Catalog Course Descriptions
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Philosophy Courses
Undergraduate
Introduction to the nature of philosophical reasoning and some of the main problems of philosophy. Limited to three attempts.
Examines ethical issues associated with new developments in information technology, including privacy rights, intellectual property rights, and the effect of information technology on society. Limited to three attempts.
Considers some perennial issues in ethical theory. Limited to three attempts.
Introduction to philosophical reflection on the arts by looking at the critical issues in the history of aesthetics. Applies considerations to specific works and explores these works in terms of their historical contexts and influences. Concentrates on one form of art or one period and always emphasizes questions of critical evaluation and art historical analysis. Limited to three attempts.
Basic concepts and techniques of deduction, emphasizing the modern treatment of such topics as quantification and rules of inference, with study of the classical treatment. Basic principles of induction, informal fallacies, and uses of logic in everyday life. Limited to three attempts.
Examines the relationship between ethics and Artificial Intelligence. Introduces several philosophical approaches, ethical theories, and methods for analyzing the stakes of Artificial Intelligence. Explores the foundations of Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, and big data, a range of AI applications and their attendant ethical concerns, and potential avenues towards resolving ethical dilemmas in Artificial Intelligence, while harnessing its potential benefits. Equips students to more effectively navigate the evolving AI-enabled technological landscape in our increasingly digital society. Limited to three attempts.
Examines the global dimensions of environmental problems. Although environmental problems are global in reach, because different societies make different philosophical and ethical assumptions, they are understood in different ways. Examines several environmental problems, including climate change, population growth, and resource depletion, from a variety of scientific, policy, and cross-cultural perspectives. Limited to three attempts.
Addresses the question "How do I live a happy life?" by drawing on 2,500 years of philosophy as well as the much more recent science of happiness. Encourages students to develop and live their own answer in light of some of the best available science and philosophy. Limited to three attempts.
Examines differences and relations between literary and philosophical texts. Examines texts from a given period in the history of literature and philosophy. Topics include the presence of common issues in literary and philosophical writings, the influence of philosophical ideas on the production of literary texts and literary theory, and the development in literary texts of issues that are possible objects of philosophical inquiry. Limited to three attempts.
Introduction to the philosophy of science that examines a range of questions about what science is, how it works, and how it manages to be as successful as it is. Explores the goals, methods, principles and practices that characterize scientific enquiry. Surveys major milestones in the philosophy of science, and addresses such questions as: How are scientific claims justified? What constitutes a good explanation? How do we know if our scientific theories are true? How does scientific understanding change over time? What roles do social, political, and cultural factors play in the generation of scientific knowledge? Limited to three attempts.
Classical Greek philosophy, including pre-Socratics, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Limited to three attempts.
Figures and problems of modern philosophy. Study of philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, and Hegel. Limited to three attempts.
Examines some moral problems that arise with regard to the responsibilities of various segments of the business community, including employers, management, stockholders; to one another; to the consumer; and to society at large. Limited to three attempts.
Gives students the opportunity to apply philosophical skills in real-world settings. Internships arranged and supervised by faculty in the Department of Philosophy. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 6 credits.
Examines some major moral issues involved in practice and research in medicine and health care. Topics to be chosen from medical experimentation, definition of death, physician-assisted dying, genetics and human reproduction, distribution of scarce resources, fertility, and organ transplants. Limited to three attempts.
Investigation of theories of natural law, legal positivism, and legal realism as they pertain to some of the central philosophical questions about law. Limited to three attempts.
Exploration through lecture and discussion of developments in the Western tradition of political thought from the time of the Greek city-state to late medieval Christendom, focusing on such topics as the nature and purpose of politics, the relationship between the individual and the state, the political significance of religion and tradition, and the concept of natural law. Equivalent to GOVT 323.
Exploration through lecture and discussion of developments in the Western tradition of political thought from the Renaissance to the middle of the 19th century, focusing on such topics as the rise of individualism in political theory, early developments in social contact theory, theories of radical popular sovereignty, and early criticisms of liberal theory. Equivalent to GOVT 324.
Study and evaluation of Marx's social and political ideas based on writings selected from several phases of his career. Examination of relation of Marx's thought to post-Marxian socialist theory and practice. Limited to three attempts.
Exploration through lecture and discussion of recent developments in the Western tradition of political thought from the middle of the 19th century to today. Different sections focus on one or another of the various political theories that have been influential during this period such as liberal, libertarian, conservative, communitarian, Marxist, feminist, and postmodern thought. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. Equivalent to GOVT 327.
Examines the philosophical questions that arise in the wake of the Nazi concentration camps concerning genocide, political modernity, and conceptions of the human. Investigates how the logic of the camp made possible systematic genocidal violence against the Jews and other groups, and the ways in which that logic manifests in other forms and on other bodies before and after Auschwitz. Draws on writers and philosophers such as Primo Levi, Giorgio Agamben, Hannah Arendt, Maurice Blanchot, and/or Adriana Cavarero to analyze the ethical and political questions posed by the camps, and uses literature, film and art to engage with the complexities of bearing witness to horror and the unrepresentable. Limited to three attempts.
Explores figures, movements, and topics in analytic philosophy from its early days to the present. Examines attempts of philosophers working in the tradition of formal logic and empiricism to solve philosophical problems by an analysis of language. Possible figures and movements covered will include Frege, Russell, Moore, Carnap, Wittgenstein, Anscombe, Quine, Lewis, Kripke, logical positivism, and ordinary language philosophy. Possible topics include recent metaphysics and philosophy of language. Limited to three attempts.
Examines the philosophical movement of American Pragmatism, with emphasis on its origin in the late nineteenth century. Figures covered include Peirce, James, Dewey, and Mead. Limited to three attempts.
Development of German Romanticism and Idealism during a brilliant period in the history of the West rivaled only by ancient Greece. Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche mount a revolt against the rationalism and scientism of the modern world. Limited to three attempts.
Examination of existential philosophy from its 19th-century origins to its 20th-century expressions. Philosophers studied include Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, De Beauvoir, and Buber. Limited to three attempts.
Examines the phenomenological way of doing philosophy, its findings in regard to the "life-world," questions of "first philosophy," and the subject matter of the social sciences, as well as critical difficulties in its development. Texts by Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Schutz, and Derrida. Limited to three attempts.
Examines how concepts of gender, sexual difference, and race structure key philosophical ideas and put such ideas into question. Analyzes the ways in which patriarchal, colonial and racialized structures intersect to produce concepts of the human, the subject, and the ‘Other’. Explores alternative approaches to subjectivity, sexuality, the body, and knowledge drawn from feminist philosophy, queer theory, and philosophies of race and decoloniality. Limited to three attempts.
Examines themes in continental philosophy from the late twentieth century to the present day. Particular themes will be explored through a variety of thinkers, such as Agamben, Cavarero, Deleuze, Derrida, Foucault, Irigaray, Kristeva, Lyotard, Nancy, Ranciere, or Stiegler, and approaches, such as postmodernist, poststructuralist, decolonial, or feminist. Possible themes will include temporality, alterity, language, history or technology. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 9 credits.
Study of the development of hermeneutic philosophy in works by Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur, as an effort toward coming to terms with the historicity of human experience. Implications for interpretive understanding of artworks, institutions, events, texts, and the human condition. Limited to three attempts.
An in-depth examination of selected environmental issues from a philosophical perspective. Such issues might include the value of nature, the moral status of animals, duties to protect wilderness areas, economics and environmental protection, environmental justice, and environmental aesthetics. Limited to three attempts.
This course will consider ethical questions that arise in global health policy, practice and research. Limited to three attempts.
Examines the philosophical implications of technology. Analyzes the relationship between technology and human beings and explores ethical issues raised by the uses of technology. Social, existential, human, post-human, ontological or political questions concerning technology will be explored through a variety of possible philosophical approaches and in relation to one or more kinds of technology. Topics will vary by section. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 6 credits.
A critical analysis of classical and contemporary theories of justice, with discussion of present-day applications, that develops an understanding of how philosophers approach questions related to justice, how they reach conclusions about justice within and outside of formal institutions, and how they argue for them. Examines questions about justice as a basic virtue of legal, political, and social institutions and invites students to critically examine their own views on controversies related to such issues as the distribution of economic resources, oppression, criminal justice reform, freedom, conflict, equality, democracy, and rights. Limited to three attempts.
A critical examination of a variety of different types of classical, modern, and contemporary ethical theories, including consequentialist theories, deontological theories, and virtue theories. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 6 credits.
Basic problems that arise from an inquiry into meaning and value of art and our response to art. Limited to three attempts.
Philosophical issues relating to competing methodologies for the social sciences. Analysis and critique of mainstream positivism and behaviorism; paradigm theory and scientific revolutions; interpretive understanding and hermeneutical science; phenomenology and the social construction of reality; ethnomethodology and situational meaning; analytic philosophy and action theory; the "idea" of a social science; sociology of knowledge and theory of ideology; and Western Marxism and critical theory. Limited to three attempts.
Examines issues at the intersection of ethics and economics. Looks at the different ways in which ethics and economics impact each other. Limited to three attempts.
In-depth examination of selected topics and debates in contemporary philosophy of science. Studies the aims and methodology of science through the work of key thinkers in the field. Questions of concern may include: the demarcation of science from pseudo-science; the rationality of scientific change; problems of induction, prediction and evidence; objectivity, values and scientific practice; the unity of science; and the relation between scientific knowledge and truth. Limited to three attempts.
Examines a range of philosophical issues arising from a close analysis of the conceptual foundations of the life sciences. Addresses fundamental questions pertaining to the nature of life and the structure of biological theories and explanations. Explores key concepts in the life sciences such as organism, gene, function, mechanism, and adaptation. Examines the relation of the life sciences to other disciplines and areas of inquiry. Limited to three attempts.
Discussion of basic problems concerning the nature of knowledge, with study of the relation of knowledge to perception, belief, and language. Limited to three attempts.
Investigation of such theories as dualism, behaviorism, and materialism as they pertain to some of the central philosophical questions about mind. Limited to three attempts.
Study of predicate calculi by means of a step-by-step construction of artificial languages. Topics include procedures for constructing a calculus, proof techniques, significant properties of predicate calculi, and procedures for recognizing phrases. Limited to three attempts.
Introduction to the theory of evolution and its philosophical foundations. Examines Darwin's theory of evolution as a scientific theory, considers its historical context and development, and surveys its wider cultural and societal impact. Focuses on the implications of Darwinism for core areas of philosophy (for example, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, or philosophy of mind) as well as for fields such as anthropology, sociology, politics, or religion. Limited to three attempts.
Examines the variety of ways time is conceptualized in different disciplines. Influential conceptions of time from the history of philosophy are studied in order to provide a comparative framework within which to consider specialist conceptions of time drawn from the sciences and humanities, including relativistic time, geological deep time, life cycles, and time in historical narrative. Limited to three attempts.
Examines topics of current interest such as death and dying, rights of children, and philosophical controversies in modern physics. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 12 credits.
Focuses on career choices and effective self-presentation for soon-to-be graduating students with majors in the humanities. Explores how skills typically learned In humanities majors can be leveraged for a successful transition to post-graduation employment. Equivalent to ENGH 303, FRLN 309, HIST 385, UNIV 420.
Study abroad under supervision of Mason faculty. Course topics, content and locations vary. Notes: A maximum of 6 credits may be applied to the BA in philosophy. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 12 credits.
Examines from a philosophical perspective descriptive and normative theories of individual decision, with particular focus on the strengths and weaknesses of theories of rational choice, and attempts to incorporate insights from psychology into theories of decision. Explores theoretical developments and a variety of applications. Limited to three attempts.
Explores topics in current philosophical research in a seminar format. Topics vary. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 18 credits.
Seminar for students enrolled in the honors program in philosophy. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 18 credits.
Independent study under supervision of faculty member. Students and faculty agree on program of study to include at least a reading list and final written project. Students must arrange for independent study in the semester before they wish to enroll. Requires approval of department. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 12 credits.
Examines key social and political issues drawing on a range of philosophical thinkers, texts and approaches. Possible topics include: migration and immigration, biopolitics, climate change, health inequity, decision theory, democracy and citizenship, slavery and reparations, mass incarceration, or human rights. Emphasizes the ability to put philosophical concepts and theories to work to address questions and problems of social, political or global significance. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 9 credits.
Integrates knowledge of ethical theories with ethical AI principles, ethical AI frameworks, and national strategies for ethical AI. Employs integrated knowledge to identify, analyze, and troubleshoot ethical issues in the research, design, development, deployment, and use of artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Applies computational and humanistic thinking to case studies so as to identify, select, use, and appraise several methods and tools related to ethical AI, thereby generating probable solutions to theoretical and practical problems. Students design and execute a hands-on collaborative project that explores an original question, seeks a creative solution to a problem, applies knowledge to a professional challenge, or offers a unique perspective. Students will present their project to a public audience. Limited to three attempts.
Covers issues in the philosophy, economics, and political science of institutions, information, and collective action. Through case studies of existing legal and political institutions, applies the insights to problems in politics, policy making, social-choice theory, and social, moral, and political philosophy. (Specific content varies). Notes: Serves as the capstone course for the PPE program. Equivalent to ECON 460, GOVT 469.
Exploration through lecture and discussion of recent developments in the Western tradition of political thought from the middle of the 19th century to today. Different sections focus on one or another of the various political theories that have been influential during this period such as liberal, libertarian, conservative, communitarian, Marxist, feminist, and postmodern thought. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. Equivalent to GOVT 327.
Examines topics of current interest such as death and dying, rights of children, and philosophical controversies in modern physics. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 12 credits.
Seminar for students enrolled in the honors program in philosophy. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 18 credits.
Graduate
Introduces MA students to the areas and methods of philosophical scholarship. Notes: Graduate students outside of the philosophy program may take this course with permission of the department. May not be repeated for credit.
Close study of Aristotle's work and its place and future in history of philosophy. Topics vary by semester and include Aristotle's metaphysics, natural sciences, ethics, political thought, logic, epistemology, and psychology. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 6 credits.
A study of the philosophy of Hegel through a reading of the text that presents an introduction to his system. Special attention is paid to Hegel's background in the work of Kant and the German Idealists. May not be repeated for credit.
In recent decades, the term "postmodern," first used by art critics in the late 19th century, has been taken up by prominent contributors to the arts, social thinkers, and philosophers, to describe developments as well as the current period. Examines three thematic concerns found in work that is identified with postmodern issues: what modernity defines itself in contrast to or against, the status of "man," and status of "subjectivity." May not be repeated for credit.
This major approach in philosophy is studied in regard to its basic features, the tasks to which it has been set by major contributors, certain findings of phenomenology in practice, as well as crucial problems that develop as phenomenology proceeds and how they are addressed by phenomenologists. May not be repeated for credit.
Explores themes, movements, and periods in the history of political theory. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 6 credits.
Examines history of Western ethical theory from ancient Greece to the present day, including virtue theory, consequentialism, deontological theory and contemporary feminism. May not be repeated for credit.
Explores the application of ethical theories and principles to issues in contemporary health care. Cases central to the development of the field will be examined. May not be repeated for credit.
An examination of human interactions with the natural environment from an ethical perspective. Emphasis will be placed on the strengths and weaknesses of various ethical theories and the different conceptions of the proper relationship between humans and their environment. May not be repeated for credit.
Examines the application of ethics in business and organizational settings, and the necessity for ethical development wihin organizational culture. May not be repeated for credit.
Examines how ethical theories, concepts, and principles shape research guidelines. Students learn to identify ethical issues in research, to reflect on them critically, and to respond effectively. Designed for students in the humanities, social sciences, life sciences, and health sciences. May not be repeated for credit.
Explores the nature of race by investigating the development of the concept of race and the implications of its use. Inquires into philosophical questions raised by race and racism; intersections of race with class, nationality, and gender; the role of philosophy in forming modern notions of race and the potential role of philosophy in addressing them with an eye to making our ways of thinking more just. May not be repeated for credit.
Analysis of the critique of patriarchy offered by contemporary continental feminist philosophers. Examines contemporary moral, political, and epistemological issues in feminist theory. May not be repeated for credit.
Examines major philosophical authors, texts, and topics of the ancient period and their influence on philosophical thought. May cover Plato, Aristotle, or the pre-Socratic philosophers. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 12 credits.
Examines major philosophical authors, texts, and topics of the early modern period and their influence on philosophical thought. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 12 credits.
Examines major recent philosophical authors, texts, and topics, and their influence on philosophical thought. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 6 credits.
Directed readings and research on a specific topic in philosophy chosen by student and instructor. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 12 credits.
Topics vary. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 9 credits.
Close study of selected topics in current philosophical discourse. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the term.
PHIL 799:
Thesis (1-6 Credits)
Develop research and write an original thesis under the direction of their thesis director. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 6 credits.
Close study of Aristotle's work and its place and future in history of philosophy. Topics vary by semester and include Aristotle's metaphysics, natural sciences, ethics, political thought, logic, epistemology, and psychology. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 6 credits.
Explores themes, movements, and periods in the history of political theory. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 6 credits.
Examines major philosophical authors, texts, and topics of the ancient period and their influence on philosophical thought. May cover Plato, Aristotle, or the pre-Socratic philosophers. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 12 credits.
Examines major philosophical authors, texts, and topics of the early modern period and their influence on philosophical thought. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 12 credits.
Examines major recent philosophical authors, texts, and topics, and their influence on philosophical thought. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 6 credits.
Topics vary. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 9 credits.
Close study of selected topics in current philosophical discourse. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the term.
