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Course Criteria
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3.00 Credits
Three Credits LA This course will analyze philosophical issues underlying the realm of education. What is the purpose of education What are schools for What is the proper content or subject matter of education What is the most effective means of communicating knowledge What happens in the teaching-learning process What is the responsibility of the teacher What is the responsibility of the student What counts as successful teaching and learning In addition to theoretical questions such as these, the course will examine issues such as religious education in public schools, moral education, multicultural and bilingual education, home schooling, distance learning, and standardized testing. Priority to Teacher Education students. Offered according to student and faculty interest.
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3.00 Credits
Three Credits LA The connection between philosophy and technology is intimate. Technology is the application of scientific knowledge to create products or services that serve human needs or values (such as a wagon and a bow and arrow), but the values it can serve may be good or evil (a wagon may serve to transport goods more quickly and a bow and arrow to kill innocent people more efficiently). This course will study these two connections between technology and philosophy. On what does scientific knowledge depend Why does scientific knowledge-and with it technology-advance in certain cultures and decline in others Should knowledge and technology be allowed to advance unrestrained because of the good they can do (people being the ultimate cause of the evils they can cause) or should they be restricted because of the evils they can inflict upon us Do advances in technologies-their workings not understood by most of us-sever and alienate us from the world and others The course will focus on some of the more troublesome contemporary technologies, such as stem cell research, atomic energy, genetically engineered foods, psychotropic drug therapies, and prenatal testing and selection. Offered according to student and faculty interes
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3.00 Credits
Three Credits LA This course will focus on the philosophy of pragmatism. Pragmatists reject the notion that theory can be separated from practice: a belief is true, the pragmatists argue, if it "works." While not all thinkers who espouse pragmatism are American, the theory was primarily developed by a number of American philosophers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and has been described by some as a quintessentially "American" way of thinking. This course will examine the works of the "classical" American pragmatists, C. S. Peirce, William James and John Dewey, and it will also explore how the theory has been subsequently developed by contemporary thinkers such as Hilary Putnam, Richard Rorty, and Cornel West. Emphasis will be placed on the pragmatic conception of truth, the pragmatic understanding of scientific and religious belief, and pragmatic approaches to art, education, and moral and political life. Offered every three ye
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3.00 Credits
Three Credits LA This course will investigate certain philosophical explanations of the meaning and value of human existence. The types of theories that it will explore argue that action, freedom, and choice are fundamental aspects of human existence. Unlike philosophical systems that define human beings as primarily rational, these philosophies of human existence do not. While they adhere to the primacy of the human being as the basis of philosophy, these philosophies question the primacy of reason and attempt to broaden the meaning of existence. Some of the thinkers that the course may examine include Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, de Beauvoir, Jaspers, and Marcel. Offered every two years.
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3.00 Credits
Three Credits LA The question of ethics or moral philosophy is: What is the good The field deals with such important sub-questions as: What is the source of moral law-that is, of right and wrong Who should be the primary beneficiary of the fruits gained through the pursuit of moral values: oneself or others What are the character traits-the virtues-by means of which human beings achieve values This course will study answers to these questions provided by great moral philosophers of history such as Plato, Aristotle, and Kant, and it will examine how these answers can be applied to moral issues relevant today-such as stem cell research, gay marriage and adoption, capital punishment, and torture of terrorists. Required of all non-transfer students having either junior or senior status. Offered every semeste
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3.00 Credits
Three Credits LA This course will provide a comprehensive and systematic overview of the key philosophical issues and arguments within the growing field of environmental ethics. The questions that will guide our inquiry and analysis include: Do non-living beings and living beings other than humans have a value of their own, not reducible to their instrumental value to human beings If so, what value do such beings have and why If not, why not Do nonhuman beings in our environment have moral standing or is the humanistic understanding that human life is the only value essentially correct Can we determine the "right thing to do" to nature and nonhuman entities solely on the basis of considering the short- or long-term interests of humans of this and/or future generations These questions and the diverse answers to them underlie competing views concerning a host of important issues. The development of a comprehensive may be labeled an "environmental ethic." Offered according to faculty and student interes
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3.00 Credits
Three Credits LA This course will provide an in-depth introduction to propositional and predicate logic, with emphasis placed on problem-solving applications. Valuable for all those interested in sharpening their critical thinking skills. Students who have taken Introduction to Logic are encouraged to enroll. Offered according to student and faculty interest. No prerequisites
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3.00 Credits
Three Credits LA This course will study the movement of philosophic thought from its rise with Thales on the coast of Asia Minor about six hundred years before the birth of Christ, through Socrates and the great systems of Plato and Aristotle, to its decline during the later Roman Empire. Offered every three years.
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3.00 Credits
Three Credits LA This course will study the leading thinkers of the medieval period, the time from the collapse of the Greek and Roman civilizations to the Renaissance, and analyze in depth some of the central philosophical questions of the period. Can God's existence be proven What is the proper relationship between reason and faith What is the nature of universals-that is, the "objects" that general terms are supposed to stand for The course will pay special attention to the two leading thinkers of the age, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Offered every three year
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3.00 Credits
Three Credits LA Modern Philosophy begins in the 17th century as a revolt against the centuries-long orthodoxy of Scholasticism, Thomas Aquinas's synthesis of Christianity and Aristotle. This course will study the new beginning that philosophers wanted to make. These philosophers fall into two groups. One is the Rationalists, whose main figures are Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz; the other is the Empiricists, whose main figures are Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Both groups are mainly concerned with the same problems: [1] The nature and source of knowledge and [2] the nature of reality. The answers they give, however, are very different. With regard to knowledge, the Rationalists argue that some ideas are innate and that certainty can be acquired only by means of reasoning on the basis of those ideas; information acquired through the senses is unreliable. As for reality, it is not the familiar world we perceive by means of our senses but a world known through reason. The Empiricists, by contrast, argue that the foundation of all knowledge is the information we acquire through the use of our senses; while they do not reject the validity of reason outright, they remain skeptical about its results. Although they believe in a reality independent of the human mind when they start out, near the end they reject that any such reality exists. The course concludes by giving a brief account of how Kant attempted to solve the legacy of problems bequeathed to him by these thinkers. Offered every three years.
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