Course Search Results

  • PHIL 221: Symbolic Logic

    3.00 Credits
    Indiana University of Pennsylvania-Main Campus

    Introduces students to the study of formal patterns of good reasoning. Topics include symbolizing English sentences in an artificial language, distinguishing between the semantics and syntax of that language, and learning to test for logical properties and relations using semantic methods (truth-tables, models) and syntactic methods (derivations). Students with an interest in computer science and mathematics will find the material of particular interest and use.
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  • PHIL 240: Philosophy & the Good Life

    3.00 Credits
    Indiana University of Pennsylvania-Main Campus

    Examines philosophical attempts to say what it means to live a good life. Is living a good life simply about maximizing the pleasure one experiences? Does a good life require religious faith? Is being virtuous essential to living a good life? Historical thinkers considered may include Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, Laozi, Augustine, Aquinas, Rousseau, Nietzsche, and Russell. Contemporary philosophical work on happiness informed by empirical research may also be considered.
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  • PHIL 270: Ethics & the Environment

    3.00 Credits
    Indiana University of Pennsylvania-Main Campus

    Applies ethical theory to environmental issues, including resource depletion, animal rights, biotic endangerment, environmental degradation, climate change, and environmental justice. Considers arguments by which human-caused environmental destruction is intrinsically wrong, wrong independently of human interests and purposes, and arguments for environmental policies by which the following are granted rights, interests, or inherent value: non-human animals, all living things, all natural things, biotic communities, and ecosystems. Also considers arguments that environmental policies cannot be applied globally without injustice to humans, including poor and indigenous peoples.
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  • PHIL 320: Ethical Theory

    3.00 Credits
    Indiana University of Pennsylvania-Main Campus

    Examines historical and contemporary work on fundamental issues in ethical theory, with an emphasis on the three major approaches in normative ethics: consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics. Also explores select topics in contemporary metaethics, such as the meaning of moral discourse, the possibility of moral knowledge, and the nature of reasons and moral motivation.
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  • PHIL 323: Political Philosophy

    3.00 Credits
    Indiana University of Pennsylvania-Main Campus

    Through an examination of Ancient, Modern, and contemporary political thought, introduces the key issues of political philosophy: the justification of government authority, the role of the government in the just distribution of wealth in society, the nature of equality, the nature and importance of individual liberty and rights, the connections between race, gender, and political power, and the question of the universal applicability of concepts fundamental to European and American political philosophy in light of increasing globalization.
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  • PHIL 324: Ancient Greek Philosophy

    3.00 Credits
    Indiana University of Pennsylvania-Main Campus

    Explores the foundations of Western philosophy through examination of important philosophers of the Ancient period, such as the Pre-Socratic philosophers, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Topics may include the nature of the physical universe, Plato's theory of Forms, the nature of happiness, and the possibility of morality. (Titled Ancient Philosophy before 2014-15.)
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  • PHIL 325: Early Modern European Phil

    3.00 Credits
    Indiana University of Pennsylvania-Main Campus

    A study of exemplary philosophical texts from the late 16th through the late 18th century. Figures may include Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Spinoza, Berkeley, Leibniz, Hume, and Kant. Explores such topics as the nature of matter and mind, the possibility and limits of knowledge, and the emerging scientific challenge to church and ancient authority. (Titled Modern Philosophy before 2014-15.)
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  • PHIL 326: Existentialism

    3.00 Credits
    Indiana University of Pennsylvania-Main Campus

    Examines existentialism as a philosophical movement, one that rejects both traditional religious and overly reductive, scientific conceptions of human existence. As an alternative, existentialist philosophers share the project of trying to articulate a conception of an authentic, meaningful life outside of the parameters of these approaches. Readings are drawn from major thinkers in this movement, including Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Albert Camus. (Titled Phenomenology and Existentialism before 2014-15.)
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  • PHIL 330: Philosophy of Science

    3.00 Credits
    Indiana University of Pennsylvania-Main Campus

    Philosophical investigation into the character of empirical scientific thought and practices: measures of confirmation; empirical success; theory ladenness of observation; scientific rationality and the aims of science; the inference from empirical success to truth; the logic of explanation; the character of natural laws; levels of theorizing and intertheoretic reduction; the ideal of objectivity and the place of extra-scientific values in theory appraisal. No special background required.
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  • PHIL 350: Human Experience of TIme

    3.00 Credits
    Indiana University of Pennsylvania-Main Campus

    Examines philosophical questions about the nature and experience of time. Explores how philosophical views about time are informed by work in different fields, such as anthropology, religious studies, and physics. Questions include whether time is real or an illusion, whether it flows, whether the past, present, and future are equally real, whether time travel is possible, how different cultures think about time and what light that sheds on its true nature. Readings drawn from a wide range of historical and contemporary sources.
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