Content varies somewhat depending on instructor; students are encouraged to read the detailed descriptions published each semester on the Department's website. The following are typical. (1) Introduction to philosophical thinking, stressing the formulation and evaluation of logical arguments, with readings from Plato and Descartes, and recent works on good and evil, immortality, and personal identity.

An introduction to ethics through issues of medicine and health care. Topics include abortion, treatment of impaired infants, euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, truth-telling, medical experimentation on human beings and on animals, and the allocation of scarce medical resources. (Gen.Ed. AT)

This course addresses central questions in contemporary epistemology concerning the nature of knowledge and justification, the 'a priori'; perceptual knowledge; and skepticism.

Consideration of British and American philosophy in roughly the first half of the 20th century. Topics include philosophical analysis, logical form, logical atomism, logical positivism, and "the linguistic turn" in philosophy. Readings include works by Russell, Wittgenstein, Moore, Austin, Ayer, and others.

After reviewing the main positions in the metaphysics and ontology of time, we will read and discuss two recent books on the moving spotlight theory: Brad Skow, Objective Becoming; and Ross Cameron, The Moving Spotlight: An Essay on Time and Ontology.

Selected topics in the philosophy of science, such as confirmation, laws, causation, explanation, and scientific realism.

The mind-body problem breaks down into two questions: how can mere matter think, and how can it be conscious? We will investigate both of these issues through a critical evaluation of the principal contemporary theories of mind.

Critical study of recent work in moral philosophy. May include utilitarian, Kantian, or other normative theories, as well as naturalistic, nonnaturalistic, or emotivist theories in metaethics.

An introduction to ethics through issues of medicine and health care. Topics include abortion, treatment of impaired infants, euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, truth-telling, medical experimentation on human beings and on animals, and the allocation of scarce medical resources. (Gen.Ed. AT)

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