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Spring 2026 Courses

PHIL 110: Logic and Critical Thinking

  • Section 1, Flex Online with in-person discussion sections. Lecture Professor, Robert Wardy. Discussion sections on Fridays at 9am, 10am or 11am with Instructor TBD
  • Section 2, Monday/Wendesday/Friday, 1:00pm - 1:50pm, Instructor TBD
  • Section 3, Tuesday/Thursday, 9:30am - 10:45am, Instructor TBD
  • Section 101/201, Asynchronous Online 7-week 2nd session (March 16 - May 6th) with Instructor TBD
 
Students will develop rational thinking skills through a combination of theory and practice. They will discuss good and bad thinking habits, learning to apply the former and to avoid the latter. This class includes an introduction to truth-tables and rules of inference in symbolic logic. The aim is to improve students' capacity for rational reasoning, question widely held beliefs, resist empty rhetoric and propaganda, distinguish relevant from irrelevant considerations, and construct sound arguments. PHIL 110 satisfies the math requirement for some majors.

PHIL 150A1: Free Will, Consciousness, and the Meaning of Life

  • Monday/Wednesday/Friday, 9:00am - 9:50am with Instructor TBD
 
This course examines fundamental questions about our existence and our place in the universe. Questions such as the following will be examined from a philosophical perspective: Is the mind the same as the brain, or are we something else? Does free-will exist? What, if anything, can we know with certainty? We will explore traditional and contemporary debates about these issues while developing clear, methodical reasoning about how we might go about trying to answer them.

PHIL 150B1: Personal Morality

  • Section 1, Monday/Wednesday with Instructor TBD and Friday Discussion section at either 10am, 11am or 12pm with Instructor TBD
  • Section 101/201 Asynchronous Online 7-week 2nd session (March 16th - May 6th) with Instructor TBD
 
This course examines fundamental questions about our existence and our place in the universe. Questions such as the following will be examined from a philosophical perspective: Is the mind the same as the brain, or are we something else? Does free-will exist? What, if anything, can we know with certainty? We will explore traditional and contemporary debates about these issues while developing clear, methodical reasoning about how we might go about trying to answer them.

PHIL 150C1: Freedom, Equality, and Authority

  • Tuesday/Thursday, 11:00am - 12:15pm, with Instructor Guido Pincione
 
This course examines fundamental questions about the ethical organization of society and social life. These questions include: What is the basis of the state? What is the nature of social justice? What are our obligations to others around the world? We will aim to develop clear thinking about issues that are of great importance to the contemporary world and that each of us will face as a citizen of a modern democratic state.

PHIL 160: Sciences vs Pseudoscience: What's the Difference?

  • Monday/Wednesday/Friday, 12:00pm - 12:50pm with Instructor Robert Lazo
 
In this class, we'll work to identify the distinction between science and pseudoscience and determine why the former is a body of genuine knowledge about the world while the latter isn't. This is fundamentally a question for the philosophy of science, but which sciences will we philosophize about? We'll both study and practice the scientific method from the perspectives of two disciplines: astronomy and psychology. We'll consider the theoretical and practical difficulties associated with the scientific method, and treat pseudoscientific belief as a subject of scientific inquiry as well. Why, if the science is so good, do people end up believing false things anyway? In answering these questions, we'll investigate how students, as philosophers, astronomers and psychologists, could communicate their knowledge and work to the public to help stop the spread of pseudoscientific misinformation.

PHIL 202: Introduction to Symbolic Logic

  • Section 101/201 Asynchronous Online with Instructor Thony Gillies
 
In this course we study a formal language, the language of first-order logic (FOL). This language allows one to make mathematically precise the concept of logical consequence; that is, one can say what it means for a sentence in the language of FOL to follow validly from other sentences in that language. The aim of this course is the mastery of the language of FOL, mainly in the execution of proofs in that language.

PHIL 205: The Ethics and Economics of Wealth Creation

  • Section 1, Monday/Wednesday 12:00pm - 12:50pm with Instructor Robert Wardy and Discussion section on Fridays at 12pm, 1pm or 2pm with Instructor
  • Section 2, Tuesday/Thursday 11:00am - 12:15pm with Instructor TBD
  • Section 101/201, Asynchronous Online 7-week 2nd session (March 16th - May 6th) with Instructor William Oberdick
 
We will study the ethics and the economics of such phenomena as market competition, institutions of private and public property, trade restrictions, globalization, and corporate welfare. How do people create wealth? How do societies enable people to create wealth? Are some ways more ethical than others? Why do some societies grow rich while neighboring societies remain poor? People have various ways of creating wealth. Which are ethical and which are not? Why? (PHIL 205 is not an introduction to the principles of Economics and is not a substitute for ECON 200, ECON 201A or ECON201B.)

PHIL 206: Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

  • Section 001, Monday/Wednesday, 11:00am - 12:15pm with Instructor Trevor Hedberg
  • Section 002, HONORS ONLY with same dates and times as section 001.
  • Section 101/201, Asynchronous Online 7-week 2nd session (March 16th - May 6th) with Ritwik Agrawal
 
This course is an introduction to the ethics of artificial intelligence and automated information systems. The recent development of transformer models, including large language models like ChatGPT, has brought to the fore urgent questions about how we must understand, classify, and react to artificially intelligent systems. Learners will learn foundational aspects about AI, including what it means for machines to think and best current understanding of machine abilities to emote, create, imagine, and so on. On the basis of this understanding the course will delve into a critical examination of a range of ethical questions raised by recent developments in AI, including issues pertaining to job losses due to automation, privacy, algorithmic bias and discrimination, transparency, self-driving cars and autonomous drones, copyright infringement, attribution of agency.

PHIL 210: Moral Thinking

  • Section 1, Tuesday/Thursday, 2:00pm - 3:15pm with Instructor Guido Pincione
  • Section 2, Monday/Wednesday/Friday, 1:00pm - 1:50pm with Instructor Albert Smit
  • Section 3, Tuesday/Thursday, 3:30pm - 4:45pm with Instructor Steven Wall
 It is important "to do the right thing." But how can anyone tell what "the right thing" is? What makes some actions right and some wrong? This course is an overview of ethics, which is the field of philosophy that examines these questions. We examine three main ways of thinking about ethics: those that focus one the outcomes of actions, those that focus on the nature of the actions themselves, and those that focus on the character of the one who acts. Students will gain a foundational knowledge that will serve as a solid background for more advanced work in ethics, as a resource for thinking about moral issues, and as a piece of general education valuable for understanding practical aspects of human life.

PHIL 213: Contemporary Moral Problems

  • Tuesday/Thursday, 9:30am - 10:45am with Instructor TBD
 In this course, students will consider a wide range of moral or ethical controversies and positions involved in contemporary life. Topics covered will vary but may include, among others, famine relief; euthanasia and physician assisted suicide; the morality of warfare, often known as Just War Theory; sexual morality; racism; sexism; the ethics of immigration; the morality of genetic engineering, as well as the related topic of human cloning; the restriction of liberties pertaining to recreational drug use, prostitution, pornography, and free speech; environmental damage and moral obligations to future generations; the moral status of nonhuman animals; and abortion.

PHIL 220: Philosophy of Happiness

  • Asynchronous Online with Instructor TBD
 Happiness matters to us; and now it is in the news. There are large numbers of self-help books telling us how to be happy. Some nations are planning to measure the happiness of their citizens to find out how it can be increased. There is a huge new field of `happiness studies', and new focus on happiness in positive psychology as well as fields like politics and law. Much of this material is confusing, since often it is not clear what the authors think that happiness is. Is it feeling good? Is it having a positive attitude to the way you are now? Is it having a positive attitude to your life as a whole? Is it having a happy life? Can some people advise others on how to be happy? Philosophers have been engaged with the search for happiness for two thousand years. They have asked what happiness is, and have explored different answers to the question, including some of the answers now being rediscovered in other fields. In this course we will ask what happiness is, and examine critically the major answers to this question. We'll look at the rich philosophical tradition of thinking about happiness, at contemporary answers, and also at some recent work in the social sciences. We'll examine the contributions being made to the ongoing search to find out what happiness is, and how we can live happy lives. Overall course objectives/expected learning outcomes: This course has two primary objectives: - To introduce students to the theoretical nature of the question of the nature of happiness by presenting a representative sample of the primary historical and contemporary literature - To enable students to think and write critically, logically and objectively about the philosophical issues pertaining to happiness. These objectives will be approached through lectures, discussions and writing assignments informed by the assigned readings. Course outcomes will be assessed through substantial writing assignments, some of which will feature opportunities for students to revise their work in light of advice from the professor.

PHIL 241: Consciousness and Cognition

  • Section 1, Tuesday/Thursday, 3:30pm - 4:45pm with Instructor Joseph Tolliver
  • Section 101/201, Asynchronous Online with Instructor TBD
 This course covers some of the central aspects of the philosophical foundations of cognitive science, and ongoing philosophical and scientific debates about those foundations. Course topics may include: the mind-body problem; the relationship between psychological and biological sciences; the mystery of subjective experience; emotions; innateness; rationality (and irrationality); nonhuman minds; artificial intelligence; and moral cognition. The course is strongly interdisciplinary, drawing on both scientific and philosophical sources.

PHIL 250: The Social Contract

  • Tuesday/Thursday, 11:00am - 12:15pm with Instructor Scott Casleton
 This course focuses on the idea of the social contract as it has evolved from the seventeenth century to contemporary philosophy. Can government be justified in terms of a pact that all rational individuals would accept in a "state of nature" or an "original position"? What would be the terms of the agreement? We will read selections from, among others, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, David Gauthier, Robert Nozick, and John Rawls.

PHIL 261: Survey of Medieval Philosophy

  • Asynchronous Online 7-week 2nd session (March 16th - May 6th) with Instructor TBD
 The course focuses on three important thinkers in the Christian medieval tradition-Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas. Topics covered: knowledge and skepticism, free will and the problem of evil, the nature and existence of God, and problem of universals.

PHIL 263: From Hegel to Nietzsche: 19th Century Philosophy

  • Asynchronous Online 7-week 2nd session (March 16th - May 6th) with Instructor TBD
 Survey of influential 19th century philosophers, including Hegel, Marx, J. S. Mill, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. Their views on the individual and society, and human nature.

PHIL 321: Medical Ethics

  • Section 1, Monday/Wednesday, 9:00am - 9:50am with Instructor TBD and Friday discussion at 9am, 10am or 11am with Instructor TBD
  • Section 2, Tuesday/Thursday, 2:00pm - 3:15pm with Instructor TBD
  • Section 101/201 Asynchronous Online 7-week 1st session (January 14th - March 6th) with Instructor TBD
  • Section 103/203 Asynchronous Online 7-week 2nd session (March 16th - May 6th) with Instructor TBD
 This course surveys various ethical issues that arise in relation to medicine and healthcare. Issues covered may include (among others) abortion, assisted suicide, doctor-patient confidentiality, informed consent, medical paternalism, bias in medicine, allocation of scarce medical resources, vaccine mandates, and inequity in healthcare access and outcomes. Students will craft and evaluate ethical arguments about these issues from the perspective of a well-informed philosopher.

PHIL 322: Business Ethics

  • Section 1, Tuesday/Thursday, 12:30pm - 1:45pm with Instructor TBD
  • Section 101/201, Asynchronous Online 7-week 1st session (January 14th - March 6th) with Instructor William Oberdick
 This course is designed to teach students about normative ethics in the context of the workplace and the business world. We will discuss ethical questions concerning corporate responsibility, preferential hiring and affirmative action, advertising practices, corporate whistleblowing, and environmental responsibility.

PHIL 323: Environmental Ethics

  • Section 101/201, Asynchronous Online with Instructor TBD
 We will investigate and seriously consider how and why we should live as morally responsible members of an ecological community. Students will explore philosophical responses to questions such as: What makes something natural? What value is there to non-human entities? What obligations do we have to each other regarding the environment? Students will investigate social scientific responses to questions such as: How should wilderness be preserved? How should we respond to climate change? How should water resources be allocated? Students will build connections between and reconcile philosophical and social scientific approaches to issues of environmental concern.

PHIL 324: Law and Morality

  • Monday/Wednesday, 1:00pm - 1:50pm with Instructor Thomas Christiano and Friday discussion at either 12pm, 1pm or 2pm with Instructor TBD
 Exploration of classic and contemporary philosophical issues about law and morality. Topics covered will vary but may include, among others, the limits of social interference with individual liberty, legal paternalism and physician-assisted suicide, legal moralism, freedom of speech and expression, legal punishment and capital punishment, and civil disobedience.

PHIL 344: Issues and Methods in Analytic Philosophy

  • Asynchronous Online with Instructor TBD
 Designed to improve ability to think analytically, with emphasis on analytic methodology. Selected readings on the nature of mental states, the analytic/synthetic distinction, personal identity, the concept of knowledge and justified belief, the theory of reference, and the distinction between science and pseudo-science.

PHIL 347: Nueroethics

  • Asynchronous Online 7-week 1st session (January 14th - March 6th) with Instructor TBD
 This course introduces students to neuroethics a burgeoning field in philosophy conducting research in the intersection of neuroscience and ethics. In this course, we'll be asking what ethical questions neuroscience raises and what ethical questions it helps to answer. Students will encounter questions and issue such as the nature of free will, ethical implications of brain manipulation, the relation between moral responsibility and mental disorder, the ethics of moral enhancement, the nature of moral judgement, feminist critique of neuroethical research, the challenges of motivated reasoning, the ethics of brain reading, among others.

PHIL 376: Philosophy of Language

Monday/Wednesday/Friday 1:00 - 1:50, with Professor Marga Reimer

 

This course is built around Ethan Nowak’s 2025 Philosophy of Language: the basics. This refreshingly contemporary and non-technical text is divided into two parts. The first part, which will be covered during the first half of the semester, develops the idea that language is a system that allows us to exchange information with each other. Questions to be addressed include: 

                What is language?

                Where does meaning come from? 

                How do we use meanings to send messages to each other?

The second part of Nowak’s text, which will be covered during the second half of the semester, explores the idea that language is a tool we can use to perform actions that affect others. Questions to be address include:

                Does pornography silence women? 

                What is offensive about slurs? 

                What do we lose when languages go extinct?

The primary writing assignment for the course will be a philosophical journal with weekly entries. These entries will focus on a specific question to be given at the beginning of the week. It is hoped that student responses to these questions will  generate discussion that is both lively and productive.

PHIL 410A/510A: History of Moral and Political Philosophy

  • Monday/Wednesday/Friday, 10:00am - 10:50am with Instructor Albert Smit
 Reading and analysis of selected texts from the Greeks to the present. Course focuses on the history of moral philosophy.

PHIL 433/533: Aesthetics

  • Tuesday/Thursday, 9:30am - 10:45am with Instructor Joseph Tolliver
 Classical and contemporary theories of art; the aesthetic experience, form and content, meaning, problems in interpretation and criticism of works of art.

PHIL 438/538: Philosophy of Law

  • Tuesday/Thursday, 2:00pm - 3:15pm with Instructor David Clark
 Nature and validity of law; law and morality, judicial reasoning, law and liberty.

PHIL 472A: Ancient Philosophy

  • Asynchronous Online 7-week 1st session (January 14th - March 6th) with Instructor TBD
 A philosophical introduction to the major works of Plato.

PHIL 506: Game Theory and the Social Contract

  • Tuesday/Thursday, 3:30pm - 4:45pm with Instructor Peter Vanderschraaf
 The social contract is a philosophical idea that predates Plato. In its most generic sense, a social contract is a body of rules that can regulate a community. Game theory emerged in the mid-20th century as the first part of applied mathematics specifically designed to address questions of social science. Game theory is a formal theory of decisions that interact, and in particular decisions that can together produce various social outcomes. In this course we will explore how the contemporary tools of game theory might advance our understanding of the social contract. For centuries, philosophers interested in the social contract have tried to answer fundamental questions, including: (1) Where might a social contract have come from?, (2) Should the members of a community believe themselves obliged to abide by the terms of any particular social contract?, and (3) Is the social contract a normative idea that informs us as to how we should regulate our conduct, or an explanatory idea that informs us why we happen to regulate our contact as we do, or both, or even neither? Game theory offers one approach, though certainly not the only approach, to addressing such questions with greater precision than was possible in times past. We will consider how issues connected with the social contract might be illuminated through the lens of game theory. We will also discuss the relative advantages of game-theoretic analyses of the social contract against other, possibly better known, approaches.