Below are specific descriptions of what the professor currently plans to do in the course. For other 1000 and 2000 level course descriptions, please see the "Courses" link on the left menu bar under "Undergraduate Program."
PHIL 2050: PHILOSOPHICAL THINKING
Staff TR 1:50 - 4:35
Philosophical methods, concepts, skills, and principles. For example: sentential logic, regress and reductio arguments, paradigm-case arguments, types of supervenience, Leibniz's Law, necessity versus apriority. Applications to important philosophical texts.
PHIL 3010: History of Western Philosophy I: Ancient and Medieval
Staff MW 1:50 -4:35
This course will be an introduction to some of the major figures in ancient Greek philosophy: Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, the Stoics, and the Pyrrhonian skeptics. We will also look at how the Medieval philosophers Augustine and Aquinas try to appropriate the doctrines of pagan philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle and use them within the context of Christian belief.
PHIL 3020: History of Western Philosophy II: Modern
Staff TR 4:45 -7:30
If there was ever a turning point in the history of philosophy — a time after which nothing was ever quite the same — we might point to Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy. “First philosophy” is the Aristotelian term for metaphysics (the general philosophical investigation into the nature of reality), and Descartes was responding to centuries of philosophical inquiry that took its cue from Aristotle. This course is a historical survey of metaphysics and epistemology — with continual glances to the impact of religion and theology on these subjects — in the early modern period.
PHIL 3720: Contemporary Moral Problems
Staff TR 9:30-10:45
Staff MW 10:55 -1:40
Selected moral issues, such as abortion, euthanasia, environmentalism, genetic engineering, feminism, animal rights, gay and lesbian rights, and political violence. Brief coverage of ethical theories as they relate to the issues at hand.
PHIL 3730: Business Ethics
Sections See GoSolar for details
This course explores how ethical considerations such as justice, loyalty, obedience, honesty, and other moral principles may bear on the choices of persons who lead (or are part of) businesses, and how such principles may conflict. The course will consider the ethical consideration capitalist markets raise for business organizations (including the ethics in advertising and marketing). We will also study competing accounts of human rights and how such rights might shape organizational structures in light of personal privacy and institutional needs.
PHIL 4095/6095: Topics in Analytic Philosophy: Language and Reality
Steve Jacobson TR 10:55 -1:40
The aim of this course is to read, write, and think intensively about a variety of topics concerned with the philosophy of language and metaphysics--such as meaning, reference, theories of descriptions, verificationism, "use" theories of meaning, speech act theory, Grice's program, rigid designators, natural kind terms, and so on. Special attention will be given to the bearing of issues about language on philosophical theories regarding ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, and logic.
PHIL 4100/6100: Epistemology
Steve Jacobson MW 10:55 -1:40
The course will cover classical and contemporary discussions regarding knowledge and justified belief. Roughly the first third or half of the course will be a survey of classical topics in epistemology--the problems of the external world, other minds, induction, for example. The remainder of the course will concentrate on contemporary discussions of topics such as the Gettier problem, skepticism, foundationalism, coherentism, reliabilism, contextualism, the internalist/externalist debate, theories of truth, verificationism, feminist and naturalized epistemology.