At the undergraduate level, philosophy shares with literature and history a four-course requirement for all students.
History acquaints the students with the main lines of development of the West.
Literature introduces them to the tradition of reflection on human experience through the vehicle of imagery and narrative. Philosophy explores the tradition of inquiry into the most basic principles and their systematic interrelations that operate through the whole Western tradition of thought and action. Rather than using textbook summaries, philosophic instruction here rests upon the careful reading of the works of the great thinkers themselves. They provide the models for how to think about the whole in a critical and systematic way. The required sequence is Philosophy and the Ethical Life, Philosophy of Man, Philosophy of Being, and an elective ideally related to each student's major.