Philosophy

This course is an introduction to the basic concepts of philosophy. The literary and conceptual approach of the course is balanced with emphasis on approaches to critical thinking. Major philosophical ideas are discussed within historical and global contexts.

This course is an introduction to the basic concepts of critical thinking with a focus on effective decision making and practical reasoning skills. The central goal of this course is to empower students to think more clearly and analytically about their beliefs and to be more effective in arguing for well-reasoned conclusions and solutions. Students will critically interpret, synthesize, analyze and evaluate information and language use for formal and informal fallacies, argument forms, deductive and inductive logic, and other methods of argument evaluation. Students will be expected to recognize and avoid common barriers to critical thinking as well as apply the ideas of the course to real-world issues.

This course involves the study of ethical issues which confront individuals in contemporary society. The focus is on meta-ethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics.  The student should be able to understand and be prepared to use moral reasoning in making decisions regarding ethical issues.

This course seeks to increase the ability of students to analyze problems, comprehend information, and make decisions based on critical thought processes. This course will also serve as a training opportunity for students who will compete in the intercollegiate Ethics Bowl competition. The Ethics Bowl is a debate-style competition where teams of students from colleges and universities present arguments they develop related to applied ethics cases distributed in early September by the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics.