Critical Thinking Minor

Traditional syllogistic logic and an introduction to the elements of modern symbolic logic.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-02, GE-04

This course explores what makes reasoning scientific as distinguished from non-scientific. Issues are inductive reasoning, causal reasoning, fallacies, hypothetico-deductive reasoning, falsifiability, and scientific knowledge.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-02, GE-04

Introduction to the basic principles of chemistry including atomic and molecular structure, bonding, chemical reactions, stoichiometry, thermodynamics and states of matter. Laboratory will reinforce lecture concepts. Prereq: C or higher in MATH 112 or the equivalent; high school chemistry or C or higher in CHEM 104

Prerequisites: “C” (2.0) or higher in MATH 112 or the equivalent; high school chemistry or “C” (2.0) or higher in CHEM 104.

Goal Areas: GE-02, GE-03

This course considers historical and contemporary analyses of the mind in relation to the body and the connection of the mind-body problem to other issues concerning both religion and science.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06

Theories of knowledge and justification, skeptical attacks on the possibility of knowledge, and anti-skeptical defenses.

Prerequisites: none

An investigation of the most fundamental concepts of reality, including the nature of things, identity over time, modality, causation, free will, space and time, and universals and particulars.

Prerequisites: none

The nature of consciousness, mind and body relations, freedom of action.

Prerequisites: none

This course examines the conceptual and philosophical complexities of efforts to understand the mind in science. Topics include the difference and similarities between humans and other animals, the nature of psychological explanation, and reductive strategies for explaining consciousness, intentionality and language. Fall

Prerequisites: none

Cognitive and epistemic issues surrounding sensory perception, including the nature of perception, its immediate objects, and its ability to deliver knowledge of the world.

Prerequisites: none

Philosophical issues concerning the mental lives of non-human animals, with emphasis on consciousness, rationality, language, and implications for non-human animal ethics.

Prerequisites: none

Nature of explanations, causality, theoretical entities, and selected problems.

Prerequisites: none

This course examines conceptual and philosophical issues in biology, the nature and scope of biological explanation and conflicts between evolutionary and religious explanations for the origin of life.

Prerequisites: none

This course is divided into two sections. First, the class explores ethical parameters involved in communication from a variety of social and cultural perspectives. Second, the class investigates current standards and issues involving freedom of speech.

Prerequisites: none

Courses will explore literary representations of, and literary contributions made by, under-represented peoples. Students will develop critical thinking, reading, and writing skills, and increased appreciation of the diversity of human experience. Potential topics include: Multi-Ethnic Literature, Literature and Disability. May be repeated as topics change.

Prerequisites: ENG 101 

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-07

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Courses will introduce students to works of literature from a variety of world cultures. Designed to increase knowledge of world cultures and appreciation and understanding of cultural differences in representation, and in seeing, believing, and being. Emphasizes critical thinking, reading, and writing. May be repeated with different topics.

Prerequisites: ENG 101 

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-08

Courses will focus on some characteristic ways in which literature addresses and explores the ethical dimensions of human society and the relationships between works and their cultural contexts. Emphasizes critical thinking, reading and writing. May be repeated as topics change.

Prerequisites: ENG 101 

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-09

Topics on themes, issues, and developments in genres of the literatures of the world. Content changes. May be repeated.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Purple

A study of selected novels from a variety of time periods and cultures, including Eastern and Western Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Prerequisites: none

This writing-intensive course surveys the earliest Native American literary works, from oral tradition and songs to contemporary works and authors, with a particular emphasis on tribal and cultural contexts that identify these works as Native American.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Purple

This course surveys the origins and development of Chicana/o and Latina/o literature, from oral narratives, early poetry, and narrative fiction and memoirs, through the Chicano Movement and the emergence of Chicana/o literature and drama. The course also examines contemporary Chicana/o and Latina/o narrative fiction, including issues related to im/migration, the urban experience, Chicana/o and Latina/o subjectivity, and the reappropriation and reinterpretation of myths, legends, and cultural figures in transnational context.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Purple

This writing-intensive course surveys the earliest African American literary works, including slave narratives, poetry, folklore, and oration, through 20th century movements such as the Jazz Age, Harlem Renaissance, and Black Arts Movement of the 1960s, to contemporary works and authors.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Theories of literature and its production and use. Prereq: 6 semester credits in literature.

Prerequisites: 6 semester credits in literature 

Nature, functions, responsibilities and effects of the media in contemporary society.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-09

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Exploration of the basic principles of visual media design, stressing the significance of images in a mass media society. Special focus on contextualizing historial and technological changes affecting image production for mass media.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-07

Diverse Cultures: Purple

The course provides explanations and analysis of the historical evolution of American mass communication from the colonial period of the 1600s to the present. Students will study media history within the broader contexts of American social and cultural history. Developing a deeper understanding of how mass media evolved will lead to a deeper and more effective comprehension of the roles and effects of mass communication in today's society.

Prerequisites: none

This course explores what makes reasoning scientific as distinguished from non-scientific. Issues are inductive reasoning, causal reasoning, fallacies, hypothetico-deductive reasoning, falsifiability, and scientific knowledge.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-02, GE-04

To what extent do the differences among races and between genders represent biological differences, and to what extent are they constructed by society? Is racism best conceptualized as an additional burden to sexism or as one different in kind?

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-07

Discussion of theories of value and obligation.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-09

Discussion of the ways that a culture both creates human community and shapes self-identity. Exploration of similarities and differences between and interdependence among cultural traditions, and of vocabularies for assessing traditions.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-08

Critical discussion of the topics chosen from the Asian philosophical traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Structure and logic of religious belief. Problems such as the existence of God, evil, immortality, miracles, and religious language.

Prerequisites: none

In-depth analysis of major European existentialists such as Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Sartre.

Prerequisites: none

Aesthetic principles, theories, and the creative process. Theories of visual arts, music, literature, dance, etc.

Prerequisites: none

This course investigates some of the central philosophical issues in our thinking about film, including questions about narrative, ontology, ethical criticism of film, the role of artistic intentions in interpretation, artistic medium, and the art/entertainment distinction.

Prerequisites: none

Cognitive and epistemic issues surrounding sensory perception, including the nature of perception, its immediate objects, and its ability to deliver knowledge of the world.

Prerequisites: none

Examines the nature and methods of alternative strategies of theory construction in the social sciences and the metaphysical and epistemological assumptions and implications of such strategies. For example can people, their behavior and norms of rationality be understood in naturalistic terms or must they be understood only in culturally local terms.

Prerequisites: none

To what extent do the differences among races and between genders represent biological differences, and to what extent are they constructed by society? Is racism best conceptualized as an additional burden to sexism or as one different in kind?

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-07

Discussion of the ways that a culture both creates human community and shapes self-identity. Exploration of similarities and differences between and interdependence among cultural traditions, and of vocabularies for assessing traditions.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-08

Consideration of the basic philosophical approaches to the idea of justice and how this idea relates to other fundamental ideas in political philosophy, ethics, and law.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-09

Human rights and responsibilities in relation to the organization of society and government.

Prerequisites: none

Topics in normative, meta-ethical and applied ethical theory.

Prerequisites: Select one course: PHIL 120W, PHIL 222W, PHIL 224W, or PHIL 226W

Theories of knowledge and justification, skeptical attacks on the possibility of knowledge, and anti-skeptical defenses.

Prerequisites: none

Discussion of philosophical issues in law by way of connecting legal problems to well-developed and traditional problems in philosophy, e.g., in ethics, political philosophy, and epistemology, and investigates the philosophical underpinnings of the development of law. The course takes an analytical approach to law (as opposed to historical sociological, political, or legalistic approaches) and devotes a substantial part of the semester to a major work on law written by a philosopher.

Prerequisites: none

In-depth analysis of major European existentialists such as Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Sartre.

Prerequisites: none

Cognitive and epistemic issues surrounding sensory perception, including the nature of perception, its immediate objects, and its ability to deliver knowledge of the world.

Prerequisites: none

Examines the nature and methods of alternative strategies of theory construction in the social sciences and the metaphysical and epistemological assumptions and implications of such strategies. For example can people, their behavior and norms of rationality be understood in naturalistic terms or must they be understood only in culturally local terms.

Prerequisites: none

Introduces students to major issues in society that impact their lives, behaviors, and the way they think. Course requires student to critically address controversial and non-controversial issues through clear argumentations, intensive writings, research and presentations.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-02

A fresh look at the city, with emphasis on the reasons why cities have grown and how people can make cities livable.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05, GE-08

This course will identify and analyze global social, economic, political and environmental problems impacting community viability and explore the full range of solutions to these problems. The course will view communities as complex, sustainable organisms and bring together the works of the great minds working on sustainability.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05, GE-10

The history of Greece and Rome stressing political, social and economic institutions and cultural and intellectual achievements.

Prerequisites: none

European history from the later Middle Ages to the end of the Thirty Years' War (c. 1300-1648). Students will examine the intellectual, religious, and cultural developments in Western-Europe, with special attention given to social life and popular culture.

Prerequisites: none

The history of Europe from the Treaty of Westphalia to the eve of the French Revolution (1648-1789). Course emphasizes absolutism and constitutionalism, the construction of European empires, the scientific revolution and Enlightenment, and social and economic changes.

Prerequisites: none

A comparative history of the rise of the Chinese and Japanese nations from 1945 to the present.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Purple

This course will discuss the social, economic, and political issues from the rise of Jackson through the beginning of the Civil War. Major issues to be covered include: Jacksonian Democracy, Industrialization, Reform, Westward Expansion, Slavery, and the 1850's.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Social, political and foreign affairs since World War II.

Prerequisites: none

An examination of the major factors influencing U.S. diplomacy since 1900. Students will examine how influential policy makers defined their diplomatic goals, and how both domestic and external factors have contributed to America's reaction to wars and revolutions around the world.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Purple

This course examines U.S. constitutional history from its English foundations to 1896. Students will read and analyze court decisions and discuss how legal history reflects American society, culture, politics, and economics during this period.

Prerequisites: none

This course examines U.S. constitutional history from 1896 to the present. Students will read and analyze court decisions and discuss how legal history reflects American society, culture, politics, and economics during this period.

Prerequisites: none

This course will examine the Vietnam War. Students will discover how and why the U.S. became involved in Vietnam, examine the specific problems faced by American diplomats and military officials, and how the war affected American society.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Purple

The course provides explanations and analysis of the historical evolution of American mass communication from the colonial period of the 1600s to the present. Students will study media history within the broader contexts of American social and cultural history. Developing a deeper understanding of how mass media evolved will lead to a deeper and more effective comprehension of the roles and effects of mass communication in today's society.

Prerequisites: none

Survey of Asian philosophical traditions of Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-08

Diverse Cultures: Purple

This course will introduce students to important texts in moral and social philosophy that provide the foundation for modern economics. In addition, we will discuss philosophical accounts of rationality, well being, and freedom and their relevance to economic analysis.

Prerequisites: none

Philosophers of Ancient Greece, Rome and the early middle ages: The presocratics, Plato, Aristotle, Hellenistic and Roman philosophers, St. Augustine.

Prerequisites: none

Late Medieval Philosophy and its influence on the Renaissance, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz and Continental Rationalism, Locke, Berkeley, Hume and British Empiricism, and Kant.

Prerequisites: none

Philosophers and philosophies of the 19th century.

Prerequisites: none

Critical discussion of the topics chosen from the Asian philosophical traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism.

Prerequisites: none

Diverse Cultures: Purple

Major philosophers and philosophies of the late 20th Century.

Prerequisites: none

Discussion of philosophical issues in law by way of connecting legal problems to well-developed and traditional problems in philosophy, e.g., in ethics, political philosophy, and epistemology, and investigates the philosophical underpinnings of the development of law. The course takes an analytical approach to law (as opposed to historical sociological, political, or legalistic approaches) and devotes a substantial part of the semester to a major work on law written by a philosopher.

Prerequisites: none

Examines the nature and methods of alternative strategies of theory construction in the social sciences and the metaphysical and epistemological assumptions and implications of such strategies. For example can people, their behavior and norms of rationality be understood in naturalistic terms or must they be understood only in culturally local terms.

Prerequisites: none

Discussion of theories of value and obligation.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-09

Ethical perspectives relevant to issues such as euthanasia, genetic engineering, organ transplant, patients' rights, abortion, etc.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-09

Introduction to ethical theories and concepts and their application to specific cases in the world of business.V

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-06, GE-09

Questions about human responsibilities to other animals and the environment gain urgency as environmental crises become more prevalent, and animal species continue to be eliminated. Learn about, critique, and apply the principles underlying evaluations of human environmental conduct.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-09, GE-10

Human rights and responsibilities in relation to the organization of society and government.

Prerequisites: none

Topics in normative, meta-ethical and applied ethical theory.

Prerequisites: Select one course: PHIL 120W, PHIL 222W, PHIL 224W, or PHIL 226W

This course will introduce students to important texts in moral and social philosophy that provide the foundation for modern economics. In addition, we will discuss philosophical accounts of rationality, well being, and freedom and their relevance to economic analysis.

Prerequisites: none

Discussion of philosophical issues in law by way of connecting legal problems to well-developed and traditional problems in philosophy, e.g., in ethics, political philosophy, and epistemology, and investigates the philosophical underpinnings of the development of law. The course takes an analytical approach to law (as opposed to historical sociological, political, or legalistic approaches) and devotes a substantial part of the semester to a major work on law written by a philosopher.

Prerequisites: none

A fresh look at the city, with emphasis on the reasons why cities have grown and how people can make cities livable.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05, GE-08

This course will identify and analyze global social, economic, political and environmental problems impacting community viability and explore the full range of solutions to these problems. The course will view communities as complex, sustainable organisms and bring together the works of the great minds working on sustainability.

Prerequisites: none

Goal Areas: GE-05, GE-10