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| hope college > academic departments > philosophy |
Current Philosophy CoursesSearch via Schedules or Catalog. SPRING 2012 CoursesPHIL
195-01A -- LIBERAL DEMOCRACY & ISLAM Against the backdrop of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, questions have arisen as to whether the values of Western liberal democracy are compatible with the values of Islam. In this introductory course, we will explore the central values of freedom, equality, justice, and toleration as understood and practiced (or not practiced) in liberal democracy, and how these relate to the “Five Pillars” of Islam. We will investigate the differing conceptions of the relation between politics and religion, and ask what might be involved in “citizenship.” We will look at the Qur’an [Koran] and the Koranic conception of law as holy law (shari’a), and how this compares with a more secular understanding of law in the West. We will consider the Western doctrine of “just war” and compare it with the Islamic doctrine of “jihad,” and examine the charge that Islam in some instances seems to promote terror and violence. We’ll talk about the status of women, and the practice of “honor killings.” Throughout the course, we will be asking whether there is an inevitable “class of civilizations’ between Western liberal democracy and Islam, or whether these two civilizations can find some ways to co-exist.
PHIL 200-01A -- INFORMAL LOGIC
PHIL 230-01 -- ANCIENT
PHILOSOPHY (Partial fulfillment of the Cultural Heritage requirement.)
In this course, we will explore such questions as: How did modern science begin? What is distinctive about modern scientific knowledge, and how might its approaches to the natural world and human reason contribute to its extraordinary success? How do the efforts of science and technology influence our understanding of ourselves as humans and our possible relations to God? Yet even as the successes of science and technology
continue to amaze us and shape our ways of living, ethical questions
about the work of science begin to arise. For example, science and technology
give us considerable power over the natural world, but how are we going
to use that power (e.g., nuclear energy and genetic engineering)? How
might we begin to figure out “good” and “not-so-good” uses
of that power? Science and technology may help us realize lives of greater
convenience and comfort (e.g., an expanding number of “gadgets”),
but do science and technology help us to achieve lives that are genuinely “better” and “happier”?
Science and technology provide us with opportunities that previous generations
did not have, but are we truly “freer” in any meaningful
way? While science and technology continue to give us incredible insights
into the workings of human beings and our world (e.g., evolutionary theory
and the neurosciences), at the same time more questions emerge about
our human “place” and “purpose” in the world
and about the existence of God. PHIL 295-01-- WHAT OR WHO IS HUMAN? Who or what is human? Are humans just another kind of animal? Can one
be a human being without being a human person? And what are humans for
anyway? This class investigates these and similar questions through reflective
observation and through the careful consideration of answers proposed
by a variety of religious, philosophical, scientific, and artistic thinkers
from ancient to contemporary times. In conversation with course materials,
students will articulate how they themselves would answer the question.
Assignments will include primary texts from such as authors as Heraclitus,
Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Hume, Darwin, Marx, Fabre,
Sartre, Portmann, Pieper, John Paul II, Singer and others. PHIL 295-02 -- WORLD PHILOSOPHIES
PHIL 325-01-- PHILOSOPHY OF MIND PHIL 370-01-- METAPHYSICS PHIL 490 -- INDEPENDENT STUDIES
FALL 2011 CoursesPHIL 201
-- Logic Most of us have a sense of what logic is. We sometimes say things like, “it’s only logical,” or, “it’s a matter of logic.” Too often these remarks should probably be punctuated with exclamation points, since frequently they are used in heated debates concerning issues about which people feel passionately. Well, in logic, we care much less about what your view is and much more about how you arrived at it. The fact is that everyone has probably gone wrong somewhere, but truth is good, and more is better. In this class, we are concerned to rigorously evaluate the arguments people employ to arrive at their conclusions. An argument just is, in the technical sense, reasoning used to arrive at or convince someone of a conclusion. Some arguments are better than others. In this course, we hope to learn what makes a bad argument, and how to make a good one. We will finish the course with logical analyses of some famous arguments in philosophy. Although logic can and is applied everywhere you find rational thought in the world, it is particularly important for philosophers, whose business it is to evaluate claims to knowledge made on the basis of arguments. PHIL 230 --
Ancient Philosophy This course is an introduction to Western philosophy from its beginning in ancient Greece to Europe during the Middle Ages. Philosophy is the “love of wisdom” or the quest for meaning. Philosophy addresses what might be called the “big questions” of human existence: Who am I and what is real? What is the source of my existence and the existence of the world? What is my purpose and how ought I live in order to achieve it? How can we achieve happiness as individuals and as a society? What is happiness and what is a just society? What is the best way to answer these questions in order to acquire knowledge? Can we acquire knowledge? What is knowledge? In this course we will look at the ways in which the greatest thinkers in our early cultural history -- Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus, Epicurus, Plotinus, Augustine and Aquinas -- have attempted to answer these questions and to frame a meaningful view of human existence and the world we inhabit.
PHIL 232 --
Modern Philosophy This course is an introduction to western philosophy as seen particularly in the works of the "modern" philosophers. The texts are not easy, but the questions they are asking are as deep and as important as they come. Here are some: • What can I really know for sure? We'll even ask: • If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is
around to hear it, does it make a sound?
PHIL 280 --
Knowledge and Belief We will also be looking at the kinds of knowledge people have, or claim to have. Some of our knowledge is obtained by experience, clearly. My knowledge that my office door is open is obtained by perception: I look at it. But most philosophers believe that some truths are known a priori, or, roughly, independently of experience. For example, I know that the angles of any triangle add up to 180 degrees. But I do not know this by virtue of having measured the angles of all triangles. How, then, do I know it? Other types of knowledge that we will look at include religious knowledge, knowledge obtained by testimony, knowledge obtained by what are often called “feminine ways of knowing,” and so on. We will also be looking at the sources of knowledge. For example, some philosophers claim, roughly, that all knowledge is obtained through the senses. Is this credible? Finally, we will be examining the possibility that we know nothing: is it possible that all of our beliefs are false, or that all of our important beliefs are false? Is there any guarantee against this? Is there even a good argument from probability against this? And speaking of probability, is there special reason to be skeptical about our claims to know that anything is probable? There are interesting and fun puzzles surrounding these issues.
We will examine such thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine,
Aquinas, and Luther on such issues as: human nature, the good life,
the role of government, the relation between the individual and the
government, the meaning of freedom, and the need for social order.
We will also investigate how modern political thought differs from
ancient and medieval views. PHIL 450 -- Last of the Human Freedoms In this class, we will try to explore this question. We will look at Socrates, who while sitting in jail awaiting execution, was the most free man in Athens. We will consider the work of the Stoics, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, who pursued their Stoic ways of life (as slave and emperor) as attempts to realize a “higher” freedom. We will look at the reflections of certain Christian mystics and contemplatives, who in their life of surrender, sought a freedom quite different from any political freedom. We will explore the struggles of some modern existential thinkers, who trace their lineage back to Socrates and the Stoics. We may also consider Henry David Thoreau’s Walden as well as what Thoreau considered one of the truly great works of the world, The Bhagavad Gita. And we’ll watch a couple of movies, such as Invictus and Bird Man of Alcatraz. Throughout all this, we will be trying to figure out
what this “last” or “ultimate” freedom
might involve, and what difference an understanding of such a freedom
might make to the ways we try to live our lives.
Spring 2012Requirements for the major: (1) PHIL 200 - Informal Logic or PHIL 201 - Logic Total of at least 24 credits in Philosophy (which can include 2 credit courses). Requirements for the minor: (1) PHIL 200 - Informal Logic or COMM 160 or PHIL 201 - Logic
COURSE CATEGORY LISTList II - Knowledge & Belief PHIL 241 - Phil of India & Tibet PHIL 230 - Ancient Philosophy 2-credit class PHIL 195 - Intro to Philosophy Note: Only one (1) cross-listed course (4 credits)
offered by another department may count towards the major and minor.
SPRING 2011 Course DescriptionsPHIL 200 Informal Logic
(first and second half of semester)
In this class, we’ll cover the ancient period
of western philosophy (and some of the medieval period). We’ll
ask questions like: We’ll even ask: PHIL 232 Modern Philosophy: How did modern science begin? What was distinctive about modern scientific knowledge, and how might some of its ideas about the natural world, human reason, and truth contribute to its extraordinary success? In its striving for knowledge of the world, how do the efforts of science and technology influence our understanding of ourselves as human and our possible relations to God? Yet even as the successes of the pursuit of scientific
knowledge continue to amaze us and influence our ways of living, ethical
questions about the work of science begin to emerge. Science and technology
give us considerable power over the natural world: how will we use that
power (e.g., nuclear power and genetic engineering)? How might we begin
to figure out “good” and “not-so-good” uses of
that power? Science and technology may help us realize lives of greater
convenience and comfort (e.g., an expanding number of “gadgets”),
but do they help us achieve lives that are genuinely “better”?
Science and technology provide us with material opportunities that previous
generations did not have (e.g., improved medical care and greater life
expectancies), but are we “freer” in any meaningful way?
As science continues to give us insights into the workings of the world,
questions about our “place” in the world continue to press
in upon us (e.g., evolutionary theory and the role of God). PHIL 242 Philosophies
of China and Japan
The nature of the human mind has long been a focus of philosophical, scientific, and popular interest: nothing is more central to our understanding of who we are than our understanding of the mind, and nothing is more central to the philosophical thought of recent years than the philosophy of mind. This course introduces the fundamental philosophical issues currently associated with the mind. It does so partly through introductory level material and partly through the reading of important articles by the leading philosophers in the area. We will deal with many of the standard topics on which philosophy of mind tends to focus, such as the relation of mind to body, questions about whether the mind can be understood in purely physical terms and whether consciousness poses any special problems for such an understanding, and whether computers provide us with the proper model for understanding the mind. We will also address the related question of free will. Students will be asked to evaluate the wide variety of different views in this area and encouraged to respond to what they study by working toward their own understanding of what the mind is.
In this course we’ll have a look at some classical
views of God and arguments for God’s existence, and some challenges
to religious faith. Under the latter heading, we’ll consider some
issues like the problem of divine foreknowledge, the problem of evil,
faith and reason, miracles, and the so-called problem of religious diversity.
We may read Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe, a book by one of
the keynote speakers (who is himself a naturalist) in our upcoming conference
of the Society of Christian Philosophers (at Hope in late February).
We’ll finish by exploring some themes in philosophical theology
on particular Christian doctrines like Trinity, Incarnation, whether
there is a hell, and whether there is a purgatory. We may even turn our
philosophical eye to liturgy and issues in sexual ethics (as they impact
the philosophy of religion) if there is time and interest. This course
is cross-listed with Religion 364. All students should register for Philosophy
331.
What is the right thing to do? How should we live our lives? Do we derive our values from God or reason or both or neither? Such questions make up the subject matter of ethics. This course is an introduction to ethical theory with some attention to applied ethics. We will consider the major ethical theories of yesterday and today, including the ethics of duty, utilitarianism, divine command theory, natural law theory, and virtue ethics. We will also consider the issue of moral relativism, challenges to traditional ethical theories, and different views of what it is to live a good human life. Finally, we look at attempts to apply different ethical theories to practical moral problems stemming from everyday life. Readings will come from classical and contemporary authors, religious and non-religious sources, and western and eastern traditions. (This course is cross-listed with Religion 369. All students should register for Philosophy 395.)
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