own guiding questions, and that some questions you will find throughout the course. I am immensely interested in what questions matter to you and why. Authors include Camus, Sartre, De Beauvoir, as well as works in film and literature.

 

Section	Instructor	Day and Time	Location
001	Hannah Bacon	T Th 1:30-2:50pm	284 Lockett Hall

This course will explore some of the different metaphysical positions in philosophy including theories of the mind such as physicalism, dualism, and panpsychism as well as related theories about the universe including monism. Our investigation will then consider how these theories can be used to study and assess various paranormal claims such as life after death, the persistence of consciousness, and mystical revelations.

 

Section	Instructor	Day and Time	Location
001	Emily Cogburn	M W 6:00-7:20pm	209 Coates Hall

Our aim is to gain a thorough understanding of the key ideas or “doctrines” in Nietzsche’s philosophy (e.g. Apollonian/Dionysian duality, death of God, the eternal return, Overman, relativism, moral skepticism, critique of morality, etc.), some of the scholarly debate over how to understand those ideas best and consider whether Nietzsche's philosophy is self-contradictory or incoherent.

 

Section	Instructor	Day and Time	Location
001	Chris Blakely	T Th 3:00-4:20pm	209 Coates Hall

 What is of ultimate benefit and harm to beings like us? What is it for a life to go well for the person who lives it? Is it always good for you to get what you want? Could something be good for you in the most basic and fundamental way even if you were not at all interested in it? Is a life that starts out poorly but gets better over time better than one that starts out well but gets progressively worse? These are some of the central questions of well-being—or quality of life or welfare—that we will investigate in this course. We will also study closely related topics concerning the nature of pleasure and the meaning of life, depending on student interest. The course is designed to help graduate students and advanced undergraduates to become better readers and writers of philosophy, especially as it relates to the philosophical study of well-being.

 

Section	Instructor	Day and Time	Location
001	Anthony Kelley	T Th 1:30-2:50pm	137 Allen Hall

Overview of substantive criminal law, including basic criminal concepts, statutes, cases, policies, problems, and theories.

 

Section	Instructor	Day and Time	Location
001	Ken Levy	M W F 1:50-2:40pm	110 Law Center

Phenomenology is the philosophical study of phenomena as they manifest in lived experience, the study of consciousness in terms of the way we perceive and understand the material and manifest world, and the meaning direct objects have for subjective experience. Phenomenology is the study of the lived experience of the world. In this class we will read classic phenomenology texts such as Merleau-Ponty as well as contemporary critical phenomenology. This class will pay special attention to the body and the lived experience of embodiment and the way in which we understand this (and fail to) philosophically. While this may seem abstract and needlessly obtuse (and indeed some of the texts will seem this way as well) this is meant to be an engaging and curious interrogation of what it feels like to live a human life and the multifaceted registers of our engagement in a complex, variegated, and lush lifeworld.

 

Section	Instructor	Day and Time	Location
001	Hannah Bacon	T Th 10:30-11:50am	237 Coates Hall

Philosophical issues related to concept formation and theory construction in the natural, behavioral, and social sciences.

 

Section	Instructor	Day and Time	Location
001	Michael Ardoline	M W F 1:30-2:20pm	137 Allen Hall

We will look at three different contemporary philosophers grappling in deep ways with how we might derive meaning and purpose in a universe where, for all any of us can tell (and as Tom Waits puts in a song of the same name) "God's away on business."

Historically, continental philosophers have tended to respond to evidence of cosmic indifference with some form of existentialism, where "man" must heroically invent meaning where none has been found. Analytic philosophers have tended to respond with some form of milquetoast liberalism. Both ignore large swaths of Nietzsche that should have made us wary of both existentialism and liberalism, continentals ignoring the sexist, slavery supporting, genocide praising themes (and the fact that standard voluntarist existentialism and the thankfully now passé academic cult of transgression have no ground to criticize these themes) and analytics ignoring Nietzsche's critique of the idea that post Reformation Protestant morality and politics could survive the death or radical hiddenness of God.

Recent books by Drew Dalton, Shannon Mussett, and Philip Goff have all explored the indifference of the cosmos in fundamentally new ways that arguably neither instantiate the worst of, nor ignore the best of, Nietzsche. Goff's panpsychism grows out of analytic philosophy of mind, but his tracing the existential themes appropriate to panpsychism leads him to affirm intrinsic positive meaning in the cosmos without affirming the traditional perfect deity. Dalton on the other hand finds intrinsic negative meaning in the cosmos and in different ways show how one can ground a meta-ethics and substantive normative ethics via that very realization. Mussett radicalizes some suggestions of Emmanuel Levinas that one also finds in Buddhist philosophy to the effect that terrifying cosmic entropy and finitude lead not to nihilism, but rather must be seen as a precondition for the realization of truth, beauty, and goodness.

 

Section	Instructor	Day and Time	Location
001	Jon Cogburn	W 4:30-7:20pm	132 Allen Hall