All courses emphasize close reading, conceptual analysis, argument construction, and engagement with diverse philosophical traditions.

• [PHIL 100] Logic: An investigation of the formal structure of reasoning and the logical relationships that underlie good arguments. Many college courses explore and investigate the reasons to take something to be so; logic explores the correctness or strength of reasoning itself. This course will have a particular emphasis on the major historical methods for symbolically representing and analyzing deductive arguments: Aristotelian logic, propositional logic, and predicate logic. Some attention may also be paid to informal logical fallacies.
• [PHIL 200] Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy: An examination of the origins of philosophical reflection in Greek myth, where human self-knowledge emerges from narratives about the gods. This course traces themes of being and becoming, thought and experience, and cyclical time through pre-Socratic philosophers like Thales, Heraclitus, and Parmenides to Plato and Aristotle. Many of these thinkers are keenly attuned to the ways in which human thinking and action are embodied social processes that require an interdependence between agents and their social contexts. Finally, we examine some major Roman philosophical responses to these themes, like epicureanism, stoicism, and skepticism, where the seeds of many subsequent Christian and modern conceptions of subjectivity and individualism are sown.
• [PHIL 221] Biomedical Ethics: An examination of ethical questions related to medical practice and biomedical research. Special emphasis on issues such as abortion, reproductive technologies, euthanasia, autonomy in medical decision-making, research on animal and human subjects, and allocation of scarce medical resources.
• [PHIL 234] Existentialism: An exploration of questions concerning the meaning of human existence in conversation with a group of 19th- and 20th-century thinkers in revolt against traditional philosophy. From Kierkegaard and Nietzsche to Sartre, Beauvoir, and Camus, the existentialists posed such questions as: What kind of existence is most meaningful? If God is dead, does existence lose its meaning? Is there such a thing as authentic existence, and if so, what does it involve? Is the course of our lives determined by our character and situation, or are we defined by our choices? What is the best way to respond to the absurdity of our existence? We will join the existentialists in considering these questions and a number of related themes, such as anxiety, death, and nothingness.
• [PHIL 243] Theories of Law and Justice: Examination of the concept of law and the concept of justice, with a particular focus on 20th and 21st century philosophical theories of each concept, as well as critical contemporary discussions of those theories.