Philosophy Course Descriptions

101. Introduction to Philosophy

We will study works by four influential thinkers in the history of Western thought and see how these theories can illuminate contemporary debates on civil disobedience, animal rights, environmental issues, and world hunger. Throughout the course, we will look at various films that have philosophical themes, such as "Being There," "Unforgiven," and "Wall Street." There will be two hour-exams, several short papers, a final exam, and weekly journals. There will also be several class debates.

101: Section B. Fall semester. Philosophy through Film (Peterman)( e-syllabus )

The last section of the course will be a chance for students to take what they have learned and apply it to one of the following films: Fight Club , or Red Cherry . We will watch and discuss approximately two films every three weeks. Each film will be accompanied by philosophical readings designed to clarify the philosophical significance of the film and the validity of its message. Attention will be given a) to writing clear and rigorous essays that interpret and evaluate the philosophical themes in these films, and b) to articulating and defending a personal philosophy. There will be ongoing short daily writing and discussion, and two formal essays, and a final essay prepared in advance, but written in the final exam period.

101: Section B. Spring Semester. The Meaning of Human Life: Philosophy, Film, and Literature (Peters)
This course will begin by examining a variety of perspectives on the nature of human existence. We will study philosophical and literary texts, as well as films that present rival accounts of what it means to be human. We will strive to understand the rationality of these diverse accounts and appreciate their distinctive insights into the meaning of human existence. Major authors we will read are Plato, Cornel West, Pascal, Phillip Yancey, Wendell Berry, Nietzsche and Thomas Moran. Students will be expected to think critically and to clarify and defend their own philosophical worldview. In the final weeks of the course we will investigate some specific contemporary social issues, applying the philosophical perspectives we have studied to some of the major cultural and social questions being debated in contemporary life. The issue we will investigate will be chosen by the class. Specific issues addressed in past semesters have been: consumerism, political correctness, feminism and affirmative action. Students will be expected to keep a weekly journal and write several short papers.

201. Logic (Conn)

An introduction to informal, propositional, and predicate logic. We will begin by examining the different kinds of arguments which are advanced in ordinary language, and with the various ways in which apparently successful (i.e., psychologically convincing) arguments can be logically defective. We will subsequently apply these principles to actual examples of good and bad arguments which have been advanced in a variety of contexts. We will, for example, examine arguments concerning the innocence of O.J. Simpson, the nature of poetry, the extinction of the dinosaurs, and the existence of God. In the second half of the class we will examine two increasingly powerful methods of formally representing and evaluating the logical structure of these sorts of arguments.

201. Logic (Garland)

This course is concerned with reasoning--good and bad, correct and incorrect, valid and invalid. By learning to apply a few general rules of logic, students acquire competence in distinguishing between correct and incorrect reasoning. Most of the course is devoted to the logic used in everyday life and discourse, which was first formulated by Aristotle and later modified by Venn and Boole. Students are also given an introduction to modern symbolic logic. There will be daily homework assignments designed to show how the concepts of logic can be used to solve specific problems.

202. Ethics (Garland)

This course is an introduction to significant alternatives in ethical theory and to the application of these theories to contemporary moral issues. We will read selected works in ethical theory from Aristotle, Kant, and Mill, and then apply these theories to current moral issues, such as abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, sexual morality, animal rights, and environmental concerns. Class sessions will incorporate lectures, discussions, and class debates. There will be two hour exams, a term paper, and a final exam, as well as weekly journals on the reading material.

203. History of Philosophy I: Classical Thought (Peters)

This course will critically examine ancient philosophy from Homer to Augustine. We will study ancient philosophical thought in the context of its historical, cultural and religious setting. We will pay special attention to how ancient thinkers understood human happiness, the place of human life in the order of the universe, and the limits of human knowledge and reason. In our class sessions, our primary goals will be: 1) to understand these philosophical perspectives within their historical context.; 2) to understand how these ancient philosophers defend their theories; and (3) to evaluate how well these philosophers make sense of our own experience. Class sessions will be a mixture of lectures, student discussions and class debates. There will be short critical papers, short personal reflections and a final exam.

204. Modern Philosophy from Descartes to Kant (Conn)

An introduction to revolutionary forms of thinking developed along with the rise of modern science and its distinctive set of philosophical problems. We will examine works by Rene Descartes, John Locke, George Berkeley, David Hume, Thomas Reid and Immanuel Kant. The following themes will be most prominent: the nature of knowledge and perception, the existence and nature of God, the existence and nature of finite entities, the mind-body problem, and problem of personal identity. There will be several short papers, a presentation on a particular figure and problem, and a final take-home exam.

210. Philosophical Issues in Christianity (Conn)( e-syllabus )

An examination of recent philosophical work on a number of doctrines that are central to traditional Christian theology. Topics may include, among others, the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, and the Resurrection, as well as the nature of God's goodness and its compatibility with the traditional doctrine of Hell and the ethics of love.

215. Chinese Philosophy ( Peterman)

An examination of philosophical texts of classical Chinese Philosophy. The primary emphasis of the course will be the rise of Confucianism and the critical responses to it. Texts will include: Confucius' Analects, I Ching, Mo Tzu , Tao te ching, and Chuang Tzu. Emphasis will be given to the cultural context of these texts and to the evaluation the worldview they articulate and to the relevance of Chinese thought as a philosophy of life for late Twentieth-Century Americans. Topics for discussion: the self, the relation of individual to community and family, the difference between a worldview based on tao and one based on Truth, and the foundation of moral beliefs and practices. There will be lectures, discussion, a presentation, two essays and daily writing. I will recommended but not require that students taking Philosophy 215 also enroll in Tai Chi in the Physical Education Department or sign up for Tai Chi at Optimum Health.

220. The Self (Staff)

This course will examine from various disciplinary perspectives, two very different views of the self, both current in contemporary culture. One is the view that human beings can do no more than define themselves in terms of ad hoc arrangements of their own devising. The other is the human beings can and ought to define themselves in terms of their "rootedness" in particular traditions. We will read two novels: The House Tibet by Georgia Savage and Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver; two cultural commentaries: sociologist Robert Bellah's Habits of the Heart and psychologist Robert Jay Lifton The Protean Self; and two philosophical arguments: Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue and Charles Taylor's The Ethics of Authenticity . Each text takes up one side of this important issue. Student work will consist of reading and writing about these texts in the form of a daily journal and three or four shorts essays.

222. Contemporary Moral Issues (Garland))

A philosophical examination of moral issues in contemporary life, such as abortion, euthanasia, sexual morality, capital punishment, environmental pollution, world hunger, and nuclear disarmament. Class lectures and discussions will be designed to clarify the nature of each issue and to examine the various arguments that have been advanced. Offered in summer session only.

226. Faith in Philosophy and Literature (Peters)

We will examine selected literary texts and critical essays of Flannery O'Connor, C.S. Lewis, and Wendell Berry, works which explore the meaning of religious faith in human life. In the course of this exploration, we will consider the different ways in which story, poetry and philosophy raise profound religious and philosophical questions and seek to give us insights about the proper role of faith in human life. We will give special attention to the vision of the grotesque in O'Connor, the importance of myth and fantasy in Lewis, and the place of agrarian poetry and short-story in Berry. This class will be conducted as a seminar with occasional presentations by students. Students will be required to write a weekly journal and a several medium-length essays.

230. Environmental Ethics (Peters)

This course will examine a wide range of controversial ethical issues concerning the natural environment. We will ask such questions as: Why should human beings care about nature? Do animals have rights? Are there compelling environmental reasons for calling into question our current lifestyle in the United States? and Is it wrong to treat nature as a commodity for human consumption? Students will be required to clarify and defend their own environmental ethic, keep a weekly journal, and carry out a research project relating to some concrete issue.

235. Medical Ethics (Peterman) ( e-syllabus )

This course is an introduction to ethical issues in medicine.  It presupposes no prior coursework in philosophy. We will start with episodes of ER.  We will learn how contemporary medical ethics addresses the issues that arise in these episodes using the text Doing Right: A Practical Guide to Medical Trainees and Physicians by Philip Hebert. This text presents the standard approach to medical ethics issues.  We will learn how to do medical ethics research on the web.  Each student will get to write an analytical essay based on a research topic of his or her own choosing.  This section of the course will also serve to prepare students who might wish to pursue medical ethics student internships at hospital ethics committees. We will end the semester with the examination of Daniel Callahan's Setting Limits: Medical Goals in an Aging Society, which is about the problems posed for medicine by an aging population and the need to medical rationing.  There will be two essays, and a final take-home. In addition, there will be some daily responses to the reading and a group presentation. Above all, there will be a great deal of discussion.

240. Controversies in Feminist Ethics (Hoffman)

An examination of the debates and issues that are central to feminist ethics. Topics covered include some of the following feminist challenges to traditional Western ethical theories: that traditional ethical theories have overlooked the significance of the emotions for moral reasoning and justification, that traditional theories have incorrectly emphasized justice, universality, and impartiality rather than care and attachments to particular individuals, and that Western ethics includes problematic assumptions about the atomistic nature of human beings. The course also explores the contemporary debates surrounding applied issues of particular interest to feminist authors, such as filial obligations, marriage, sexuality, abortion, prostitution, and pornography.

250. Women, Knowledge and Reality (Hoffman)

This course examines the recent critiques of feminist authors to traditional, Western philosophical conceptions of the nature of women, knowledge and reality. In the first part of the course, we will raise questions about traditional conceptions of what it means to be a woman and discuss certain feminist contentions that these involve a problematic essentialism. We will discuss issues concerning sex and gender. In the second part of the course, we will consider what it is to have knowledge and will explore feminist theories that emphasize the social context, as well as the significance of the sex or gender of the knower. In the final section of the course, we will explore some feminist critiques of traditional conceptions of what is real, which, according to these critiques, have emphasized the importance of the universal over the particular features of things. In addition to several short papers, students will be asked to complete several in-class writing assignments and to actively participate in class discussions.

252. Existentialism (Hoffman)

This course is a survey of existentialist thought, beginning with its origins in the nineteenth century philosophy of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and continuing through its development in the twentieth century philosophies of such thinkers as Sartre. This course will focus on concerns about the human condition, the significance of freedom and artistic creation, the dignity of the individual, the significance of the authentic choice of the self, the role of reason and of passion, and the source of value and meaning. We will explore the differing thoughts of various Christian and atheistic existentialists about these issues, as well as the differing prescriptions that these philosophers offer for living a meaningful and authentic life. In addition to several short papers, students will be asked to complete several in-class writing assignments and to actively participate in class discussions.

300. Ecology and Ethics (Peters and Haskell)

This course falls into three parts: 1. We will read, analyze and discuss a variety of texts that have attempted to integrate ethical and scientific approaches to the environment. Our discussions will consider the nature of scientific and ethical arguments, the meaning and limits of objectivity, and the relationship between pragmatism and idealism in both ethics and science. At the end of this part of the course you should have developed a framework for the careful dissection and evaluation of both scientific and ethical arguments. You will also have an appreciation for the special challenges presented by producing an argument or vision that rests on solid ethical and scientific foundations. 2. We will analyze and debate arguments from selected environmental disputes. This analysis will emphasize the application of the framework developed in the first part of the course. This part of the course will involve student debates. 3. Student research projects on environmental issues. These projects will:

302. Medieval Philosophy (Peters)

An examination of some of the major philosophical texts of the Middle Ages. We will read works from the Christian, Jewish and Islamic traditions. We will also critically examine some of the writings of contemporary philosophers such as Eleonore Stump, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Ralph McInerny and Kenneth Seeskin who use Medieval philosophical doctrines to address contemporary philosophical and cultural problems.

306. Epistemology (Conn)

This course will be conducted as a tutorial. We will meet once a week for lecture and once a week in small groups for tutorial sessions. We will begin by discussing the various forms of skepticism and the challenges they pose against the possibility of human knowledge. In light of these challenges, we will spend two sessions on the nature of sense perception and the justification of empirical beliefs. These sessions will be devoted to understanding and (if possible) to deciding between the three main theories of sense perception: direct realism, representative realism, and phenomenalism. We will subsequently spend two sessions discussing doxastic theories of justification, i.e., theories that state that one's justification for a given belief is solely a function of one's other beliefs. After this we will spend two weeks discussing the debate between interacts and externalist theories of justification, i.e., the debate between those who affirm and those who deny that the epistemic status of a given belief is solely a function of the cognizer's other beliefs and perceptual states. After this we will begin a detailed reading of William Alston's Perceiving God. Although this book is ultimately concerned with the epistemology of religious experience, it has a great deal to say about epistemic justification in general, and about the justification of empirical beliefs in particular.

308. Metaphysics (Conn)

In this course we will examine the existence and nature of persisting material bodies. We will be particularly concerned with the material constitution of organisms and human beings. In the course of this investigation, we will be taking up the following metaphysical issues:
1. the relationship between a human being, his or her body, and the parts of this body; in particular, whether a human beings are identical with their bodies, or instead whether human beings are wholly or partly composed of their bodies.
2. whether a material object possesses all (or only some) of its parts or properties essentially; in particular, whether living material bodies possess their material parts essentially.
3. the conditions under which two material objects come together to form a third.
4. whether it is possible for distinct material objects to occupy the same region of space at the same time.
5. the nature of identity, and in particular, whether it is possible for an object a at t1 and an object b at t2 to be (numerically) identical F's (e.g., Organisms), but distinct G's (e.g., Men),
6. the manner in which material objects persist through time, and in particular, whether the whole object exists at every moment of its existence, or instead, whether it exists at different times in virtue of its having different temporal parts and those times, and finally,,
7. whether material objects in the actual world are identical with objects in other possible worlds.

308. Metaphysics (Garland)

An intensive study of the differences between substance metaphysics and process metaphysics. Readings will be taken from Aristotle, Descartes, James, Whitehead, and Nicholas Rescher. We will meet as a class once during each week and the class will be broken-down into small tutorials for the rest of the week. Each week one student will present a paper on some aspect of the readings in each tutorial, and another student will critique the paper in that tutorial. Every member of the class must participate in the tutorials. This course is writing-intensive, work-intensive, thought-intensive, speaking-intensive, and just about any other intensive you can imagine. However, the class could not be said to be "extensive-intensive."

309. Post-Modern Philosophy (Garland)

A study of the major philosophers and movements in the nineteenth-century and in the first part of the twentieth-century. Special attention will be given to Kant, Hegel, Schopenauer, Mill, Nietzsche, and selected texts from the twentieth-century thought.

311. American Philosophy (Garland)

This course will cover six major American philosophers and movements in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. First we will look at the transcendentalism of Emerson and Thoreau, next we will look at the pragmatism of C. S. Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, and finally we will look at WhiteheadPIs synthesis of science and lived experience. Class will be conducted as a seminar, which combines lectures and class discussion, and students will present class reports from time to time. There will be two hour exams during the semester and a term paper project, and students will be asked to hand in weekly journals.

312. Symbolic Logic (Conn)

An examination of three increasingly powerful systems of logic: sentential logic, monadic predicate logic, and full first-order logic with identity. Each of the latter two systems is an extension of the first, which is solely concerning with the logical relationships between whole sentences. These extensions enable us to better capture the logical structure of ordinary language arguments, since they help us (through the use of quantifier expressions for 'some' and 'all', proper names, and variables for individuals and their properties) to represent the internal logical structure of the sentences themselves. A significant portion of the class will be devoted to working out deductive proofs in these systems. Towards this end, students will have access to MacLogic, which is natural deduction proof assistant for first-order logic, which was developed within the Computational Logic research group at St Andrews University. There will a mid-term exam and a comprehensive final.

319. Nineteenth-Century Philosophy (Garland)

This course will cover the major thinkers and movements in the nineteenth century from Immanuel Kant to William James. We will first look at Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics as an example of the type of Enlightenment thought against which many nineteenth-century thinkers are reacting. Then we will consider Hegel's attempt to replace Kant's dualistic framework with a dynamic and organic view of the development of history and philosophy. Some main themes in the course will be reason versus will and feeling, individual freedom versus participation in a community, and religion versus irreligion. Class will be conducted as a seminar which combines lecture and discussion, and students will present reports from time to time.

320. Twentieth-Century Analytic Philosophy (Conn)

An introduction to Twentieth-Century analytic philosophy and its characteristic attempt to dissolve heretofore intractable problems and debates in metaphysics and epistemology through an examination of linguistic meaning and the use of language. After reading classical texts by such philosophers as Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, A. J. Ayer, J. L. Austin, G. E. Moore, and Gilbert Ryle, we will turn to more recent works by such philosophers as W. V. O. Quine, Saul Kripke, Hilary Putnam and Richard Rorty. Philosophical movements and schools of thought to be examined will include the following: logical atomism, logical positivism, ordinary language philosophy, phenomenalism, direct and indirect realism, and metaphysical realism and anti-realism.

325. Plato (Garland)

We will study some of the early Socratic dialogues, the middle dialogues in which Plato develops the views we normally associate with "Platonism" (especially "The Phaedo" and "The Republic"), and selected later dialogues. We will also read some contemporary assessments of Plato's philosophy. Emphasis will be placed on the ethical views of Socrates and the theories of knowledge, reality, and value, which Plato develops and defends in his middle dialogues. There will be two hour-exams, a term paper, and a final exam, as well as weekly journals on the readings.

340. Kierkegaard (Hoffman)

An examination of the philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard through a close reading of such primary texts as Either/Or, The Sickness Unto Death, Philosophical Fragments, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, and The Concept of Anxiety.  Prominent themes may include, among other things, Kierkegaard's conception of the self and the various types of despair that constitute a misrelation of the self; his conception of the differing the aesthetic, ethical and religious spheres of existence; his critiques of modern philosophy and the modern church; and his understanding of the significance of various philosophical and religious beliefs and activities for living well.

350. Aristotle (Peters)

A critical survey of AristotlePIs philosophy. We will seek to understand in this context of his own Greek world and assess the viability of AristotlePIs insight and theories for the postmodern world. We will read a variety of AristotlePIs works in ethics, politics, aesthetics, science, and metaphysic. We will also read a contemporary Aristotelian work, Alasdair MacIntyrePIs Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, and two of ShakespearePIs tragedies, King Lear and MacBeth. Class will be conducted as a seminar with a combination of lectures, student presentations, and class discussion. There will be short writing assignments and several medium-length essays.

411. Wittgenstein (Peterman)

We will examine the most important writings of twentieth-century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. The first, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and the second, Philosophical Investigations helped to give rise to two different revolutions in philosophy this century. In addition to these texts, we will read Ray Monk's biography of Wittgenstein in order to be able better to understand his positions and views not just as species of philosophical argumentation but also as works of a person on a very specific ethical quests: Both the mystical quest expressed in his early book and the therapeutic quest expressed in his later book are designed to bring the traditional theoretical project to a close. The early book generated a view of language famously taken up by the logical positivists in order to show that the sentences of traditional philosophy, ethics, and religion are meaningless. The second text generated a view of language that is pluralistic, allowing for a wide range of languages including ethical and religious, and has played a central role in recent debates over the need for a post-philosophical culture. The class will proceed in a seminar format. There will be some weekly responses to the reading, a seminar presentation, and an independent paper project.

415. Nietzsche (Peterman)

This course will examine the rise and development of Nietzsche's philosophy from The Birth of Tragedy to Beyond Good and Evil . A primary issue we will confront in examining various texts is the question of the nature of Nietzsche's enterprise in these texts. Does he intend the texts to be poetry or a serious philosophical account?  In the course of raising this general issue, we will examine a variety of issues concerning Nietzsche's claims about reality, knowledge, morality, and Christianity. The course will be taught in a seminar format with occasional presentations by students. There will be required daily journal writing and three essays.   Required Nietzsche texts are: The Birth of Tragedy , The Gay Science , Beyond Good and Evil. We will also read critiques and commentary by Alasdair Macintyre in his Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry and by Maudemarie Clarke in her Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy .

451. Senior Tutorial (Peterman)

In this tutorial, senior philosophy majors will undertake to publish a fourth volume of our undergraduate electronic philosophical journal, Interlocutor: The Sewanee Undergraduate Philosophical Review and work on independent senior projects that will attempt to meet criteria of submission to the journal. In the course of the semester, students will review submissions when appropriate, report on their individual research, present early versions of their essays, and comment on the work of their fellow students. The tutorial will conclude with each senior presenting in public a summary of the result of his or her research and with a presentation of the second volume of the journal.