Fall 2026 Philosophy Courses

PHIL 1000 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY [3]

Prof. MacKenzie – ICM5H                     Monday & Wednesday 9:00-9:50+ disc sec            Clark 108          

This course will examine topics from five key areas of philosophy: epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics. Questions may include: does God exist? What makes for a meaningful life?  Should we be afraid of death? What are the limits of state authority? Does free will exist? What makes a joke funny? Should we get off social media? What, if anything, can we know? 

PHIL 1410 FORMS OF REASONING [3]

Prof. Boone –    ASX7FH                      Tuesday & Thursday 2:00-2:50                          Clark 108          

This course covers the basics of logic and argumentation. Any time someone wants to rationally convince you of something, they must give you an argument. And every argument has a logical structure. Some of these structures are strong, while others are weak. In this class, you’ll learn not only how to recognize the difference but further how to prove it. No background in any formal discipline is required, and the course does not cover symbolic logic in detail (for this take PHIL 2420). The course provides the general skills necessary to precisely identify, reconstruct, and evaluate arguments, with emphasis on applying these skills to everyday life.

PHIL 1730 INTRODUCTION TO MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY [3]       

Prof. Stangl – RLS5EF              Tuesday & Thursday 3:30-4:20+ disc sec                         Monroe 134

In this course we apply the tools of philosophy to problems of human life, flourishing, and community. We will see how philosophy helps us ask the biggest questions about existence but also illuminates mundane aspects of everyday life. We will look at issues that humanity has encountered for millennia as well as issues faced only in our modern moment—from what it means be virtuous to our responsibilities in the face of global inequality.

PHIL 1740 ISSUES OF LIFE AND DEATH [3] 

Prof. Bernstein - AQE2PX                     Monday & Wednesday 12:00-12:50+ disc sec              Clark 108

This course is an exploration, from the point of view of philosophical theory, of a number of ethical problems at the beginning and end of life. Questions to be addressed will include: What is the significance of death and the value of life? Under what conditions, if any, are abortion and euthanasia morally permissible? At what point ought we to discontinue medical treatment of the terminally ill, and who should be empowered to make this decision? Are we under any moral obligation to prevent the death of those threatened by hunger and easily treatable disease?

PHIL 2060 PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS IN LAW [3]                                                      

Prof. Motchoulski – AAM5JM              Tuesday & Thursday 9:30-10:20+disc sec              Clark 108

Do we have a duty to obey the law? The law thinks so, and breaking the law is often severely punished. But as citizens we often also think law is bad, mistaken, unjust, and that we should disobey the law or even overthrow the government. More specific questions also arise when we accept the rule of law. What sorts of actions should be criminalized and what sorts of punishments are justified? Why do our mental states matter to the law? What is an attempt, and how can we regulate failures? What processes should we use when making legal judgments? What is the relation between law and morality? Law and politics? In this course, we will look at these and similar philosophical problems for life under law.

PHIL 2110 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY: ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL [3]           

This course satisfies History area requirements.

TBD                                                     Monday & Wednesday 2:00-3:15                        Warner 113       

This course is an introduction to the history of philosophy from its beginnings in the Greek colonies of Asia Minor to the Renaissance and the end of the Middle Ages. The lectures do not aim to offer a comprehensive summary; you will find that in any of several histories of philosophy, one of which is required reading for the course. In the lectures we will instead discuss a few selected major philosophers and we will concentrate on some of their doctrines and arguments. We will, however, look at cultural developments which took place during this period and we will study philosophical works in their more general social and historical setting. The course seeks to provide historical as much as philosophical knowledge and understanding. 

PHIL 2350 MINDS, MACHINES, AND PERSON [3] 

Prof. Irving – ZCI7C                             Tuesday & Thursday 5:00-5:50+disc sec                            Clark 107 

This course surveys foundational issues in the philosophy of cognitive science and mind. Part 1 asks the fundamental question, what is a mind? Are minds brains? Computers? Organisms? Do minds extend into the body and environment? We'll approach these questions by considering what it would take to make a machine with a mind (that is, to make genuine artificial intelligence). Part 2 turns to the problem of personal identity over time. Once you were a kid, now you are an adult, and one day you'll grow old. What (if anything) makes you the same person throughout these stages of your life? The course is suitable for both philosophers and cognitive science majors and does not presume any previous background in either discipline. It’s therefore an ideal introduction to cognitive science for philosophy majors, and to philosophy for cognitive science majors.

PHIL 2420 INTRODUCTION TO SYMBOLIC LOGIC [3]

This course satisfies Logic area requirements.

Prof. Cameron – RPC4D                       Tuesday & Thursday 8:00-9:15                          Monroe 130

A basic introduction to the concepts and techniques of modern formal logic. The aim of this course is to give the student a working knowledge of both sentential and quantifier logic. Students will learn how to translate claims and arguments from English into a formal system, and to test arguments for validity.

PHIL 2500-100 JUSTICE AND HEALTHCARE [3]

Prof. Bernstein - AQE2PX                     Monday & Wednesday 10:00-10:50+ disc sec             Monroe 134

This course explores foundational questions at the intersection of economics, bioethics, and political philosophy. Such questions include (but are not limited to): Should healthcare be treated like any other market commodity, or does it have a special moral status that justifies different treatment? What do competing theories of justice—such as liberal egalitarianism or libertarianism—imply about the government’s responsibilities in organizing and financing healthcare? What is the just way to allocate scarce medical resources—such as livers or ventilators? When is it permissible for the state to restrict individual liberty in order to protect public health?

PHIL 2500-200 PHILOSOPHY OF RACE [3]

Prof. Harris – DCN7XU                         Monday & Wednesday 5:00-5:50+ disc sec            Nau 211

This course examines the philosophical issues raised by the concept of race, the practices and mechanisms of racialization, and the persistence of various forms of racism worldwide. 

PHIL 2510-001 ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS [3]

Prof. Harrell – YBR5PQ                        Tuesday & Thursday 12:30-1:45                         Physics 217

How should humans relate to the natural world? What responsibilities do we have to ecosystems, animals, and future generations? This course explores these questions through the study of environmental ethics. We will examine contemporary environmental challenges—such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental injustice—and consider competing proposals for addressing them. Because many environmental decisions rely on scientific knowledge, the course also explores how we study complex ecological systems and the reliability of that knowledge. By combining ethical reflection with insights from the philosophy of science, students will develop tools for thinking critically about how societies should respond to environmental crises.

PHIL 2510-002 ETHICS OF SOCIAL MEDIA [3]

Prof. MacKenzie – ICM5H                     Monday & Wednesday 2:00-3:15                        Cabell 187

Our social lives now increasingly take place online, with people whom we only know through usernames and profile pictures. How should our moral practices adapt to this change? Should we express blame online, when we know that doing so might lead to ‘doxxing’? How should we respect peoples' privacy, when our histories can now be discovered with a Google search? And how are our moral values being transformed by the gamification of social media platforms?

PHIL 2510-003 HISTORY OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY [3]

Prof. Motchoulski – AAM5JM              Tuesday & Thursday 2:00-3:15                          Cocke 101

This course will survey the historical development of political philosophy in the Western tradition. We will trace the development of that tradition starting in ancient Athens, following it through to the Industrial Revolution. Over the course of this study, students will advance their understanding of central ideas and arguments in political philosophy that deal with concepts such as equality, freedom, democracy, and property, among others. 

PHIL 2820 PHILOSOPHY OF HEALTH AND HEALTHCARE [3]

Prof. Barnes- EJB5R                             Tuesday & Thursday 8:00-8:50+ disc sec            Clark 107

In this class, we’ll first discuss the question ‘what is health?’ How do we define what it means to be healthy? Is there a difference between physical and mental health? Is there a difference between health and overall well-being? Is health a biological concept or is it something normative? Then we’ll look at specific puzzles that arise in health care related to how we understand health and disease. For example, how do we measure health outcomes? How do we deal with the inherent subjectivity of some aspects of health, such as pain? What is the relationship between what we consider ‘healthy’ and what our culture values or stigmatizes?

PHIL 3110 PLATO [3] 

This course satisfies the History requirement for those who have or will take PHIL 2120 – Modern

TBD                                                     Monday & Wednesday 5:00-6:15                        Cocke 101

This course introduces students to the dialogues of Plato, with an emphasis on those of particular argumentative and philosophical interest. Expect treatments of the divine and our relation to it; love; the nature and possibility of human knowledge; what makes anything one; why the world exists at all, and in particular why it takes the form it does; humanity’s place in the cosmic order; and the nature of the soul. Our aim will be to engage Plato as a fellow philosopher through close reading and subtle reasoning. This means understanding his assumptions, scrutinizing his argumentation and proposing alternatives to his conclusions. No knowledge of Greek required, but some prior coursework in Philosophy very much encouraged.

PHIL 3170 KANT [3]  

Prof. Ott – WO5N                                 Tuesday & Thursday 5:00-6:15                          Cabell 115         

This course focuses on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, one of the most influential and challenging philosophical works ever written.  We will focus on topics such as the self, space and time, causation, and the nature and limits of human knowledge.

PHIL 3185 HEGEL [3]

Prof. Harris – DCN7XU                        Monday & Wednesday 2:00-3:15                        Cabell 183 

This course offers an in-depth introduction to the philosophy of Hegel, one of the most influential thinkers in the history of modern European thought. Through close reading of primary texts including but not limited to selections from Phenomenology of Spirit, Science of Logic, and Philosophy of Right students will explore Hegel’s distinctive method of dialectical reasoning and his systematic approach to metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, art, and history. The course situates Hegel within the broader context of German Idealism, examining his responses to Kant, Fichte, and Schelling, while also tracing his lasting impact on later traditions such as Marxism, Existentialism, Phenomenology, and Critical Theory. 

PHIL 3310 METAPHYSICS [3]

Instructor Permission Required

This course satisfies the requirement for M&E.

This Course satisfies the Second Writing Requirement 

Prof. Merricks – TDM8N                                  Tuesday & Thursday 9:30-10:45                            Cocke 101        

This survey course will examine a variety of issues central to contemporary analytic metaphysics. We shall consider, among other things, possibility and necessity, identity over time, and personal identity. This course is meant for third and fourth year philosophy majors only.

PHIL 3320 EPISTEMOLOGY [3]

This course satisfies the requirement for M&E.

Prof. Hoek –                                                     Monday & Wednesday 2:00-3:15                      Cocke 101        

The course focuses on questions in the theory of knowledge. Topics include: skepticism about knowledge of the external world, the nature of justification, foundationalism, and coherentism, the Gettier problem, internalism and externalism, a priori knowledge, the analytic/synthetic distinction, induction, and the ethics of belief

PHIL 3350 PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE [3]

Prof. Boone – ASX7FH                                     Tuesday & Thursday 11:00-12:15                  Cabell 187         

What distinguishes science from pseudoscience, or from other human practices more generally? How does evidence confirm theories? What does it mean for a scientific theory to explain some aspect of the world? Should we believe scientific theories are true? How do values and social forces shape scientific inquiry? Such questions point to core issues in philosophy of science. In this course, we will examine these and similar topics drawing on both historical and contemporary scientific research.

PHIL 3500-003 IDEOLOGY AND OPPRESSION [3]

Instr. Levinson – QWC8UJ                                            Monday & Wednesday 3:30-4:45                Cocke 101         

The concepts of ideology and oppression are often appealed to in both public and academic discourse to explain harmful social and political outcomes. But what precisely is ideology? What is oppression? How do they relate to each other? In this course, we will explore answers to these foundational questions through a philosophical lens. 

PHIL 3520 PHILOSOPHY OF NEUROSCIENCE [3] 

Prof. Irving – ZCI7C                                          Tuesday & Thursday 12:30-1:45                    Cocke 115         

We will survey neuroscience’s epistemic and metaphysical foundations. Part 1 is epistemic: do neuroscientific explanations aim to reduce psychology to the brain? Do neuroscientists offer the same kind of explanations as physicists and chemists? Part 2 asks an ontological question: are cognitive functions (e.g. speech) localized to anatomical brain regions (e.g. Broca’s area), distributed in circuits or networks, or not localized at all? 

PHIL 3620 SCIENCE FICTION AND PHILOSOPHY [3]

Prof. Harrell – YBR5PQ                                    Tuesday & Thursday 9:30-10:45                            Cocke 115        

Morpheus: “Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?” The movie The Matrix is not the first venue in which such questions have been asked. The philosopher René Descartes asked very similar questions in the seventeenth century. In fact, philosophers often reflect on these kinds of thought experiments to examine fundamental philosophical questions. In this course, we will examine several philosophical issues raised in science fiction stories, novels, and movies. The idea is that science fiction most often revolves around something foreign to us—aliens, cyborgs, time travel. And confronting what is most foreign to us is often the best way to learn about ourselves. And this is exactly what philosophy is: an investigation of the human condition. We will use stories and movies as stepping stones to address questions such as: How is knowledge possible? What is real? What is the mind, and how does it interact with the body? Can computers think? Are humans ultimately free? What makes our lives valuable? How should we live?

PHIL 3710 ETHICS [3]

Prof. Brewer – TMB2N                                     Tuesday & Thursday 9:30-10:45                            Gilmer 245       

In this course, we will engage in an in-depth study of the ethical thought of Plato, Aristotle, Hume and Kant—four figures who continue to have an extremely powerful influence on contemporary philosophical discussions of ethics. The main themes of the course will include: the nature of practical thinking, the place of particular and general judgments in practical deliberation, the nature and value of the virtues of character, and the source and content of the idea of right action.

PHIL 3830 PHILOSOPHY OF MENTAL HEALTH [3]

Prof. Barnes – EJB5R                            Tuesday & Thursday 11:00-12:15                                     Cocke 115

This class explores philosophical issues in the nature of mental health and mental illness. Topics may include: What is the difference between a mental illness and a physical illness? How do we understand the difference between mental difference and mental dysfunction? Does our current approach to understanding mental health overly pathologize or medicalize people? What is a social contagion? What does it mean to be mentally 

PHIL 4410 MATHEMATICS, COMPUITABILITY, AND PHILOSOPHY [3]

Instructor Permission Required

Prof. Cameron – RPC4D                       Tuesday & Thursday 11:00-12:15                                    Pavilion VIII 102

This class is about some of the fascinating and mind-bending issues that arise in the intersection of philosophy, mathematics, computing science, and logic.  Some of the issues we will discuss are: The nature of infinity and the mathematics of the transfinite; Set theory, including non-well-founded set theories; Turing machines and the limits of computability; Godel’s incompleteness theorems and the limits of mathematical proof; Paradoxes and the nature of logic and truth. Through these topics we will see how the fields of logic and philosophy and mathematics and computer science are very closely interlinked, with each informing the other.

No particular prior logical, mathematical, or computer science training is required, but students should have taken either some intermediate level math or some formal logic at university level before this class. We will be going through some mathematical proofs so a lack of aversion to numbers and symbols is necessary. When requesting permission to enroll in the class, please explain how you believe your background has prepared you to take the class.

GRADUATE COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

PHIL 5540 VIRTUE ETHICS [3]

Department Permission Required

Prof. Brewer – TMB2N                         Thursday 3:30-6:00                               Cabell 183

A survey of key thinkers in contemporary virtue ethics, with special attention to the distinction between those who seek to answer established questions of philosophical ethics and those who seek to recenter the field around a different set of guiding questions.

PHIL 5570 PHILOSOPHY & AI [3]

Department Permission Required

Prof. Danks – EWW3BH                       Tuesday 3:30-6:00                                 Shannon 119

AI is rapidly impacting almost every part of our lives. In this course, we will both examine AI through a philosophical lens, and also consider the ways in which philosophical questions and topics change in light of AI. The course will cover topics in a range of philosophical areas, including ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of science, and epistemology.

PHIL 7590 PHILOSOPHY OF QUESTIONS [3]

Department Permission Required

Prof. Hoek -                                          Monday 3:30-6:00                                             Cocke 108

This course is about questions, and the role they play in the way we think, the way we learn, the way we reason, and the way we act. The study of questions has already had transformative effects in linguistics and philosophy of language. The same is now beginning to happen in other areas of philosophy. In this course we will survey these developments, and seek to uncover the connections that exist between them.

PHIL 8570 VAGUENESS [3] 

Department Permission Required

This course counts towards the Metaphysics area requirement 

Prof. Merricks – TDM8N                      Tuesday 1:00-3:30                                             Cocke 108 

We shall read the book Vagueness by Timothy Williamson, and a lot of articles on vagueness and related topics.