Philosophy Elective Courses
PHIL 300s TITLES AND DESCRIPTIONS: FALL 2026
Bioethics
Moral issues arising in health care delivery, including social policy as well as clinical problems.
Dr. Dwyer, PHIL 329 01, MWF 11-11:50, 90467
Liberalism
This semester we will be talking about political theories of liberalism or, in other words, what politics looks like if we start from the assumption that human beings are naturally free. Our conversations will be framed around some of the basic questions that arise in liberalism: How can political authority be legitimate if we are born free from such authority? What limits on authority are necessary, given our freedom? What can political communities legitimately ask of their individual members, and what can individual members legitimately ask of their political communities? How valuable, and how dangerous, is individuality?
PHIL 336 01, Dr. Brady, MWF 9-9:50, 96928
Liberalism
In this course we will examine the emergence of liberalism as a revolutionary, political, economic, and philosophical tradition. Our aim will be to see how an understanding of liberalism as a philosophical tradition is shaped by economic, political, and revolutionary crises and experiences. We will examine the writings of proto-liberals (Thomas Hobbes and John Locke), the relationship of liberalism to the French Revolution (Edmund Burke, Mary Wollstonecraft, Thomas Paine), the connection of liberalism to the emergence of capitalism and debates about trade (Adam Smith, David Hume, Benjamin Constant), as well as libertarian, left-liberal, and republican interpretations of liberalism in the 20th and 21st century (Friedrich Hayek, John Rawls, and Phillip Pettit).
PHIL 336 02, Dr. Gottlieb, MWF 12-12:50, 95813
Medieval Political Philosophy
We will examine selections from the four principal political philosophers of the Middle Ages, namely, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, William of Ockham, and Marsilius of Padua. We will focus on two historical aspects in medieval political philosophy. First, what we call today "church" and "state" were not two separate entities in the Middle Ages; rather, church (sacerdotium) and state (regnum) were two parts of a single entity--Christendom. Thus, how did each of these philosophers understand the relationship between church and state? Secondly, the separation of church and state, which was first proposed in the Middle Ages, was accompanied by a separation of law (lex) from natural right (ius) and a tendency to root political life in artifice and will rather than in nature and reason. Thus, how did each of these political philosophers understand law and its relation to ethics and human nature?
Dr. Sweeney, PHIL 363 01, MWF 10-10:50, 96802
Topics in Ancient Philosophy: Psychological Care and Human Flourishing
This course traces the evolution of the concept of the soul in Ancient Greek thought, highlighting how different conceptions of human psychology led to different models of psychological care and flourishing. These ancient approaches to the care of the soul represent early therapeutic frameworks shaped by distinct conceptions of psychological health and wellbeing. We will focus on three contexts: Homer and the multiple soul; Plato, Aristotle, and the harmonized soul; Epicureans, Stoics, and the unified soul.
Dr. Tsalla, PHIL 384 01, TR 2:30-3:45, 93484