Major
10 courses, including 103, 201, 202; two courses at the 300-level; 401, plus four additional philosophy courses
Declared majors have the right to participate in Departmental Meetings and to be consulted on significant changes to the academic program and policies.
Minor
Six courses chosen with the advice of the department.
ETHICS MINOR REQUIREMENTS:
Six courses
1. PHIL 102: Introduction to Ethics
2. PHIL 104: Practical Ethics
3. Three ethics electives other than PHIL 102 and PHIL 104. Students should have taken at least PHIL 102 or 104 before taking a 200-level course in the Department of Philosophy
4. A 300-level course focused on ethics in the Department of Philosophy. Students should have taken three prior courses in philosophy, at least two at the 200-level before enrolling in a 300-level course.
5. Courses taken during study abroad or offered as transfer credit may count toward these requirements if deemed suitable by Professor Sias or Professor McKiernan. (These courses need not focus on ethics in Western tradition.)
6. Students who are philosophy majors may only count two courses both for the major and the ethics minor.
Suggested curricular flow through the major
First Year
PHIL 101 or 102 or 104
PHIL 103*
Sophomore Year
PHIL 201* (offered only in the fall)
PHIL 202* (offered only in the spring)
200-level electives
Junior Year
200 level electives
300 level seminars*♦
Senior Year
PHIL 401 (offered only in the fall)*
PHIL 300 level seminar*♦
*required for the major
♦taught as WID course
10 courses total which must include 103, 201, 202, two 300 level seminars, 401 (senior seminar)
Suggested four-year course plan for the Ethics minor:
First Year
PHIL 102 or PHIL 104
Sophomore Year
PHIL 102 or PHIL 104, one 200-level course
Junior Year
Two 200-level courses focused on ethics in the Department of Philosophy or cross listed with the ethics minor
Senior Year
One 300-level course focused on ethics in the Department of Philosophy
Independent study and independent research
The department supports independent study by its majors, especially as leading to an Honors thesis (see below). Any student interested in independent study in philosophy should see the appropriate instructor to negotiate topics, readings, and logistics.
Honors
Students may complete an honors thesis in their senior year. The thesis is an original piece of philosophical writing, the product of student research and reflection, written under the guidance of a member of the department acting as advisor. Usually, students work on the thesis for two semesters senior year, enrolling in Independent Research (PHIL 500) each semester. Honors are awarded upon successful oral defense of the completed thesis.
For more details on honors in philosophy, please see the department's guidelines.
Internships
Many students have found ways to combine their philosophical interests with internships, particularly in areas of applied ethics, law, or public policy. Contact the department chair.
Opportunities for off-campus study
Majors are encouraged to study abroad, at the Dickinson program at UEA or elsewhere. In the past majors have studied at universities in several other countries. The program at UEA is particularly well suited to support Dickinson philosophy majors in a year of study abroad. Contact the department chair.
Courses
Philosophy Colloquium. Informal colloquium bringing the department faculty and students together for discussions of contemporary issues in the field, usually based on selections from recent work or on presentations by visiting speakers.
101 Introduction to Philosophy
An introduction to Western philosophy through an examination of problems arising in primary sources. How major philosophers in the tradition have treated such questions as the scope of human reason, the assumptions of scientific method, the nature of moral action, or the connections between faith and reason.
Attributes: Appropriate for First-Year, Humanities
102 Introduction to Ethics
An introduction to the philosophical study of morality, focusing on concepts of right and wrong, virtue and vice, and wellbeing. This course provides students the opportunity to hone their ethical reasoning skills by critically examining how some of history’s most influential philosophers thought about issues in morality. Students will also develop more general skills, such as evaluating philosophical arguments, and expressing and defending their own ideas in writing.
Attributes: Appropriate for First-Year, Ethics Elective, Humanities, LAWP Ethics Elective
103 Logic
The study and practice of forms and methods of argumentation in ordinary and symbolic languages, focusing on elements of symbolic logic and critical reasoning, including analysis and assessment of arguments in English, symbolizing sentences and arguments, constructing formal proofs of validity in sentential and quantificational logic.
Offered every semester, or every three out of four semesters.
Attributes: Appropriate for First-Year, Humanities, Quantitative Reasoning
104 Practical Ethics
This course introduces students to contemporary debates in practical ethics. Course materials investigate how theoretical approaches to ethics apply to practical issues, including discussions of animal ethics, environmental ethics, reproductive ethics, civil disobedience, and the ethics of mass incarceration and the death penalty. This course is best suited for students interested in thinking about the relationship between ethical theory and practice, with an emphasis on how power, privilege, and responsibility intersect in our everyday lives.
Attributes: Appropriate for First-Year, ENST Humanities/Arts (ESHA), Ethics Elective, Humanities, LAWP Ethics Elective
113 Introductory Topics in Philosophy
Introduction to philosophy through the exploration of a specific topic or problem.
180 Political Philosophy
An introduction to the history of political thought, focused on such problems as the nature of justice, the meaning of freedom, the requirements of equality, the prevalence of moral dilemmas in political life, the question of whether we ought to obey the law, and the importance of power in politics. We will also discuss how these issues continue to resonate today.
This course is cross-listed as POSC 180.
Attributes: AMST Struct & Instit Elective, Appropriate for First-Year, Ethics Elective, Humanities, LAWP Ethics Elective, Social Sciences
201 Ancient Philosophy
This course is an introduction to central questions, claims and arguments in ancient philosophy, centering on the work of Plato and Aristotle. Potential questions include: What is the value of reason and knowledge? What is knowledge? Is it always better to be just than unjust? What constitutes a good human life? What kind of thing is a human being?
Prerequisite: one prior course in philosophy or permission of the instructor.
202 17th and 18th Century Philosophy
This course treats the Rationalists, Empiricists and Kant, with particular emphasis on issues in epistemology and metaphysics, such as the possibility and limits of human knowledge, the role of sense perception and reason in knowledge, the nature of substance, God and reality.
Prerequisite: one prior course in philosophy or permission of the instructor.
203 19th Century Philosophy
This course treats major texts by significant 19th century philosophers such as Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche.
Prerequisite: one prior course in philosophy or permission of the instructor.
Attributes: Humanities
204 American Philosophy
An introduction to major philosophical texts and themes originating in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This course will cover such thinkers as Emerson, James, Peirce, Dewey, and Santayana and themes such as naturalism, transcendentalism, in particular, pragmatism. Contemporary developments in the American philosophical tradition may also be included.
Prerequisites: one prior course in philosophy or permission of the instructor.
Attributes: AMST Representation Elective
205 Topics in Asian Philosophy
This course focuses on the characteristics and problems of thought in Asia, with emphasis on methods of comparative philosophy and close examination of works and movements within a major tradition (in different semesters: China, India, Japan, Buddhist schools).
Prerequisite: one prior course in philosophy or permission of the instructor.
Attributes: East Asian Humanities Elective
210 Philosophy of Feminism
Critical examination of key issues concerning the status and roles of women and of the developing theories which describe and explain gender-related phenomena and prescribe change for the future.
Prerequisite: one prior course in philosophy or permission of the instructor.
Attributes: Ethics Elective, Humanities, WGSS Hist/Theories/Represent
215 Existentialism
A study of existentialist thinkers, including Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre,
de Beauvoir, and Camus, who treat the human condition as irreducibly
individual and yet philosophically communicable, and for whom the
experience of the existing individual is of primary importance in issues
ranging from one's relationship to God to the inevitability of death.
Prerequisite: one prior course in philosophy or permission of the instructor. Offered every two years.
220 Biomedical Ethics
A study of ethical issues arising in the context of medical practice, biomedical research, and health related policy making, with focus on the ethical concepts, theories and reasoning methods developed to clarify and resolve these issues.
Prerequisite: one prior course in philosophy or permission of the instructor. This course is cross-listed as PMGT 220.
Attributes: Ethics Elective, Health Studies Elective, LAWP Ethics Elective, NRSC Non-Div 3 Elective
251 Philosophy of Religion
This course focuses on philosophical issues arising from religious belief and practice.Topics treated may include: the existence and nature of god or gods; the contested relation of a god to moral values; faith and reason as sources of belief or ways of believing, as expressed in classic texts by thinkers such as Aquinas, Hume, Kierkegaard, and William James, as well as in contemporary texts.
Prerequisite: one prior course in philosophy or permission of the instructor.
Attributes: Humanities
252 Philosophy of Art
The discipline of aesthetics is primarily concerned with philosophical questions about art and beauty. This course will examine classic and contemporary Western discussions of such questions as, What is art? How can we determine what a work of art means? Are beauty and other aesthetic qualities subjective or objective? How should the quality of a work of art be assessed? Is there a general way to describe the creative process? What are the driving forces in the unfolding of art history? We will encounter such giants of the Western intellectual tradition as Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant, and Hegel, and also such contemporary figures as Arthur Danto, Richard Wollheim, and Kendall Walton.
Prerequisite: one prior course in art history or philosophy or permission of the instructor. This course is cross-listed as ARTH 252.
Attributes: Appropriate for First-Year, Humanities
253 Topics in Social and Political Philosophy
Explorations of specific figures, texts, and issues in historical and contemporary theory.
Prerequisite: one prior course in philosophy or permission of the instructor.
Attributes: Humanities, LAWP Ethics Elective
254 Philosophy of Science
This course considers such issues as the distinction between science and non-science; the relation of evidence to scientific theories; truth and rationality in science; competition among theories; the nature of scientific explanation; methods of scientific thinking; the impact of science on society.
Prerequisite: one prior course in philosophy or permission of the instructor.
Attributes: NRSC Non-Div 3 Elective
255 Philosophy of Law
This course considers fundamental issues in the study of legal philosophy. These include the meanings and purposes of law, the limits of legal authority, and topics such as: theories of punishment; justifications for civil disobedience; the regulation of sex, gender, and sexuality; economic critiques of judicial process; and the construction of race and ethnicity within the law.
Prerequisite: one prior course in Philosophy, or POSC 180, 202, 206, 208, or permission of the instructor. This course is cross-listed as LAWP 255.
Attributes: LAWP Ethics Elective
256 Philosophy of Mind
This course investigates the nature of the mind and its relation to the brain, body, and the surrounding world. Analyses of these topics will draw on information from fields such as psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, or computer science.
Prerequisite: one previous course in philosophy, or permission of the instructor.
Attributes: NRSC Non-Div 3 Elective
257 Moral Psychology
An investigation of philosophical issues at the intersection of ethics and psychology. For example, is there any empirical basis to beliefs about free will and moral responsibility? What are emotions, and what role do they have to play in our moral lives? How can so many intelligent and open-minded people reach such radically different moral conclusions? Are there really such things as traits of virtue and vice? These are among the issues we’ll explore in this course.
Prerequisite: One PHIL course, or permission of instructor.
Attributes: Ethics Elective, LAWP Ethics Elective
258 Philosophy of Data
This an introduction to philosophical issues arising in data science. Students will discuss, read and write about some important ethical issues that arise in the practice of data sciences, such as discrimination, privacy, consent, trust, and justice. To help clarify those issues, students will also learn about some connected issues in the epistemology and metaphysics of data science, such as the nature of statistical inference and of algorithms.
Prerequisites: MATH 121 or DATA/COMP/MATH 180 or ECON 298. This course is cross-listed as DATA 198. Offered every fall.
Attributes: Ethics Elective, Humanities
261 Intermediate Topics in Philosophy
Examination of specific problem, author, text, or movement.
Prerequisite: one prior course in philosophy or permission of the instructor.
270 Philosophy and Literature
Dostoevsky's characters lie, steal, scheme, and murder. What is it about Dostoevsky's depictions of their lying, cheating ways that makes his novels not just literary but philosophical? And what is it about philosophical works like Kierkegaard's and Nietzsche's that makes them literary? More generally, where do the overlapping realms of literature and philosophy begin and end? This course investigates the intersections of philosophy and literature across different schools of thought, paying special attention to the work of Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Leibniz, Plato, Tolstoy, Voltaire, and others. We will pair the treatment of philosophical issues in fiction with their treatment in more traditional philosophical genres, thereby raising and discussing the contentious question of whether philosophy can achieve things that literature cannot, and vice versa.
Prerequisite: one course in PHIL or permission of the instructor. Offered every two years. This course is cross-listed as RUSS 270.
275 Beauty
Perhaps no term is as variously interpreted or as hard to define as "beauty." At one time, beauty was treated as among the ultimate values, along with goodness, truth, and justice. But in the last century or so it has been devalued, equated with prettiness or meaningless ornamentation. It has been quite out of fashion in art since the late nineteenth century. But one cannot understand much of the art of the Western tradition without understanding it as the attempt to make beautiful things, and without understanding what the goal meant in the cultures in which it had currency. And of course even now most people would not want to be without dimensions of beauty in their lives. We will look both at classic and contemporary attempts to answer such questions, and try to heighten our own appreciation for the beauty in the arts and in the world.
Prerequisite: one prior course in art history or philosophy or permission of the instructor. This course is cross-listed as ARTH 375.
Attributes: Humanities, NRSC Non-Div 3 Elective
280 Recent Political Thought
This class aims to show the breadth and vitality of the field of political theory today. It does this by deepening and broadening the account of the discipline offered in POSC 180, discussing the most important recent accounts of justice, freedom, and equality, and adding consideration of democracy, rights, power, culture, community, and cosmopolitanism. We will also explore issues of exploitation and exclusion relating to gender, class, race, and human interaction with the natural environment, and consider how recent theorists have tried to challenge these practices. The class also explores the contours of political theory as an academic field of study, considering the disciplinary contributions of fields such as philosophy, political science, international relations, legal studies, and history, and major ideologies such as liberalism, conservatism, socialism, anarchism, and feminism.
This course is cross-listed as POSC 202. Prerequisite: 180 or POSC 180, or permission of the instructor.
Attributes: SINE Elective
285 Justice in World Politics
An examination of how states ought to make ethical decisions about policies of global scope. Should asylum seekers and economic migrants be granted access to social services? How must states fight wars? How ought resources to be distributed between countries? We will explore the philosophical underpinnings of the arguments that have been developed in response to at least two of these questions.
This course is cross-listed as POSC 208. Prerequisite: 180 or POSC 170, 180, or permission of the instructor.
Attributes: Ethics Elective, Humanities, INST Sustain & Global Environ, LAWP Ethics Elective, Social Sciences
301 Metaphysics
This seminar will treat key issues in metaphysics, such as the self and personal identity, free will, universals and particulars, causation, reductionism, naturalism, realism and anti-realism, and the very possibility of metaphysics.
Prerequisites: three prior courses in philosophy, at least two at the 200 level, or permission of the instructor.
Attributes: Writing in the Discipline
302 Ethical Theory
This seminar will explore major issues or texts in classical or contemporary moral philosophy.
Prerequisites: three prior courses in philosophy, at least two at the 200 level, or permission of the instructor. Offered at least once every two years.
Attributes: Ethics Elective, LAWP Ethics Elective, Writing in the Discipline
303 Epistemology
This seminar will probe key issues in epistemology, such as: the nature of knowledge and justification, the challenge of skepticism, the relation of sense perception to conceptual thought.
Prerequisites: three prior courses in philosophy, at least two at the 200 level, or permission of the instructor.
Attributes: Writing in the Discipline
304 Philosophy of Language
What is the meaning of a word? How is it related to the thing or things it picks out? Can we provide a systematic account of the meaning of every sentence of a natural language (such as English, Japanese or Hebrew)? What is the relationship between what words mean and what we get across with them? In what sense, if at all, do we follow rules when we use language? This course is a seminar in which we will consider these sorts of questions among others.
Prerequisites: three prior courses in philosophy, including 103 (Logic) and two at the 200 level, or permission of the instructor. Offered every two years.
Attributes: Writing in the Discipline
391 Advanced Topics
A seminar focusing on a significant philosophical issue, text or philosopher.
Prerequisites: three prior courses in philosophy, at least two at the 200 level, or permission of the instructor.
Attributes: Writing in the Discipline
401 Senior Seminar
A seminar focusing in depth on a selected philosophical topic, author or text with special emphasis on student philosophical writing and voice.
Prerequisites: three prior courses in philosophy, at least one at the 300-level, or permission of the instructor.
Attributes: Humanities