A philosophical inquiry into the nature of beauty and its occasions, both natural and artificial.

This course is a seminar devoted to an examination of a sampling of the great works of the existentialist Tradition from Kierkegaard to Camus. The main work of the course is a careful reading and discussion of the primary texts.

An inquiry into the nature, method, and significance of scientific knowledge.

This course is a systematic study of the rational principles of moral behavior and philosophical methods of making moral decisions with special emphasis on the philosophical basis of the dignity of the human person. Our aim is to provide an understanding of the types of moral behavior that come into question in human life, and within Nursing in particular, on the basis of natural reason alone without the aid of revelation. We will study traditional philosophical views on the basis of morality such as Virtue Ethics, Natural Law Theory, Utilitarianism, and Kantian Deontological Ethics. We will learn basic methods of moral reasoning in applying the principles of these theories to specific issues and problems that arise in Nursing. We will also consider the philosophical basis of human dignity, the nature of human suffering, and the ethical requirements of care.

GBS 66: Late Modern Great Books
A seminar on the Great Books of Western Civilization from about 1780 to 1900.

Ph 467 Preceptorial on Camus and Dostoevsky
A seminar that traces the influence of Dostoevsky on Camus and the central arguments and themes of their thought by examining parallel selections from their major works: We will read The Plague by Camus with "Rebellion" from the Brothers Karamazov; The Rebel by Camus with “The Grand Inquisitor”; The Fall by Camus withNotes from the Underground; The Myth of Sisyphus by Camus with Kirilov's suicide in The Possessed; and The Stranger with selections from Crime and Punishment.

PH 338
Contemporary Images of Man in Fantasy Novels

This course examines the Postmodern situation and the nature of the Human Person in four popular sets of Fantasy Novels. We reveal how we see the limitations contemporary life, man’s place, and the nature of good and evil, by how we alter those limitations in stories that alter the fundamental metaphysical and moral features of our world. We will consider two sets of novels influenced by World War II: Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings and C.S. Lewis’s Narnia series, and contrast them with two recent series: Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling and The Golden Compass series by Philip Pullman. The course will examine what we think of the real, its metaphysics and moral structure, by how we conceive the unreal.

Independent Study on Dostoevsky