Introduction to the Christian Liberal Arts
The requirements in this section introduce students early in their time at Westmont
to the nature and purpose of a Christian Liberal Arts education. Although each of
these requirements introduces students to the Christian liberal arts through a
particular disciplinary or methodological lens, they all are intended to draw students
explicitly into the questions and the concerns that we hope will pervade their entire
education at Westmont. These themes include, among others: an exploration of
what it means to be human; what it means to live a good life; and what it means to
pursue justice as a citizen of both this world and the Kingdom of God. As a result of
having fulfilled these requirements, students will have an appreciation for the
development of the Christian Liberal Arts tradition. In addition, they will be on their
way to developing categories of critical evaluation, sensitivity to historical context,
empathic imagination, and other essential capacities of a liberally educated
Christian.
Students must fulfill the following requirements at Westmont:
1. Philosophical Reflections on Truth and Value (4)
Courses satisfying this requirement give significant attention to the nature of reality, our
prospects for knowledge, and ethical or aesthetic values. Students in such courses should:
understand the role, in alternative worldviews, of metaphysical assumptions about the
nature of God, human beings, the world; appreciate how assumptions about knowledge
affect such pursuits as science, mathematics, theology, and self-understanding; recognize
the import of competing value claims; practice identifying and assessing arguments
when a thesis is proposed; and emerge with a sense of how to think Christianly about
various worldviews.
The Philosophy Department will have primary responsibility for this requirement,
supplemented by other courses that address a comparable range of philosophical
concerns. Ideally such a course would devote roughly equal time to questions of
metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics (or value theory generally). However, a course that
emphasizes one of these may qualify if it is largely philosophical in emphasis and it
addresses each of these areas in a substantive way.
For example, a biology course satisfying this requirement might involve a philosophical
exploration of the nature of human beings, the cases for and against methodological
naturalism, and the question how evolutionary processes could have produced beings that
display genuine altruism. A physics course satisfying this requirement might involve a
philosophical exploration of whether theism or naturalism fits better with various
cosmological theories, the differing ways the study of nature has been practiced over time,
and the theological perspective that might lead a Christian to value the study of physics. An
economics course satisfying this requirement might involve a philosophical exploration of
the extent to which humans can be considered free, rational agents, the ways in which
different methodological assumptions shape economic theory, and the question how a
culture’s economic policies relate to its political or moral beliefs.
Interpretive Statement
The only course offered by the philosophy department in this area will be PHI-6,
with the new title “Philosophical Perspectives.” In order for a course outside the
philosophy department to be eligible to satisfy this requirement, it must, as the
catalogue description indicates, “address a comparable range of philosophical
concerns.” Ideally, this would involve a course focusing on and devoting roughly
equal time to philosophical questions about ultimate reality, knowledge and value.
However, a course may qualify if it emphasizes one of these sorts of questions over
the others as long as (a) the course is primarily philosophical in emphasis and (b) it
addresses each of these sorts of questions to some extent.
Goal
Students who take a course in the “Philosophical Perspectives” Common Context GE
area will (at the end of the course) be able to state in basic terms the contribution of
philosophical reflection to their Christian liberal arts education
Certification Criteria (Approved by the GE Committee 04/22/2010; revised version
approved by the GE Committee ______________)
Students will
 Recognize and articulate foundational questions of philosophy – especially
foundational questions of particular interest to Christians – though the emphasis
among knowing, being, and value will vary by course.
 Articulate some of the main components of a Christian liberal arts education and
the interrelation of philosophy and other areas of academic study in the liberal arts,
both in terms of content and the development and application of transferable skills.
 Articulate the relationship between philosophical commitments/academic life
and their beliefs, feelings, commitments, and practices as components of an
integrated life, considered as a whole.
Student Learning Outcome (Provisionally approved by the faculty meeting
04/15/2011)
Students will be able to articulate major philosophical ideas and describe their bearing on
the Christian liberal arts.