This course is an introduction to elementary symbolic logic. Its main goal is to help students develop their skills in evaluating and constructing arguments. Topics covered include propositional logic (truth-tables and natural deduction), predicate logic, inductive and causal reasoning, and informal fallacies.
The foundational course in the history of philosophy sequence examines selected works of the pre-Socratics, Plato, Confucius, and Aristotle. Our principal focus will be on close reading and analysis of primary texts in translation; in addition, we will explore contemporary interpretations and critiques of these ancient philosophers. The unifying theme of our study will be answers to the question of what it means to live a good life and so we will focus on questions of virtue, particularly justice, as well as the metaphysical and epistemological context for the ancient virtue tradition. (Counts toward the Ethics minor.)
This course explores and assesses how these two disciplines of the mind intersect and influence one another, noting how they challenge each other to better understand human lived experience and resist reductionism. By looking at diverse historical instances of this discourse, as well as to contemporary phenomenological research on embodiment, intersubjectivity, emotion, and culture, we will see that mind itself could be extended quite broadly, to a point that drastically challenges the residual dualisms that pervade these disciplines. Throughout the course, we will trace connections to contemporary issues, drawing out implications for everything from environmental policy to technological design. X: PSYC 3910
This seminar-style course begins with the question as to the meaning of the term, “art,” but then goes on to examine how philosophical meaning can be explored through art, primarily with the help of 20th-century Continental thinkers. Throughout history the visual arts have communicated the most profound experiences in human life, and yet to voice these meanings in the verbal medium of philosophy requires complex processes of interpretation. Our goal in the course will not only be to understand philosophical theories on art, but to use those theories to deepen our understanding and appreciations of works of visual art and architecture. Students in majors such as film studies, theater, music, and design will have opportunities to use works from these fields as a focus for the term paper.