TRINITY UNIVERSITY

Philosophy Department

 

SPRING 2009
Upper Division Course Descriptions
 

PHIL 3320 Classical Greek Philosophy
Mr. Blinn Combs
MWF 1:30pm - 2:20pm
Chapman 045

A study of the major figures in ancient Greek philosophy from Thales to Aristotle, with a special focus on thinkers of the high classical period: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.
 

Prerequisite:  PHIL 1301 or 1354 or consent of instructor.
 

 

PHIL 3321 Hellenistic Philosophy
Mr. Blinn Combs
TR 3:35pm - 4.50pm
Chapman 040

A study of the dominant philosophical schools after the death of Aristotle - Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics - with some treatment of later developments, e.g., Neoplatonism.

 

Prerequisite:  PHIL 1301 or 1354 or consent of instructor.
 

 

PHIL 3322 Early Modern Philosophy
Dr. Curtis Brown
MW 2:30pm - 3:45pm
Chapman 045

A study of the classical modern philosophers, including the Rationalists; Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza; the Empiricists; Locke, Berkeley, and Hume; and the attempted synthesis of Kant.
 

Prerequisite: PHIL 1301 or 1354.
 

 

PHIL 3330 Metaphysics
Dr. Andrew Kania
M   04:30pm - 07:25pm
Chapman 104

A survey of traditional and contemporary philosophical issues about the nature of reality. Typical topics covered include some of the following: the mind-body problem, personal identity, free will and determinism, causation, time, fatalism, universals and particulars, essentialism, possible worlds.
 

Prerequisites: PHIL 1301 or 1354; and 3322.
 

 

PHIL 3338 Philosophy of Religion
(Also listed as RELI 3360)
Dr. Lawrence Kimmel
TR 02:10pm - 03:25pm
Chapman 235

A critical discussion of philosophical issues arising in religion and theology. Typical topics covered include: religious language, arguments for God’s existence, religious experience, miracles and revelation, the relationship of faith and reason, the nature of God, the problem of evil, death and immortality.

Prerequisite: PHIL 1301 or 1354, or 3 semester hours in the academic study of religion, or consent of instructor.

 

 

PHIL 3343 Non-Classical Logics
Dr. Curtis Brown
MWF 11:30am -12:20pm
Chapman 045

Extensions of, and alternatives to, classical logic. Possible topics include modal logic, intuitionist logic, many-valued logic, and fuzzy logic. Some attention to connections between these logics and topics in philosophy, computer science, and other areas
 

Prerequisite: PHIL 2340 or consent of instructor.

 

PHIL 3359 Biomedical Ethics
Dr. Steven Luper

TR 11:20pm - 2:35pm
Chapman 040

A study of ethical issues associated with the practice of medicine and the pursuit of biomedical research. Topics may include: physicians’ obligations and patients’ rights; experimentation on humans and animals; assisted suicide; euthanasia; abortion and parental rights; genetic engineering; and social justice and the right to health care.

Prerequisite: PHIL 1354.
 

 

PHIL 4391 Seminar
Philosophy of Literature
Dr. Lawrence Kimmel
*W Only 4:30 pm - 7:25 pm (Day & Time change 11/19/2008)
Chapman 045

 

Plato refers to “an ancient quarrel between philosophy and literature” and proceeds to build his own (and for the most part our) philosophy on this disjunction.  He might just have said fiction is false by definition so has no part in the search for truth. But his objection was different and deeper: that truth must be a product of rational discourse, and so excludes emotional expression and the engagement of passion, which is the domain of the arts.  In this seminar we will redirect the question and inquire into the ways literature is philosophical, and in turn the way in which passion may be central to deeper truths about human life.

In this course, we will address particular problems like the ‘paradox of fiction’ (what factive and fictive discourse share, and what sense it makes to speak of fictive reality.)  Why it is that human beings seek out and relish discourse which provokes terror and pity.  What gives different genres of literature different kinds of access to human understanding?  Why tragic drama reaches a deeper recess of meaning than lyric poetry, etc. 

We will read both classical and modern, analytic and continental, texts on the relation of philosophy and literature, as well as analyze detail of the literature itself.

Prerequisite: 6 upper-division hours or consent of instructor.