Subject	Course Number	Long Course Title	Description
PHIL	100	Introduction to Philosophy: Problems	An introduction to philosophical analysis and intensive study of selected philosophical classics. Topics include the existence of God, the problem of evil, problems of knowledge, the relationship between mind and body, free will, determinism, and moral obligation. Recommended for freshmen and sophomores.
PHIL	110	Business Ethics	An introduction to ethical issues that arise in the practice of business. Topics include professional virtues, regulation, employer and employee rights, and social responsibility. Students are required to complete a community service project as part of this course.
PHIL	120	Applied Ethics: Introduction to Biomedical Ethics	The course will examine moral dilemmas created or intensified by recent advances in medical technology and study ways of analyzing those dilemmas to make them more tractable. We will focus on examples such as euthanasia and the right to die, abortion, behavior modification, allocation of scarce medical resources, in vitro fertilization, genetic screening and engineering, and human experimentation.
PHIL	130	Meditation and Virtue: Contemplative and Analytic Perspectives on Character	This course focuses on different theories of the good and of the virtues that lead to a good life. It covers a variety of readings that discuss the good and the good life and also critically examines a variety of meditations designed to cultivate moral virtues. Requirements for the class include writing two papers and undertaking a daily meditation practice.
PHIL	140	Introduction to Philosophy: Knowing and Valuing	Is there a plausible distinction between (real!) knowing and (mere!) opinion? Can we make any warranted claims about how humans might best lead meaningful lives? We will carefully analyze the responses to such questions offered by Plato and by two 20th-century philosophers.
PHIL	150	Symbolic Logic	Formal study of the notions of validity, consistency, and equivalence in the languages of sentential logic and predicate logic, plus an introduction to semantics for these languages.
PHIL	190	Tutorial Studies in Philosophy	Senior majors undertaking honors projects should elect one or more terms.
PHIL	199	Independent Study in Philosophy	Advanced students of philosophy may elect one or more terms.
PHIL	200	History of Philosophy: Plato and Aristotle	An examination of themes in selected classical Greek tragedies and their development in the philosophies of Plato (The Republic, Gorgias) and Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics).
PHIL	210	History of Philosophy: Descartes and Locke	A historical and textual examination of 17th- and 18th-century European philosophers, especially Descartes and Locke, as they address questions such as: What is mind? What is matter? Is there a God?
PHIL	215	The Rationalists	An introduction to the philosophy of Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz. Topics that will be covered include: method, substance, and mind and body.
PHIL	230	History of Philosophy: Early Analytic Philosophy	An examination of the early 20th-century works of G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell against the background of the then-dominant Hegelian Idealism.
PHIL	240	History of Philosophy: The American Pragmatists	An examination of the attempts by pragmatists such as C. S. Peirce, William James, and John Dewey to reconceptualize “traditional” issues in Western philosophy.
PHIL	270	British Empiricists	An introduction to the philosophy of Locke, Berkeley and Hume. Topics which will be covered include the theory of ideas, experience and observation, realism, idealism and skepticism.
PHIL	300	Epistemology	An examination of some basic questions concerning the nature and extent of human knowledge, focusing on the topics of skepticism, justification, certainty, the a priori and the a posteriori, and analyses of knowledge.
PHIL	310	Metaphysics	An examination of some central philosophical questions about reality, such as: What basic kinds of things are there? Is truth always and only relative to a conceptual scheme? What is the nature of necessity and possibility? What is the nature of change over time?
PHIL	320	Ethics	An examination of theories about how we should live. Issues include the role of rights, duties, and virtues in decision making, the scope of morality, the limits of our obligations to others, and the foundations of morality.
PHIL	340	Philosophy of Art	An examination of major theories of the essence of art, of the major 20th-century critique of the thesis that art has an essence, and of recent attempts to analyze art in light of the critique.
PHIL	350	Political Philosophy	A seminar examining one topic in political philosophy, typically either distributive justice or war. If the topic is distributive justice, the focus is on different accounts of the just distribution of social benefits and burdens. Issues include the right to health care and other social goods, as well as accounts of the ideals of equality, liberty, and community. If the topic is war, the focus is on political and moral dilemmas of warfare. Issues include war crimes, nuclear deterrence, the status of non-combatants, the use of economic sanctions, and terrorism.
PHIL	360	Environmental Ethics	An examination of some ethical assumptions that might figure in discussions of environmental policy by economists, legal experts, philosophers, and policy scientists.
PHIL	370	Advanced Studies in Bioethics	A seminar examining one particular issue or set of issues in bioethics.
PHIL	390	Tutorial Studies in Philosophy	Senior majors undertaking honors projects should elect one or more terms.
PHIL	399	Independent Study in Philosophy	Advanced students of philosophy may elect one or more terms.
PHIL	400	Philosophy of Language	An examination of major theories of meaning, reference, and cognitive content and an attempt to understand how language functions to relate “internal” psychological states to things in the “external” world. Contemporary philosophers are emphasized.
PHIL	410	Philosophy of Mind	An examination of our common sense conception of mental states and processes and of attempts to answer the question, “Is our common sense conception of mental states and processes compatible with the methods and assumptions of cognitive science?”
PHIL	420	Topics in Logic	An investigation of topics selected from among the following: consistency and completeness theorems for both sentential and predicate logic, Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem, logical paradoxes (Russell’s Paradox, the Liar Paradox, and Newcomb’s Paradox), and modal-tense logic and its formal semantics.
PHIL	430	Philosophy of Law	An exploration of questions such as: To what extent may a decision in a legal controversy be deemed uniquely correct (as contrasted with an exercise of the judge’s discretion)? What purposes and assumptions underlie branches of the law such as criminal law or torts? What are the functions of precedent? What are the various relationships between morality and the law?
PHIL	440	Morality, Rationality, and Self-Interest	If acting morally conflicts with my long-term self-interest, what is it rational for me to do? Why be moral?
PHIL	590	Tutorial Studies in Philosophy	Senior majors undertaking honors projects should elect one or more terms.
PHIL	599	Independent Study in Philosophy	Advanced students of philosophy may elect one or more terms.
PHIL	600	Studies in Philosophy	Topic for Spring 2009: Belief in a God In this seminar we will examine contemporary discussions of the credibility and behavioral implications of belief in the existence of a God.
PHIL	690	Tutorial Studies in Philosophy	Senior majors undertaking honors projects should elect one or more terms.
PHIL	699	Independent Study in Philosophy	Advanced students of philosophy may elect one or more terms.