Use this link for a list of courses being taught in the Fall of 2008.

Use this link for a list of courses being taught in the Summer of 2008.

Use this link for a list of courses being taught in the Spring of 2008.

The following is a sample of the graduate classes offered in recent years. Those listed at the 400/500 level are open to both graduate students and advanced undergraduates. Those above this level are graduate seminars and are open to graduate students only. All courses are 3 credits unless noted otherwise.

Phil 501 - Plato's Early Dialogues - Professor Polansky
Though titled "Early Dialogues" this course give sufficiently close readings to the "Socratic Dialogues" that they seem neither early nor distinguishable from later dialogues in any clear way.

Phil 504 - Plato's Republic - Professor Keyes
This textual study focuses on universally important questions in western philosophy's most basic work: ontology, epistemology, politics, the soul, aesthetics, ethics, and religion. The Republic requires social responsibility. It challenges the cynicism of our time, such as current types of egotism, sophistical ideologies, and overevaluation of power.

Phil 506 - Aristotle: Politics - Professor Polansky
The course considers how this complex treatment of political topics pertains to antiquity and the present.

Phil 507 - Aristotle: Metaphysics - Professor Polansky
An investigation into the science of being as being. How there can be such a science, what its subject matter is, and what Aristotle discloses about it are the main issues of this course.

Phil 509 - Aristotle's De Anima - Professor Polansky
How the study of soul fits among the sciences; Aristotle's account of soul and its various capacities.

Phil 510 - Plato's Middle Dialogues - Professor Polansky
An examination of Plato's Meno, Phaedo, Phaedrus, Cratylus . The aim of the middle dialogues is the central question of this course.

Phil 511 - Aristotle'e Ethics - Professor Polansky
How can there be a practical science? What is its connection with theoretical science? Is eudaemonism a plausible approach to moral reflection?

Phil 512 - Aristotle's Physics - Professor Polansky
The physics is arguably the central world of the Aristotelian corpus. The course explores the central issues in this work.

Phil 513 - Hegel/Nietzsche/Freud - Professor Wurzer
There is a brief section in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, which is devoted to the evolution of self-consciousness, the striving for interpersonal recognition, and the vicissitudes of labor. Special attention will be given to the concepts of ressentiment (Nietzsche), recognition (Kojeve), justice (Marx/Freud/Derrida/Lyotard), repression (Freud), to the role that work plays in mediating identity-formation, and to expression of instinctual tendencies. Since we cannot canvass this field in its entirety, we will carefully examine some of the basic themes and thinkers involved. We will also explore segments of three art films (by Arnold, Bunuel and Fassbinder) related to our theme. Students are invited to explore and explain the contributions of theorists who have closely related concerns who may not be covered in lectures or required readings.

Phil 514 - Plato's Sophist - Professor Polansky
A close examination of the Sophist, focusing on the connection of sophistry with being and non-being.

Phil 518 - Kierkegaard's Critique of Hegel - Professor Keyes
This lecture and discussion course on Kierkegaard's existentialism studies writings from his various periods, with special attention to the Concluding Unscientific Postscript in relation to Hegel's Science of Logic. It criticizes claims some make that Hegel's philosophy is indifferent to human existential concerns and Kierkegaard's position is entirely anti-Hegelian. On the contrary, the lectures shows some elements of Kiekegaard's critique of Hegel are derived from the Science of Logic. Other philosophers in addition to Hegel enter the dialogue with Kierkegaard. The course compares his analysis of the public in The Present Age with Marx's Private Property and Commubism and examines his arguments about God in relation to Kant's critical philosophy.

Phil 520 - The Philosophy of St. Augustine
The early dialogues and the Confessions will be highlighted. Topics include Augustine's views on skepticism, truth, wisdom, free will, the existence of God, faith/reason, the soul, immortality, memory, time, libido, and knowledge of self, and Augustine's impact on subsequent philosophy/psychology of the subject.

Phil 521 - St. Thomas Aquinas - God and Being - Professor Bonin
This course will introduce you to the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas about philosophical theology through a close reading of his Summa contra gentiles-not the whole text, which would take many semesters, but as much as we can read with care. We will give special attention to the historical context of the work so as to shed light on the much discussed question of Thomas's intention in writing it.

Phil 522 - Aquinas: Treatise on Man
This course presents Aquinas' view of human nature -- body/soul, immortality, cognition, free will, emotions, etc. -- as stated in his Treatise on Man and his Treatise on the Passions.

Phil 523 - The Names of God - Professor Bonin
Aristotle tells us that we name things as we know them, and that our knowledge begins with the senses. If so, can the language we fashion apply to God? How? After a glance at antiquity, we will discuss various medieval responses to these questions, giving special attention to Pseudo-Dionysius, Eriugena, Anselm, Maimonides, and Aquinas.

Phil 530 - Kant: Critique of Pure Reason - Professor Rockmore
We will read as much of the text as is practically possible. There will be extensive reference to the reception of Kant's thought in the later German idealist tradition.

Phil 531 - Heidegger's Contributions to Philosophy - Professor Wurzer
Written between 1936 and 1938, published in German in 1989, Martin Heidegger's Contributions to Philosophy is one of the most innovative and original texts in twentieth century continental thought. Many Heidegger scholars now consider this to be his major text. We will highlight the renowned turn (Kehre) from the standpoint of Heidegger's unique readings of Holderlin, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche.

Phil 532 - Kant's Critique of Judgment - Professor Wurzer
This seminar will focus on Kant's endeavor to ground a distinctly aesthetic judgment. We will read this classic text on modern aesthetics with regard to Kant's aesthetic and teleologic way of presenting the question of nature.

Phil 533 - Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit - Professor Rockmore
Hegel's Phenomenology is an unusual early work and perhaps the single most important philosophical treatise of the nineteenth century. This difficult book amply repays close study. The aim of the course is to read as much of this work with as much care as possible. There will be frequent reference to the surrounding German philosophical tradition, as well as discussion of Hegel's influence and the viability of Hegel's views.

Phil 535 - Postmodern Readings of Early Modernity - Professor Selcer
This course focuses on examples of the roles that confrontations with texts from the history of early modern philosophy and literature have played in the formulation of key theoretical orientations in postmoderen thought and its foundations in 20th century continental philosophy. Texts pairings may include Heidegger/Leibniz, Benjamin/Lohenstein, DeMan/Pascal, Derrida/Rousseau, Negri/Spinoza, Deleuze/Hume, Foucault/Arnauld, and others.

Phil 536 - History and Philosophy of Science - Professor Evans
This course examines the major philosophies of science (logical empiricist, realist, phenomenological, feminist, and constructivist) and their implications for the relation of science and technology. We will focus particularly on the question of whether science possesses a univocal, universal, and neutral rationality or must always be governed by the values that are more directly related to a particular society or historical period than to “the way things are.” Some of the thinkers we will consider are Hempel, Kitcher, Boyd, Kuhn, Bloor, Laudan, Biology and Gender Study Group, Keller, Merleau-Ponty, Rouse, Feyerabend, and Foucault.

Phil 537 - German Idealism - Professor Rockmore
German Idealism arguably belongs to one of the two richest periods in the philosophical tradition. The positions of the major German idealists arose through their interaction with one another. This course considers the relation of the positions of Kant, Fichte, possibly Schelling, and the early Hegel. Texts will include Kant's Prolegomena, Fichte's Science of Knowledge, possibly Schelling's System of Transcendental Idealism, and Hegel's Differenzschrift.

Phil 538 - Kant's Moral Theory
This course will consist of a close reading of Kant's major works on morality, especially the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, the Critique of Practical Reason, and the Metaphysics of Morals. There will be some discussion of the first Critique and Kant's relationship to several selected twentieth-century philosophers. A few contemporary critics of Kant's moral theory will be discussed.

Phil 542 - Foundations of Moral Philosophy - Professor Holveck
The main purpose of this course is to read and discuss classical texts in moral philosophy in order to articulate, understand, and criticize central ethical issues that form the theoretical background of many cases in applied contemporary ethics. There will be an overview of major ethical traditions with a concentration on the moral positions of Kant, utilitarian positions, and the ethics of care.

Phil 546 - Husserl's Ideas - Professor Rodemeyer
This course carries out a careful reading of Husserl's influential text, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology. We read the majority of this text closely, concentrating on Husserl's methodology, goals, assumptions, and philosophical accomplishments. In addition, we discuss both the philosophical background to this text and the influence Husserl had on subsequent philosophers, including Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre.

Phil 550 - Islamic Philosophy - Professor Bonin
This course will introduce you to major philosophers from the classical period of Islamic thought, through their own writings. After a look at the historical background and the characteristics of various times and places, we will discuss primary sources, sampling works from such thinkers as Alkindi, Alfarabi, Avicenna, Algazel, and Averroes. We will give special attention, as did they, to the relation between philosophy and religion, to Islamic occasionalism, and to the nature of the soul.

Phil 556 - Foucault - Professor Evans
In the style of such academics as Noam Chomsky and Edward Said, Michel Foucault is also a political activist (hence an “intellectual” in perhaps the most honorable sense of the word). Yet his many critics claim that Foucault's “archaeological” and “genealogical” enterprises — his genealogies of “how human beings constitute themselves as subjects” — imply that we have no rational and subject-centered basis for political or ethical commitment (for liberation, emancipation, revolution or even reform in any significant sense of the term). The major aim of the course will be to evaluate this claim in light of our understanding of Foucault's archaeological and genealogical methods and their application to specific domains.

Phil 558 - Plato's Phaedo - Professor Keyes

Phil 559 - Plato's Timaeus and Cratylus - Professor Polansky
Plato's Timaeus and Cratylus have been of great interest to contemporaries. The Timaeus seems extraordinarily to approach contemporary views of the universe both in content and as philosophy of science. The Cratylus deals with another contemporary theme, language and its origin.

Phil 565 - The Metaphysical Novel B
This course begins with Simone de Beauvoir's view of the metaphysical novel in her essay, "Literature and Metaphysics." For her, "Metaphysics is not primarily a system. . . ." to do metaphysics is "to be metaphysical. . . ." This means to face the world, to throw oneself into the totality of the world with the totality of one's own being. Thus fiction can recreate the "adventure of the spirit" that is lived metaphysics. We will read novels such as Beauvoir's "L'invit'e," Nadine Gordimer's "Burger's Daughter" and Franz Kafka's "The Castle" in the light of the metaphysical problems that they articulate, question, and discuss. We will read short selections by other philosophers, primarily on literature but also on metaphysics.

Phil 571 - Ricoeur - Professor Keyes
This phenomenological study analyzes four ways of symbolizing evil and redemption: Babylonian, Greek Tragic, Biblical, and Orphic. It also examines rituals, myths, and theories that express this symbolism in religious experience, poetry, theology, and philosophy. The course asks if belief in the existence of God can be reconciled with the problem of evil. The professor interprets Rocoeur's project in relation to Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgment and Friedrich Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy and focuses on the aesthetic dimension of the redemption of evil.

Phil 572 - Heidegger's Being and Time - Professor Rodemeyer
Heidegger's Being and Time is one of the most influential philosophical books of this century. This seminar will concentrate on a close reading of the primary text and a discussion of this early treatise that is his most important philosophical contribution.

Phil 574 - Sartre - Professor Holveck, Professor Rodemeyer
The object of the course is to develop a critical comprehension of Sartre's phenomenological approach to the theme of understanding human beings. Being and Nothingness, the major work in which Sartre presented his ontological theory of consciousness in bad faith, will be the central text. Sartre's earlier writings on the transcendence of the ego, on emotions, and on imagination will be carefully considered as background material for his major work.

Phil 576 - Husserl - Professor Rodemeyer
This course is a fairly comprehensive introduction to Husserl's work as well as to phenomenology. We touch upon several of his more important texts, including Logical Investigations, Ideas, Crisis of European Sciences, On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time and Cartesian Meditations. While analyzing the texts themselves, we focus also on the development of certain issues within Husserl's phenomenology, such as temporality, corporeality, and inter-subjectivity, through the course of his work.

Phil 577 - Merleau-Ponty: Phenomenology of Perception - Professor Evans
This course critically explores Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception and his later work, including The Visible and the Invisible.

Phil 581 - Lyotard: Philosophy of Our Time - Professor Wurzer
Lyotard, Philosopher of our Time explores the state of aesthetics after Nietzsche, Heidegger and Derrida by questioning conventional dialectical attempts to understand society and culture. Simultaneously, this seminar introduces Lyotard's thought as a post-aesthetic prelude to a philosophy of the future.

Phil 586 - Derrida - Professor Wurzer
This course will explore Derrida's relation to Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, and Heidegger. It will show that Derrida's philosophy is a rigorous, radical transformation of the kind of phenomenology evidenced in modernity from Kant to Heidegger.

Phil 592 - Simone de Beauvoir
This course discusses the philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir by a careful analysis of selected essays, novels, and autobiographical accounts, e.g., The Ethics of Ambiguity, The Second Sex, L'Invitée , and The Mandarins, as well as current important scholarship related to Beauvoir.

Phil 596 - Deleuze: A Thousand Plateaus - Professor Evans
Michel Foucault proclaimed that, "perhaps one day this century will be known as Deleuzian." Through a close reading of A Thousand Plateaus: Vol. 2 of Capitalism and Schizophrenia, we will assess the adequacy of his forecast concerning the innovative philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and his co-author, Felix Guattari.

Phil 597 - Husserl and Descartes - Professor Rodemeyer
This seminar will consist of a close reading of Descartes' 'Meditations on First Philosophy' and Husserl's 'Cartesian Meditations'. The intention is to examine each philosopher's text as it stands alone, i.e., in light of their own projects, as well as the effect of Descartes' work on Husserl's phenomenology.

Phil 598 - Deleuze: Anti-Oedipus - Professor Evans
Michel Foucault proclaimed that, "perhaps one day this century will be known as Deleuzian." Through a close reading of Anti-Oedipus: Vol. 1 of Capitalism and Schizophrenia, we will assess the adequacy of his forecast concerning the innovative philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and his co-author, Felix Guattari

Phil 601 - Hegel's Idealism and Analytic Philosophy - Professor Rockmore
Analytic philosophy, which began in England by refuting idealism in all its forms, is now in the process of making a selective turn toward Hegel. This seminar will consider issues concerning the analytic critique of idealism, the emergence of neo-analytic pragmatism, and the relation of the current nascent analytic turn toward Hegel to Hegel's position.

Phil 605 - Leibniz - Professor Selcer
This course is an exploration of a series of issues in Leibniz's philosophical writings. It may deal with topics such as the distinction between organic and aggregational substances, the epistemology of reflection, the theory of infinite machines, proposals for systems for knowledge classification (encyclopedias, philosophical dictionaries, libraries, etc.), and monadological ontology.

Phil 646 - Hitchcock and Heidegger - Professor Wurzer
Hitchcock and Heidegger will review philosophical thought from the standpoint of film as art. Within their own distinct medium, each one captures the intensities of time and expresses the anxiety and suspense of being-in-the-world. This course highlights Hitchcock as a very distinct thinker of the 20 th century whose power of cinematic expression provides a chock to thought while forging a cinematic work of art.

Phil 647 - Nietzsche on Culture, Music & Art - Professor
Wurzer
This course highlights Nietzsche's view of culture from the perspectives of an aesthetic will to power rooted in a Dionysian affirmation of life. The lecture will give a comprehensive idea of Nietzsche's thought and style. This will be done from the standpoint of contemporary Continental philosophy such as deconstruction, hermeneutics, and critical theory.

Phil 651 - Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit - Professor Rockmore
This course will provide a close reading of Hegel's book, with extensive class discussion, from an epistemological perspective with special reference to Kant.

Phil 654 - Philosophy of Time - Professor Rodemeyer
In this course we take on some of the more influential philosophical analyses of time and temporality in the history of philosophy. We carry out close readings of texts from Aristotle's Physics, Augustine's Confessions, Husserl's On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time, and Heidegger's Being and Time, to name a few. The goals of the course will be to gain a fairly detailed understanding of these works in themselves and in comparison to each other, and to follow the themes of time and temporality across different approaches.

Phil 655 - Film as Philosophy (in Art) - Professor Wurzer
Film as Philosophy (in Art) explores the idea of film as philosophy and art. The films by Griffith, Murnau, Lang and Pabst (to mention a few) selected for study, deal with some of the most crucial and pressing issues of modernity — the dialectic of illusion and reality, the question of femme fatale, the relation of nature and city, freedom and capital, technology and gender.

Phil 691 & 692 - Supervised Teaching of Philosophy I & II
In this course, a graduate student teaches an introductory philosophy course with an enrollment of 27 undergraduates. During the first semester, a faculty advisor works closely with the student, usually auditing the class once a week and providing as much advice and direction as is necessary. There is somewhat less supervision during the second semester of teaching, but the advisor still provides as much direction as the graduate student needs or requests.

Phil 698 - Seminar in Deleuze: Differences and Repetition
Michel Foucault proclaimed that, “perhaps one day this century will be known as Deleuzian.” Through a close reading of Difference and Repetition, we will assess the adequacy of his forecast concerning the innovative philosophy of Gilles Deleuze.

Phil 710 & 711 - Readings in Philosophy I & II
This course is a private tutorial arranged with an individual professor. It is intended for a student who needs to concentrate on a philosophical topic, which is not offered in a regular course.

Phil 713 - Graduate Practicum in Web Development - Professor Keyes
This three hour pass/fail courses trains graduate students to design educational web sites and use them to teach online undergraduate courses that will enhance traditional education. This competency significantly adds to the future professor's employment credentials.