University Catalog 2023-2024

Philosophy (PHI)

PHI 205  Introduction to Philosophy  (3 credit hours)  

Introduction to selected problems of enduring philosophical importance, including such topics as the nature of morality, knowledge, human freedom, and the existence of God. Content varies with different sections.

Credit is not allowed for both PHI 205 and PHI 210.

GEP Humanities

Typically offered in Fall, Spring, and Summer

PHI 210  Representation, Reason and Reality  (3 credit hours)  

This course is an introduction to philosophical issues concerning topics such as language, thought, knowledge, reason, truth, and reality through the study of problems, puzzles, and paradoxes. Not both PHI 205 and PHI 210 may be used towards satisfaction on PHI major or PHI minor requirements.

Credit is not allowed for both PHI 210 and PHI 205

GEP Humanities, GEP Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Typically offered in Fall and Spring

PHI 214  Issues in Business Ethics  (3 credit hours)  

An analysis and evaluation of major issues in business ethics. Topics include the social responsibility of business; social justice and free enterprise; the rights and duties of employers, employees, manufacturers, and consumers; duties to the environment, the world's poor, future generations, and the victims of past injustices; the moral status of the corporation; and the ethics of advertising.

GEP Humanities

Typically offered in Fall, Spring, and Summer

PHI 221  Contemporary Moral Issues  (3 credit hours)  

Philosophical analysis and theory applied to a broad range of contemporary moral issues, including euthanasia, suicide, capital punishment, abortion, war, famine relief, and environmental concerns.

GEP Humanities

Typically offered in Fall, Spring, and Summer

PHI 227  Data Ethics  (3 credit hours)  

Application of theories of moral right to issues such as free speech and "information pollution"; privacy and security; and algorithmic fairness, inequality and transparency.

GEP Humanities, GEP Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Typically offered in Fall, Spring, and Summer

PHI 250  Thinking Logically  (3 credit hours)  

Deductive arguments attempt to guarantee their conclusions. Inductive arguments attempt to make their conclusions more probable. Using a small number of simple, powerful logical techniques, this course teaches you how to find, analyze and evaluate deductive and inductive arguments, and thus how to avoid the most common errors in reasoning.

GEP Mathematical Sciences

Typically offered in Fall and Spring

PHI 298  Special Topics in Philosophy  (3 credit hours)  

Selected studies in philosophy that do not appear regularly in the curriculum. Topics will be announced for each semester in which the course is offered.

PHI 300  Ancient Philosophy  (3 credit hours)  

Western philosophy of the ancient world, with special emphasis on Plato and Aristotle.

GEP Humanities

Typically offered in Fall and Spring

PHI 301  Early Modern Philosophy  (3 credit hours)  

Western philosophy of the 17th and 18th centuries, including such philosophers as Descartes, Hobbes, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant.

GEP Humanities

Typically offered in Fall and Spring

PHI 302  19th Century Philosophy  (3 credit hours)  

Western philosophy of the 19th century, including such philosophers as Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Marx, and Nietzsche.

GEP Humanities

Typically offered in Fall only

PHI 305  Philosophy of Religion  (3 credit hours)  

The existence and nature of God, including such topics as traditional proofs of God, skeptical challenges to religious belief, miracles, the problem of evil, faith and reason, and religious experience.

GEP Humanities

Typically offered in Fall only

PHI 309  Political Philosophy  (3 credit hours)  

Philosophical study of important political ideas and values such as liberty, equality, justice, rights, and democracy. May include readings from classical and contemporary sources.

Prerequisite: One PHI course

GEP Humanities

Typically offered in Spring only

PHI 310  Existentialism  (3 credit hours)  

Philosophy of Existentialism, including such thinkers as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Doestoevsky, Sartre, Heidegger, and Camus.

GEP Humanities

Typically offered in Fall only

PHI 312  Philosophy of Law  (3 credit hours)  

Fundamental legal issues such as what constitutes a law or legal system. Justifications of legal interference with individual liberty. Philosophical legal issues illustrated by specific legal cases.

GEP Humanities, GEP Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Typically offered in Spring only

PHI 313  Ethical Problems in the Law  (3 credit hours)  

Explores uses of the legal system, including such topics as the death penalty, plea bargaining, legalizing euthanasia, censorship, Good Samaritan laws, the insanity defense, civil disobedience, preferential treatment.

Prerequisite: PHI 221 or PHI 375 or PHI 376

GEP Humanities, GEP Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Typically offered in Fall only

PHI 319  Black Political Philosophy  (3 credit hours)  

Black thought on central issues in political philosophy such as justice, equality and state authority. Readings will be selected from the works of several Black thinkers, including figures such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Kwame Nkrumah, Charles Mills and Angela Davis.

GEP Humanities, GEP U.S. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, GEP U.S. Diversity

Typically offered in Fall only

PHI 320  Philosophy of Race  (3 credit hours)  

Fundamental philosophical questions raised by the concept of race, such as whether race is a legitimate category for identifying human beings, and whether the category of race reinforces racism.

GEP U.S. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, GEP Humanities, GEP U.S. Diversity

Typically offered in Spring only

PHI 325/STS 325  Bio-Medical Ethics  (3 credit hours)  

Interdisciplinary examination and appraisal of emerging ethical and social issues resulting from recent advances in the biological and medical sciences. Abortion, euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, compromised infants, aids, reproductive technologies, and health care. Focus on factual details and value questions, fact-value questions, fact-value interplay, and questions of impact assessment and policy formulation.

GEP Humanities, GEP Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Typically offered in Fall, Spring, and Summer

PHI 330  Metaphysics  (3 credit hours)  

Problems of metaphysics, including such topics as: possibility and necessity, paradoxes of time travel, nature of space and time, free will and determinism, causation, mind-body problem and identity-over-time.

Prerequisite: One PHI course

GEP Humanities

Typically offered in Spring only

PHI 331  Philosophy of Language  (3 credit hours)  

Introduction to traditional and modern accounts of the relations between language and reality, the nature of truth, problems of intentionality and propositional attitudes.

Prerequisite: One PHI course

GEP Humanities, GEP Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Typically offered in Fall only

PHI 332  Philosophy of Psychology  (3 credit hours)  

Problems and controversies that overlap the boundary between philosophy and psychology: the mind/body problem, behaviorism vs. cognitivism, the prospects for artificial intelligence, and language and the questions of innate knowledge.

Prerequisite: One PHI course or one PSY course

GEP Humanities, GEP Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Typically offered in Fall only

PHI 333  Knowledge and Skepticism  (3 credit hours)  

Analysis of such central concepts as knowledge, belief, and truth, and the investigation of the principles by which claims to knowledge may be justified.

Prerequisite: One PHI course

GEP Humanities

Typically offered in Spring only

PHI 340  Philosophy of Science  (3 credit hours)  

Nature of science highlighted by differences between science and pseudoscience, relationships between science and religion, and roles of purpose-directed (teleological) and causal explanation in physical, life and social sciences.

GEP Humanities, GEP Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Typically offered in Fall and Spring

PHI 347  Neuroscience and Philosophy  (3 credit hours)  

Introduction to principal theoretical, empirical and normative issues at the intersection of neuroscience and philosophy, including such issues as: consciousness, the mind's I and the brain's I: free will, moral responsibility and neuroscience; the ethics of personal enhancement; brains, human nature and personal identity; neuroscientifically informed evaluation of well-being.

GEP Humanities, GEP Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Typically offered in Spring only

PHI 375  Ethics  (3 credit hours)  

Examination of traditional questions of philosophical ethics: What are the principles of moral conduct? What sort of life is worthy of a human being? Includes both classic and contemporary literature.

GEP Humanities

Typically offered in Fall and Spring

PHI 376  History of Ethics  (3 credit hours)  

Topics in the history of ethics. Philosophers to be studied may include Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Butler, Hume, Kant, Sidgwick and Nietzsche.

Prerequisite: One PHI course

GEP Humanities

Typically offered in Fall only

PHI 401  Kant's Critique of Pure Reason  (3 credit hours)  

A text-based critical study of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason Focusing on such topics as perception, judgment, knowledge, space, time, substance, causation and reality. Students cannot receive credit for both PHI 401 and PHI 501.

Prerequisite: 6 credits in PHI. Credit is not allowed for both PHI 401 and PHI 501.

GEP Humanities

PHI 403  Continental Philosophy After 1900  (3 credit hours)  

Key themes in continental European philosophy after 1900. Work studied will include selections from writings of authors in at least two major traditions, e.g., phenomenology, hermeneutics, structuralism, and critical theory. Junior standing or above required. Students may not receive credit for both PHI 403 and PHI 503.

R: Junior standing or above

GEP Humanities

Typically offered in Spring only

PHI 420  Global Justice  (3 credit hours)  

The applications of the ideas of justice and right beyond and across the borders of individual nation states, attending to the facts of globalization and their consequences for political and economic justice and human rights. Topics: skepticism about global justice; transnational distributive justice, pollution, and poverty; national sovereignty, self-determination, and intervention; the ethics of war; international human rights; and global democracy. No one can receive credit for both PHI 420 and PHI 520.

Prerequisite: One PHI course. Credit is not allowed for both PHI 420 and PHI 520.

GEP Humanities

PHI 425/PSY 425  Introduction to Cognitive Science  (3 credit hours)  

Philosophical foundations and empirical fundamentals of cognitive science, an interdisciplinary approach to human cognition. Topics include: the computational model of mind, mental representation, cognitive architecture, the acquisition and use of language. Students cannot receive credit for both PHI/PSY 425 and PHI/PSY 525.

Prerequisite: One upper-level PHI, PSY, CSC or Linguistics course. Credit is not allowed for PHI 425 and PHI/PSY 525.

GEP Humanities, GEP Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Typically offered in Spring only

PHI 440  The Scientific Method  (3 credit hours)  

Detailed examination of core issues in the philosophy of science: the confirmation of scientific theories, falsification, projectibility, the nature of scientific explanation, laws of nature, and causation. Students cannot receive credit for both PHI 440 and PHI 540.

Prerequisite: One PHI course. Credit is not allowed for both PHI 440 and PHI 540.

GEP Interdisciplinary Perspectives, GEP Humanities

Typically offered in Fall only

PHI 447  Philosophy, Evolution and Human Nature  (3 credit hours)  

This course covers philosophical issues in the evolutionary study of human cognition: the role of adaptationism; the values of psychological vs. behavioral approaches; the phenotypic gambit; the evolution of morality and altruism; the nature of culture and the possibility of cultural evolution; innateness, genetic determinism and development; and case studies of evolutionary explanation of human behavior or psychology. Students cannot receive credit for both PHI 447 and PHI 547.

Prerequisite: One 300 level or higher course in Philosophy, Biology, Psychology or Anthropology. Credit is not allowed for PHI 447 and PHI 547.

GEP Humanities, GEP Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Typically offered in Fall only

PHI 475  Ethical Theory  (3 credit hours)  

An introduction to some central themes and issues in ethical theory. Topics in normative and meta-ethics such as consequentialism, deontology, virtue ethics, constructivism, realism, relativism, subjectivism, and expressivism. Readings primarily from contemporary literature.

Prerequisite: PHI 375 or PHI 376. Credit is not allowed for both PHI 475 and PHI 575.

Typically offered in Spring only

PHI 494  Research and Writing in Ethics  (1 credit hours)  

A substantial paper in ethics, assigned by the instructor of the corequisite; enrollment subject to departmental approval; may be repeated for credit. Individualized/Independent Study and Research courses require a Course Agreement for Students Enrolled in Non-Standard Courses be completed by the student and faculty member prior to registration by the department.

Prerequisite: PHI 250 or LOG/MA 201 or LOG/MA 335 and one other (non PHI 250) PHI course. Corequisite: One of (PHI 298, 302, 309, 310, 313, 319, 325, 375, 376, 403, 420, 475, or 498)

Typically offered in Fall, Spring, and Summer

PHI 495  Research and Writing in History of Philosophy  (1 credit hours)  

A substantial paper in history of philosophy, assigned by the instructor of the co-requisite; enrollment subject to departmental approval; may be repeated for credit. Individualized/Independent Study and Research courses require a Course Agreement for Students Enrolled in Non-Standard Courses be completed by the student and faculty member prior to registration by the department.

Prerequisite: PHI 250, LOG 201 or 335 and one other (non-PHI 250) PHI course; Co-requisite: One of PHI 298, 300, 301, 302, 310, 401, 403 or 498

Typically offered in Fall, Spring, and Summer

PHI 496  Research and Writing in Contemporary Philosophy  (1 credit hours)  

A substantial paper in contemporary philosophy, assigned by the instructor of the corequisite; enrollment subject to departmental approval; may be repeated for credit. Individualized/Independent Study and Research courses require a Course Agreement for Students Enrolled in Non-Standard Courses be completed by the student and faculty member prior to registration by the department.

Prerequisite: (PHI 250 or LOG 201 or LOG 335) and one other PHI course; Corequisite: One of PHI 298, 305, 310, 320, 330, 331, 332, 333, 340, 347, 403 425, 440, 447 or 498

Typically offered in Fall, Spring, and Summer

PHI 497  Research and Writing in Logic, Representation and Reasoning  (1 credit hours)  

A substantial paper in logic, representation and reasoning, assigned by the instructor of the corequisite. enrollment subject to departmental approval; may be repeated for credit. Individualized/Independent Study and Research courses require a Course Agreement for Students Enrolled in Non-Standard Courses be completed by the student and faculty member prior to registration by the department.

Prerequisite: LOG 201 or 335, and one other PHI course, not PHI 250, Corequisite: One of LOG/MA 335, LOG 430/530, 435/535, PHI 298, 330, 331, 332, 333, 347, 340, 425/525, 440/540 or 447/547

Typically offered in Fall, Spring, and Summer

PHI 498  Special Topics in Philosophy  (1-6 credit hours)  

Detailed investigation of selected topics in philosophy. Topics determined by faculty members in consultation with head of the department. Course may be used for individualized study.

Prerequisite: Six credits in PHI courses

Typically offered in Fall and Spring

PHI 501  Kant's Critique of Pure Reason  (3 credit hours)  

A text-based critical study of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason focusing on topics such as perception, judgment, knowledge, space, time, substance, causation, and reality. Students cannot receive credit for both PHI 401 and PHI 501.

Prerequisite: Graduate Standing. Credit is not allowed for both PHI 501 and PHI 401.

PHI 503  Continental Philosophy After 1900  (3 credit hours)  

Key themes in continental European philosophy after 1900. Work studied will include selections from writings of authors in at least two major traditions, e.g., phenomenology, hermeneutics, structuralism, and critical theory. Students cannot receive credit for both PHI 403 and PHI 503. Junior standing is required for PHI 403. Graduate standing is required for PHI 503.

R: Graduate Standing

Typically offered in Spring only

PHI 520  Global Justice  (3 credit hours)  

The applications of the ideas of justice and right beyond and across the borders of individual nation states, attending to the facts of globalization and their consequences for political and economic justice and human rights. Topics: skepticism about global justice; transnational distributive justice, pollution, and poverty; national sovereignty, self-determination, and intervention; the ethics of war; international human rights; and global democracy. No one can receive credit for both PHI 420 and PHI 520.

Prerequisite: Graduate standing. Credit is not allowed for both PHI 520 and PHI 420.

PHI 525/PSY 525  Introduction To Cognitive Science  (3 credit hours)  

Philosophical foundations and empirical fundamentals of cognitive science, an interdisciplinary approach to human cognition. Topics include: the computational model of mind, mental representation, cognitive architecture, the acquisition and use of language. Students cannot receive credit for both PHI/PSY 425 and PHI/PSY 525.

Prerequisite: Graduate standing. Credit is not allowed for PHI 525 and PHI/PSY 425.

Typically offered in Spring only

PHI 540  The Scientific Method  (3 credit hours)  

Detailed examination of core issues in the philosophy of science: the confirmation of scientific theories, falsification, projectibility, the nature of scientific explanation, laws of nature, and causation. Students cannot receive credit for both PHI 440 and PHI 540.

Prerequisite: Graduate standing. Credit is not allowed for both PHI 540 and PHI 440.

Typically offered in Fall only

PHI 547  Philosophy, Evolution and Human Nature  (3 credit hours)  

This course covers philosophical issues in the evolutionary study of human cognition: the role of adaptationism; the values of psychological vs. behavioral approaches; the phenotypic gambit; the evolution of morality and altruism; the nature of culture and the possibility of cultural evolution; innateness, genetic determinism and development; and case studies of evolutionary explanation of human behavior or psychology. Students cannot receive credit for both PHI 447 and PHI 547.

Credit is not allowed for both PHI 547 and PHI 447. Graduate Standing Required.

Typically offered in Fall only

PHI 575  Ethical Theory  (3 credit hours)  

An introduction to some central themes and issues in ethical theory. Topics in normative and meta-ethics such as consequentialism, deontology, virtue ethics, constructivism, realism, relativism, subjectivism, and expressivism. Readings primarily from contemporary literature.

Prerequisite: Graduate Standing. Credit is not allowed for both PHI 575 and PHI 475.

Typically offered in Spring only

PHI 598  Special Topics in Philosophy  (3-6 credit hours)  

Typically offered in Fall and Spring

PHI 696  Summer Thesis Res  (1 credit hours)  
PHI 816  Introduction to Research Ethics  (1 credit hours)  

Institutional rules guiding the responsible conduct of research (RCR) and their philosophical justification. Rudiments of moral reasoning and their application to RCR. Topics: plagiarism, falsification and fabrication of data, and ethics versus custom, law, science, and religion.

Prerequisite: Graduate standing

Typically offered in Fall and Spring

PHI 896  Summer Dissert Res  (1 credit hours)