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Spring 2009: Philosophy or Religion
Previous Course Brochures:
Fall 2008
PHIL 105 Western
Philosophy
.001 MTH 9:55-11:10AM Gougelet, D
.002 MTH 3:35-4:50PM Gougelet, D
.003 TF 3:35-4:50PM Weis, L
.004 TF 9:55-11:10AM Weis, L
This course is a historical introduction to the Western philosophical tradition.
Students closely examine classic and contemporary texts on the nature of reality,
truth, morality, goodness, and justice; the possibility of knowledge; faith,
reason, and the existence of God; and the issue of freedom and determinism.
This course is a foundation-level course in the
General Education Program, Area 2, Cluster 2: "Traditions that Shape
the Western World".
PHIL 200 Introduction to Logic
.001 MTH 2:10-3:25PM Stam, J
Basic principles of formal deductive logic, both Aristotelian (syllogistics)
and modern (propositional and predicate calculus), with some attention to
informal logic also. Text and exercises supplemented by discussions on history,
applications, and critical appraisal of different logical systems.
PHIL 220 Moral Philosophy
.001 TTH 8:10-9:25PM Schmidt, M
.002 TTH 9:35-10:50PM Schmidt, M
The theories concerning the nature of goodness found in Western philosophy.
The major discussion issues are traditional principles for evaluating goodness
and telling right from wrong; the difference between fact and value; the justification
of normative judgments; objectivity in ethics; and the relationship between
moral and non-moral goodness.
.003H MTH 11:20-12:35PM Reiman,
J
(Open only to students in the University Honors Program.)
In this course, we will read four of the greatest works in the Western philosophical
tradition, with the aim of exploring some of the major theories of the good
and the just found in Western philosophy. Among issues to be discussed are
the moral evaluation of actions and persons; the justification of moral judgments;
the possibility of objectivity in ethics; and the relationship between moral
goodness, virtue, and happiness. We will read Aristotle’s Nicomachean
Ethics, Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals,
Mill’s Utilitarianism, and Mill's On Liberty.
This course is a second-level course in the General
Education Program, Curricular Area 2, Cluster 2: Traditions that Shape the
Western World.
Prerequisites for General Education credit: Individual
Freedom vs. Authority, Work and Community, Western Legal Tradition, Western
Philosophy, or Religious Heritage of the West.
PHIL 230 Meaning and Purpose in the Arts
.001 TF 11:20AM-12:35PM Pathak,
S
This course focuses on the interpretation of works of art through increased
understanding of the artworks themselves, the lives of those who create them,
and the societal influences on these artists. In addition to considering premodern,
modern, and postmodern criticism of a variety of forms of literary and visual
art, students will interpret the oeuvres of particular artists of interest
to them.
This is a second-level course in the General Education
Program, Curricular Area 1: The Creative Arts, Cluster 2: Understanding Creative
Works.
Prerequisites for General Education credit: ARTH-105
Art: The Historical Experience, COMM-105 Visual Literacy, LIT-120 Interpreting
Literature, or LIT-135 Critical Approach to the Cinema.
PHIL 240 Ethics in the Professions
.001 TF 11:20-12:35PM Weis, L
This course provides a framework for thinking generally about ethics, and
more specifically about professional ethics. In addition, it addresses ethical
dilemmas that arise in the professions of government, law, business, medicine,
the media, and the academy.
This course is a second-level course in the General
Education Program, Curricular Area 4, Cluster 1: Social Institutions and Behavior.
Prerequisites for General Education credit: Understanding
Mass Media, Macroeconomics, Politics in the United States, or Global Sociology.
PHIL 301/601 Modern Philosophy from Bacon to Hegel
.001 M 5:30-8:00PM Stam, J
Readings from principal writings of British empiricists and Continental rationalists,
and the scientific and political theorists of the 17th and 18th century through
Kant. Discussion of background to modernity and post-Kantian directions in
philosophy.
Prerequisites for PHIL-300: PHIL-105 or permission
of instructor.
Note for both PHIL-300 and PHIL-600: PHIL-300 or PHIL-600, respectively, is
recommended, but not required.
PHIL 311/611 Hegel: Phenomenology of Spirit
.001 T 5:30-8:00PM Bisticas-Cocoves, M
This course will be a close reading of G.W.F. Hegel’s 1807 Phenomenology
of Spirit.
Prerequisite for PHIL-316: PHIL-105 or permission
of instructor.
PHIL 311/611 Kant, Hegel, and Marx on Justice
.002 W 2:10-4:50PM Reiman, J
Kant applied his ethical theory to the state, law and justice in his Metaphysics
of Morals: The Metaphysical Principles of Justice. Hegel found Kant’s
approach abstract and ahistorical, and thus responded with his Philosophy
of Right, which aimed to show how concrete notions of the state, law
and justice developed from actual social practices. Both Kant and Hegel, in
their different ways, end up justifying a modern liberal republic. Marx, who
was sympathetic to Kant’s ideals and to Hegel’s historical approach,
criticized both of them for providing ideological cover for exploitative capitalism.
In this course, we will read Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals: The Metaphysical
Principles of Justice and Hegel’s Philosophy of Right,
as well as a number of essays by Marx critiquing the two. Students should
note that these books of Kant’s and Hegel’s are difficult philosophical
texts. Thus, students registering for this course should be prepared to devote
considerable time to careful reading.
Prerequisite for PHIL-316: PHIL-105 or permission
of instructor.
PHIL 311/611 Existentialism
.003 W 5:30-8:00PM Erfani, F
This course focuses on 19th and 20th century existentialism, with a particular
emphasis on the role of imagination in creating one’s identity. We will
read philosophical works by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, Heidegger and
de Beauvoir, as well as literary works by Camus, Dostoyevsky and also Sartre.
Prerequisite for PHIL-316: PHIL-105 or permission
of instructor.
PHIL 386 Senior Seminar: Ressentiment
.001 W 11:20-2:00PM Feder, E
The aim of the Senior Seminar is to provide a capstone experience for majors
in Philosophy. This semester we will engage in a close reading of Nietzsche’s
Genealogy of Morality to understand his concept of ressentiment before
turning to its ongoing relevance in contemporary thought.
Prerequisite: PHIL-105 or permission of instructor.
PHIL 391/691 Internship in Philosophy
Feder, E
Prerequisite: permission of instructor and department
chair.
PHIL 392/692 Cooperative Education Field Experience
Feder, E
Prerequisite: permission of department chair and
Cooperative Education office.
PHIL 486 Colloquium of Philosophy: Philosophy and Film
.002 T 8:10-10:40PM Oliver, A
(Meets January 27 – February 24)
In this colloquium, we will do philosophy while going to the movies. We will
pair appropriate readings by selected philosophers with each film we view
and discuss. Topics include surveillance and privacy, political identity,
the metaphysics of baseball, and others.
PHIL 498 Honors Project in Philosophy
Oliver, A
Prerequisite: permission of department and University
Honors Director.
PHIL 525 Seminar on Modern Moral Problems
.001 M 8:10-10:40PM Gougelet, D
In a previous seminar, we looked at the problematization of the relation between
the State and the subject encountered in the works of thinkers like Foucault,
Althusser, and Deleuze and Guattari. This seminar will once again take up
the question of the State, but will do so from a different per-spective. As
moral evaluations, “good” and “bad” have traditionally
been reserved for the judgment of character. In this seminar, we will depart
from convention and pose the question of whether or not moral evaluations
of “good” and “bad” can also be applied to States.
To that end, we will begin the semester with an extended foray into Hannah
Arendt’s essential Origins of Totalitarianism, in which she
provides an analysis of the totalitarian state in terms of Na-tional Socialism
and Stalinist “communism.” Having looked at the more traditional
conception of “bad” states, we will turn to Jacques Derrida’s
more recent problematization of the concept of the “rogue” state,
found in Rogues. Other readings may be added to the curriculum in
the future.
Prerequisite: PHIL 220 or permission of instructor.
PHIL 693 Global Ethics
.001 Th 5:30-8:00PM Raven, F
The integrative seminar for the M.A. in Ethics and Peace. Discussion of ethics,
ethical systems, and the presuppositions of mediation from a cross-cultural
perspective. Completion and presentation of a major integrative research paper
is required.
PHIL 797 Master's Thesis Seminar
Prerequisite: permission of department
chair.
RELG 105 Religious Heritage of the West
.001 TF 8:30-9:45AM Schaefer, M
The contribution of religion to Western civilization. An exploration of the
religions that have formed the foundations of Western civilization, including:
Greco-Roman and other Ancient Pagan Traditions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam,
Unitarianism, Mormonism, and American Civil Religion. Where possible, primary
source texts, including the scriptures of the religions, will be used.
This course is a foundation-level course in the
General Education Program, Curricular Area 2, Cluster 2: Traditions that Shape
the Western World.
RELG 185 Forms of the Sacred
.001 TF 9:55-11:10AM Reddy, P
This course introduces students to the complexity and diversity of major religions
of Asia: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Confucianism and Daoism. While
focusing on the broad outlines of historical development of each tradition,
we will explore the forms of sacred, major doctrines and scriptures, religious
beliefs and practices. The course strongly emphasizes a comparative approach
and examines different ways of understanding religion and how religious traditions
developed as comprehensive ways of life in India and China.
.003 TF 3:35-4:50PM Park, J
The course covers five major religious traditions in Asia: Hinduism, Buddhism
(its development in India and its transformation in East Asia), Confucianism
and Taoism (two indigenous religious traditions of China), and Shinto (an
indigenous religion of Japan). We will examine basic doctrines of each religion
and discuss different ways of understanding the relationship between life
and death, god and human beings, and the secular and the sacred. Also addressed
is religion's influence on the construction of gender, national and individual
identity, and social consciousness.
This course is a foundation-level course in the
General Education Program, Curricular Area 3, Cluster 2: Global and Multicultural
Perspectives.
RELG 210 Non-Western Religious Traditions
.001 TF 12:45-2:00PM Park, J
This course examines how non-Western religious traditions function as systems
of symbols, how they interact with both indigenous religious traditions and
external religious traditions, and how they respond to modernization and imperialism.
The first three weeks will be devoted to create a frame to understand religious
phenomena by reading selections from The Idea of the Holy and Variety of Religious
Experiences and then the class will read selected texts from Asian religious
traditions, examine their interaction with the Western intellectual world,
and explore their modern transformations.
This course is a second-level course in the General
Education Program, Curricular Area 3, Cluster 2: Global and Multicultural
Perspectives.
Prerequisites for General Education credit: Culture:
The Human Mirror, Third-World Literature, Forms of the Sacred, Cross-Cultural
Communication, and Views from the Third World.
RELG 220 Religious Thought
.001 MW 8:10-9:25PM Greenberg, G
This course examines the history of Christian thought, according to representative
thinkers and essential issues. Thinkers include the Church Fathers (Tertullian
and Origen), Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, John Wesley, and in the modern period,
Schleiermacher and Bultmann. Issues include the nature of man's relationship
to God, reason and revelation, history and the kingdom of God, holy scripture
and myth, and martyrdom.
This course is a second-level course in the General
Education Program, Curricular Area 2, Cluster 2: Traditions that Shape the
Western World.
Prerequisites for General Education credit: Individual
Freedom vs. Authority, Work and Community, Western Legal Tradition, Western
Philosophy, or Religious Heritage of the West.
RELG 372/672 Religion in America
.001 TH 5:30-8:00PM Greenberg, G
This course surveys America’s religions beginning with Christianity
and Judaism and continuing through contemporary developments of Islam and
Buddhism. The course also examines Native American religions, Puritanism,
Mormonism, Catholicism, AME, Seventh Day Adventism, and Freemasonry.
RELG 373/673 Hinduism
.001 TF 2:10-3:25PM Pathak, S
This introduction to Hinduism focuses on four phases in the development of
this vibrant religious tradition: (1) the internalization of yajna (sacrifice)
during the Vedic period, (2) the realization of dharma (righteousness)
during the classical period, (3) the diversification of bhakti (devotion)
during the medieval period, and (4) the reconsideration of varna
(class) during the modern period. Central to the study of each phase will
be close readings of selections from its main mythological and philosophical
texts.
RELG 390/590 Independent Reading Course in Religion
Prerequisite: permission of department
chair.
RELG 490/690 Independent Study Project in Religion
Prerequisite: permission of department
chair.
RELG 498 Honors Project in Religion
(Open only to students in the University Honors Program.)
Prerequisite: permission of department chair and
university honors director.