It includes an exploration of a network of fundamental philosophical questions regarding the nature of the community, the state, the role of the individual and the relationships among them. Students will become comfortable with some of the great classical texts in Western political thought from Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Smith, Marx and Nietzsche as well as with more contemporary sources. Thus, this course raises questions about the social practices of Western culture, including the issue of whether the social and the political dimensions of our thinking can be justifiably separated. This course satisfies the General Education requirement in Social Inquiry. An introductory inquiry into issues and problems that are now at the center of philosophical attention.
Topics vary from semester to semester in accordance with current interests of students and faculty.
A general category used only in the evaluation of transfer credit. This course will emphasize the doing of philosophy of religion, and students will be encouraged to relate the issues of the course to their existence. Any 100-level philosophy course, any First Year Studies course taught by a member of the philosophy department, or consent. A study of reasoning in ordinary language and in contemporary symbolic languages with emphasis on the connections between the two. Attention is also given to informal fallacies, paradox, ambiguities of ordinary speech, the problems of definition, and the critical analysis of arguments in natural settings.