Philosophy

First-Year Seminars (FYS) constitute a common and academically significant experience in a student’s first year at Converse. All incoming first-year students are required to take a 3- or 4-credit hour FYS course in the fall semester, choosing from a variety of discipline specific topics. Each FYS carries the corresponding departmental prefix, but with a common course number.  Each FYS carries the corresponding departmental prefix but with a common course number. Special emphasis is given to cultivating critical thinking, effective speaking, and writing skills. 

A study of selected topics in philosophy utilizing the unique opportunities of a study-travel experience. Past destinations have included Greece, Italy, Turkey, Spain, France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Hungary, Romania, and the Czech Republic. May satisfy one of the history of philosophy requirements for the major depending on topic.

First-Year Seminars (FYS) constitute a common and academically significant experience in a student’s first year at Converse. All incoming first-year students are required to take a 3- or 4-credit hour FYS course in the fall semester, choosing from a variety of discipline specific topics. Each FYS carries the corresponding departmental prefix, but with a common course number.  Each FYS carries the corresponding departmental prefix but with a common course number. Special emphasis is given to cultivating critical thinking, effective speaking, and writing skills. 

This course involves the careful study of the major philosophical texts of various historical and contemporary normative frameworks, including virtue traditions, role-based ethics, utilitarian models, the ethics of duty, the nature of justice, the social contract, and the ethics of care.

This course explores the ethical dimensions of some of the more vital and vexing problems and issues encountered in modern society. These problems—faced by nearly everyone at one time or another (and in one form or another) in their lives—will be examined through the lens of philosophical reasoning and analysis.

In this course the student will become familiar with the ethical theories that philosophers, physicians, biomedical researchers, and other thinking people have used in coming to understand themselves and their world. Students will have the opportunity to apply these theories to some of the most important moral problems in medicine and the biomedical sciences. Emphasis on critical reasoning and analysis, with the goal of developing the ability to distinguish well-supported from poorly-supported positions. With exploration of the life and death issues of biomedicine, the student should begin to understand the complexity of our moral problems and the need for a careful, rigorous, and sensitive approach to these problems. Interfaith Studies.

This course analyzes the ethics of lying, the semantics of lying compared to other modes of deception, the metaphysics of truth, and interdisciplinary applications of theories of truth and deception as they pertain to, for example, media trustworthiness, replicability in science, gatekeeping powers with academic publishing, placebo effects and patient deception in medicine, and illusion and misdirection in art and entertainment. Humanities.

A study of the very beginnings of Western philosophical thought. Emphasis on the relationship between philosophy and mythology, the birth of science, and the influence of classical systems of thought on later philosophical traditions. Readings will focus on Plato and Aristotle, but may also include Pre-Socratic and Hellenistic texts.

This interdisciplinary seminar (taught in English) investigates some of the key intellectual discussions surrounding critique, praxis and emancipation in the German-speaking world since the Enlightenment. Focusing on short theoretical texts from Kant to Habermas, the course explores prominent issues in aesthetics, philosophy, and politics as well as the narrative and rhetorical strategies of knowledge production. This course also provides a general outline of the major developments in German cultural history during this period as well as the continued relevance of these texts in the new millennium.

Using essays, short stories, novels, and plays from the existentialist tradition, this course explores the nature of freedom, the contours of the given, the creation and limitations of the self and individuality, the anxiety and absurdity of modern life, and the possibilities of authentic existence.

This course (taught in English) explores the intellectual texts and traditions of China in the classical period, with an emphasis on Confucianism, Mohism, Daoism, and Legalism. Special attention may be devoted to comparing these Chinese traditions with dominant Western interpretations and alternative philosophies and religions. Supplemental material may explore artistic representations of classical Chinese thought as well as the continuing relevance of such traditions in contemporary Chinese society. Non-European/non-Anglophone GEP credit. Cross-listed with REL 265. Interfaith Studies.

This course is team taught by members in two departments and is open to Nisbet Honors Program participants and to others who meet Honors Program guidelines. Recent interdisciplinary offerings have included team-ups with the Religion program to examine issues related to spirituality and the meaning of life, and with the Mathematics program to explore the nature of numbers, infinity, and reality. All students registering for these courses must register not only through the Honors Program but also with their adviser and the Registrar’s Office.

A study of philosophical views of gender and sexuality. Specific authors, texts, and topics will vary and may include historical as well as contemporary perspectives. Typical issues covered include the following: whether gender and sexual identities are naturally given versus socially constructed; the nature and causes of gender expectations; sexism and sexual inequalities; the ways in which gender and sexuality intersect with other aspects of identity such as race, class, and culture; theories of love and sexual relationship; feminist analyses of traditional philosophical issues in metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. GEP Writing Intensive. Counts toward Women’s Studies credit.

This course explores questions concerning the objectivity or subjectivity of values, the variation of moral codes across different societies, the dynamics of moral motivation and reasons to act morally, and the relationships between morality, science, religion, art, and culture.

This course will explore the philosophical underpinnings of law and cultivate an informed and critical attitude toward the theories and expressions of law. Readings from a variety of historical, philosophical, legal and literary sources will look at the nature of law, liberty, liability and responsibility, crime and punishment, insanity and excuse in the law, as well as attempts to use law to limit liberty and enforce morality.

This course will explore the philosophical underpinnings of political structures, identities, and actions. Readings from a variety of historical, philosophical, political, and economic sources will look at topics such as the nature of the liberal state, the public sphere, democracy, justice, multiculturalism, rights, liberty, and equality. The course may be retaken for credit if the content is substantially distinct, as determined by the philosophy program coordinator.

An exploration of a particular, varying topic of philosophical interest. Recent topics offered have included: the philosophy of children; the philosophy of color; technologies of the self; mind, machines, and meaning; and crime and punishment. May be repeated for credit if the topic differs.

This course examines some of the major philosophical debates and issues pertaining to language, including: questions about the definition, purpose, and origins of language; how language relates to thoughts, truth, and meaning; the performative, ritual, normative, or metaphorical uses of language; and the possibility of translation.

This course uses the medium of film to raise, explore, and challenge philosophical questions, positions, and assumptions. Particular philosophical topics and films may vary. The course may also include philosophical analysis of the nature and aesthetics of film as a genre.

This course surveys a range of classical and contemporary philosophers who have developed philosophical concepts for educational programs and practices. Particular topics may include the place of morality and values within education, differing theories of learning and development, the purpose of education, and cross-cultural conceptions of education.

This course explores the major philosophical traditions that emerged from the European Continent during the twentieth century and which continue to exert broad influence in a number of disciples today, including: existentialism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, critical theory, structuralism, poststructuralism, postmodernism, deconstructionism, and transhumanism.

To consist of either (1) exposure to duties and responsibilities of academic philosophers, or (2) work with an approved external organization (e.g. hospital, hospice, art gallery, religious institution, non-profit, etc.) for which a project of philosophical aspect is undertaken. Pass/fail grading.