Philosophy (PHIL)

Inquiries into the nature of the self, the universe and society as they relate to various definitions of reality, truth and value with readings from major works of classical and modern philosophers.

Surveys formal methods of deductive and inductive logic with an emphasis on syllogistics, truth-functional logic and quantificational logic. Topics include Venn Diagrams, truth tables, quantifiers, rules of inference, formal proofs and probabilistic reasoning.

Introduction to contemporary moral issues: corporate responsibility, abortion, capital punishment, drug legalization, animal rights, gay marriage, economic quality, free speech, etc.

A philosophical examination of issues basic to religion, including the relation of faith to symbols and language, religious understandings of the nature of man, the traditional proofs for God's existence, the relationship of religion to philosophy, to culture, to science and to morality.

Surveys propositional and quantificational logic. Topics include translations between formal languages and English, logical consequence, formal methods of proof and elements of metatheory. Prerequisites: 3 semester hours of PHIL or MATH or consent of instructor.

Surveys the nature of consciousness and the mind-body problem. Topics include the question whether computers could think, dualism, functionalism, mental causation and mental representation. Prerequisite: 3 semester hours of PHIL or PSYC or consent of the instructor.

Surveys theories of knowledge and skepticism. Topics include a prior knowledge, foundationalism, coherentism, theories of perception, externalism and contextualism. Prerequisite: 3 semester hours of PHIL or consent of instructor.

Well-being, moral responsibility, ethical naturalism, innateness or morality, moral heuristics and biases, moral intuitions, emotions and sentiments, morality and evolution, egoism and altruism, moral disagreement, character and virtue,psychopathology, and moral development. (Credit may not be obtained in both PHIL 4317 and PSYC 4317.)

Surveys game theory and decision theory as tools for analysis in philosophy, political science, economics, and other fields. (Credit cannot be earned for both PHIL 4327 and POLS 4327.) Prerequisites: 3 semester hours of PHIL, POLS, ECON, or MATH, or consent of instructor.

Surveys topics such as speech acts, truth and meaning, proper names, demonstratives, propositional attitudes, conversational implicature and private languages. Prerequisite: 3 semester hours of PHIL.

Special studies in philosophy. Course may be repeated for credit, if different topic is offered.