Spring 2009 Philosophy Department Offerings
Course Offered
Logic &
Language
(180.002)
MWF 9
Intro philosophy
(190.003)
TR 9:25
Professor
E. Thomas
Intro philosophy
(190.004)
TR 10:50
Oberrieder
Intro to Ethics
(195.003)
MWF 11
Philosophy of Art
(260.001)
TR 3:05
C.
Thomas
Philosophy of
Medicine
(290.002)
TR 10:50
E. Thomas
Philosophy and
the United States
Founding
(290.003)
MW 3
Oberrieder
Oberrieder
Rosental
Description
A study of the principles used in distinguishing correct from incorrect reasoning. Special emphasis
will be placed upon the application of these principles to everyday language and reasoning. Topics
to be studied include: informal fallacies, definitions, categorical propositions and syllogisms,
elementary truth functional logic, truth and validity, and induction.
This course aims to introduce the student to the study of philosophy by exploring certain
fundamental issues of ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, and political philosophy, as they arise in
and from discussing specific writings of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hobbes, Hume, and Roussseau.
The course seeks not only to familiarize the student with the questions and arguments of these
philosophers but also, and more fundamentally, to foster philosophical inquiry, thinking, and
discovery by developing in the student a critical, reflective wonder about the meaning of human
reason and experience and the status of the best human life. Among other questions, the course will
ask the following. What is virtuous or moral? What is happiness? Do I really exist? Can I know
anything with certainty? Does God exist? Closed to Seniors.
This course aims to introduce the student to the study of philosophy by exploring certain
fundamental issues of ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, and political philosophy, as they arise in
and from discussing specific writings of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hobbes, Hume, and Roussseau.
The course seeks not only to familiarize the student with the questions and arguments of these
philosophers but also, and more fundamentally, to foster philosophical inquiry, thinking, and
discovery by developing in the student a critical, reflective wonder about the meaning of human
reason and experience and the status of the best human life. Among other questions, the course will
ask the following. What is virtuous or moral? What is happiness? Do I really exist? Can I know
anything with certainty? Does God exist? Closed to Seniors.
A study of the principal ethical traditions of Western culture and their application to contemporary
moral issues and social problems. Not open to seniors.
Prerequisite: FYS 101
This course is a survey of the philosophy of art. Subjects include: the nature of beauty, art as
representation, the aesthetic experience, art and ethics, art as evoking or expressing emotions, the
formal qualities of art, the intention of the artist, the art world, art in context, and the nature of the
art object. We will be looking at these issues from a variety of perspectives, sometimes historical,
though frequently recent (within the last 50 years or so). The issues will be covered in a number of
short articles, ranging from a couple of pages up to about a dozen.
Prerequisite: FYS 101
This course follows a neglected path in the pursuit of wisdom by looking for wisdom as it is
embodied in human institutions. The institution we will look at is the profession of medicine. What
kind of good is health? Is it an instrumental good or a final good? What does it mean to be a
professional? What exactly is one professing? How does modern medicine understand the human
body, and what are the implications for our understanding of the self? How do we reconcile the
inequality between doctor and patient, given our political framework of modern liberalism?
Ultimately, what does it mean to be whole, and how does the practice of medicine serve that end?
These are the principal questions that we will take up in the course.
Prerequisite: FYS 101
The founding of the United States of America holds the distinction of being the great Modern
experiment in government. The Founders of the Country established a “new” nation, based on
neither authoritarian nor hereditary claims, but rather, “self-evident truths,” and dedicated to the
practical realization of intellectual principles. In its origin, then, the American political order
fundamentally is philosophical. This course will begin with an examination of both the Declaration
of Independence and the Constitution, toward identifying and investigating the self-evident truths
and intellectual principles of the American regime. From this, the course will seek to discover and
elucidate the philosophical foundations of these, by considering both ancient and modern sources, as
this investigation proceeds to The Federalist. Among other issues, the course will explore the status
and meaning of liberty, equality, natural right and/or rights, political authority and/or autonomy, and
the purpose and the different forms of government. This course satisfies the Group 4 General
Education requirement.
Early Modern
Philosophy
(314.001)
TR 1:40
Rosental
Kant and the 19th
Century
(315.001)
TR 9:25
Great Modern
Philosopher:
Nietzsche
(361.001)
MW 4:30
E. Thomas
C.
Thomas
Prerequisite: One course in philosophy
An intermediate survey in the Early Modern period of philosophy which examines texts by some of
the most prominent philosophers of the time, including (but not limited to) Descartes, Leibniz,
Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. The course will be centered around four major issues in philosophy:
philosophy of mind (what we are), epistemology (what and how we know), metaphysics (what there
is and how it works), philosophical theology (what made everything).
Prerequisite: PHI 314
A survey of Kant and nineteenth century philosophy, including figures such as Hegel,
Schopenhauer, Marx, Mill, and Nietzsche.
Prerequisite: PHI 314
A concentrated study of works spanning the career of Friederich Nietzsche. We will read and
discuss Nietzsche's works from his earliest efforts in philology to works published shortly before the
famous horse-hugging incident. Even if you don't know what philology is and haven't ever heard
about the time Nietzsche hugged a horse (in public!), any interest in existentialism, German
philosophy, ancient thought, power, or tightropes might mean this course will be to your liking.
Summer 2009 Course Offerings
In Florence Italy:
PHI 290: Machiavelli – Dr. Oberrieder
PHI 290: Italian Renaissance – Dr. C. Thomas
PHI 380: Human Nature and Art – Dr. C. Thomas
In Macon:
PHI 180: Logic & Language – Dr. E. Thomas