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Undergraduate Resources Catalog Course Descriptions 2016 Spring

Department of Philosophy College of Liberal Arts

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Dr. Gregory Gilson
Professor, Chair of Philosophy
Department of Philosophy
ELABS 342
Email: gregory.gilson@utrgv.edu
Phone: (956) 665-3562

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Spring 2016

PHIL 1300 — Critical Thinking

This class will investigate what it is to think critically. Strong emphasis will be placed on the following: reading critically, analyzing texts, identifying and systematically representing arguments, recognizing formal and informal fallacies, and rationally evaluating what is heard and read. Enrollment cap: 40 students.

3 Credit hours
3 Lecture hours

PHIL 1301 — Intro to Philosophy

An introduction to some of the major philosophical questions that have intrigued humankind over the centuries. This will be done through an examination of the thought of some of the most important figures in the history of philosophy from the early Greeks to modern times. Credit may be received in only one of PHIL 1301 or PHIL 1302. Enrollment cap: 40 students.

3 Credit hours
3 Lecture hours

PHIL 1306 — Intro to Asian Philosophy

An analysis of the major movements in Eastern philosophy and religion and their relationship to basic philosophical developments in the West. This course will examine systems of thought and culture such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism and Shinto. Enrollment cap: 40 students.

3 Credit hours
3 Lecture hours

PHIL 1310 — Ethics, Happiness, & Good Life

This course will be concerned with human values: our own and those of other people. It will ask where these values come from, how we can know them, and how they relate to human happiness. It will also examine several related questions such as personal freedom and the meaningfulness of human life. Enrollment cap: 40 students.

3 Credit hours
3 Lecture hours

PHIL 1312 — Intro to Social & Political Philosophy

A critical introduction to the current and historical relationships that define contemporary society and politics. Topics may include democracy, capitalism, communism, anarchism, political authority, norms, justices, pluralism, and rights. Enrollment cap: 40 students.

3 Credit hours
3 Lecture hours

PHIL 1330 — Philosophy, Art, & Film

This course addresses philosophical issues in film and in art. Possible topics include questions of the meaning and the value of film, the nature and importance of beauty in art, the role of the artist’s intention in evaluating a work of art, and the roles of the director and viewer in film. As part of the course, some films will be screened and students may be expected to attend artistic performances or visit local museums and galleries. Enrollment cap: 40 students.

3 Credit hours
3 Lecture hours

PHIL 1340 — Intro to Logic

This class is an introduction to the formal techniques available for evaluating the correctness or incorrectness of arguments. Techniques likely to be discussed include: symbolization in propositional logic, parsing trees, truth tables or truth trees, natural deduction in propositional logic, Venn diagrams, and the probability calculus. Enrollment cap: 40 students.

3 Credit hours
3 Lecture hours

PHIL 1366 — Philosophy and History of Science

This course is designed to use history and philosophy in the service of science and engineering education. It does this by examining a selection of notable episodes in the history of science and Techno-Science. Episodes examined may include the mathematical sciences in Antiquity, Archimedes’ inventions and principle of hydrostatics, Roman techno-science, Medieval medicine, alchemy, Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, Galileo's conflict with the Catholic Church, Isaac Newton's formulation of the laws of motion, Dalton’s atomic theory, Louis Pasteur’s public trial of the anthrax vaccine, Charles Darwin's proposal of the theory of evolution by natural selection, the development of the atomic bomb, and the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA. Enrollment cap: 40 students.

3 Credit hours
3 Lecture hours

PHIL 2351 — Religious Diversity in Global Communications

The contemporary global community contains a wide array of religious beliefs, traditions, practices, and understanding these diverse religious dynamics is essential in building mutually supportive and peaceful relationships among such social groups. This course will examine the ways that religion shapes the self-understanding of different cultural traditions that students will encounter in their life work, and will focus on strategies for appreciating the worldviews, customs and intellectual convictions embodied by these religions. Enrollment cap: 40 students.

3 Credit hours
3 Lecture hours

PHIL 3301 — Ancient Philosophy

This course will discuss the development of Western philosophy (primarily in Ancient Greece) from the pre-Socratics through to Aristotle. Emphasis is likely to be placed on Plato and Aristotle. Enrollment cap: 30 students.

3 Credit hours
3 Lecture hours

PHIL 3312 — Continental Philosophy

This course addresses topics in post-Heideggerian continental philosophy. Some potential movements and thinkers include deconstruction (Derrida), genealogy (Foucault), postmodernism (Lyotard, Agamben, Rancière, Balibar), hermeneutics (Gadamer), and Critical Theory and contemporary Marxism (Benjamin, Adorno, Bourdieu, Hardt, Negri, Laclau, Mouffe). Enrollment cap: 30 students.

3 Credit hours
3 Lecture hours

PHIL 3340 — Intermediate Logic

A continuation of Philosophy 1340, Introduction to Logic, this course will cover the language of predicate logic, with excursions into metalogic. Prerequisites: PHIL 1340. Enrollment cap: 20 students.

3 Credit hours
3 Lecture hours

PHIL 3352 — Religion & the Environment

This course investigates the way religious traditions have conditioned our relationship to the environment, through a survey of both Western (Judeo-Christian-Islamic) and Eastern (Chinese, Japanese, and Indian) traditions. Goals are to identify and evaluate ecological attitudes, values and practices of diverse traditions, to identify common grounds for understanding environmental issues from a religious perspective, and to highlight the specific resources that comprise such ground within scripture, ritual, myth, symbol, sacrament, and the like. Enrollment cap: 30 students.

3 Credit hours
3 Lecture hours

PHIL 3365 — Chicana & Latin American Feminisms

This course is designed to explore Chicana and Latin American forms of feminism, including their philosophies, history, and social movements. Enrollment cap: 30 students

3 Credit hours
3 Lecture hours

PHIL 3370 — Philosophy of Law

Examination of the institution of law, legal concepts, legal reasoning, and the legal process. Topics may include the nature of law; the moral limits of the criminal law; legal rights; liberty, justice, and equality; punishment; responsibility; the private law (property, contract, and tort); constitutional law; and feminist jurisprudence. Enrollment cap: 30 students.

3 Credit hours
3 Lecture hours

PHIL 4300 - 01 — Special Topics (Don Quixote and Miguel de Unamuno)

A study of selected issues or figures in philosophy; content will vary. May be repeated for up to 9 hours credit as content changes. Enrollment cap: 30 students.

3 Credit hours
3 Lecture hours

PHIL 4310 — Epistemology

This class will consider questions about the nature, criteria and sources of (epistemic) justification and knowledge. For example, under what circumstances do perception, memory, consciousness, reason and testimony endow us with justified beliefs? How is context relevant to justification and knowledge? Is there such a thing as religious knowledge? Is skepticism about the external world a serious threat? Does knowledge have a foundation? Enrollment cap: 30 students.

3 Credit hours
3 Lecture hours

PHIL 4340 — American Philosophy

This course will explore the diverse traditions, ideas, and thinkers that have shaped American culture in the past and today. Important works from Native American, African American, Latin American, and Puritan sources may be examined, as well as works from such intellectual movements as transcendentalism and pragmatism. Enrollment cap: 30 students.

3 Credit hours
3 Lecture hours

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