Student Information
Course Descriptions
101 -- Introduction to Philosophy
5 Credit Hours, Offered in: AUInstructor: Kraut.1
Most of us make fundamental assumptions about the world, assumptions which we rarely question or even reflect upon. We might assume, for example, that there exists an all powerful God who created the universe and who keeps an eye on us; or that people are very different from other animals or machines, since people have minds with which to think; or that some actions (like helping others) are right, whereas others actions (like inflicting pain unnecessarily) are wrong; or that science tells us the way the world really is, or that we can freely choose to do certain things. Maybe such assumptions are justified; maybe they aren't. We'll find out. Requirements: two mid-term exams, cumulative final exam, and several short written assignments.
101 -- Introduction to Philosophy
5 Credit Hours, Offered in: AUInstructor: schroeder.404
Philosophy is a big subject, and a quarter isn't a long time. So this course will focus on introducing you to how philosophy is done as much as on introducing you to the ideas that are important in philosophy. We will be reading a brilliant book by Aristotle -- the Nicomachean Ethics -- and using it as a jumping-off point to talk about courage, justice, knowledge, friendship, and other philosophical topics. Class will be a mix of lecture and discussion.
101 -- Introduction to Philosophy
5 Credit Hours, Offered in: SUInstructor: silverman.3
Philosophy is the "The Love of Wisdom." What does that mean and why would one fall in love with wisdom? The course will focus on the nature of philosophical inquiry, covering the three broad domains of Philosophy, Ethics, Metaphysics and Theory of Knowledge. Primary texts will include
130 -- Introduction to Ethics
5 Credit Hours, Offered in: AUInstructor: hubin.1
It is often claimed that ethics depends on religion. We will begin the course by examining this idea. We will then turn to the question of whether our moral judgments are relative in a way that other judgments we make are not. Some have thought that this conclusion is the only alternative to a religiously-based moral theory. Next, we will consider and evaluate two fundamentally opposed approaches to understanding morality: consequentialism and deontology. We will employ these moral theories in examining a number of socially important moral issues, such as the moral status of nonhuman animals, the permissibility of abortion and euthanasia, the moral basis of individual liberty and the limitations of such liberty, and the issues of race and gender equality and affirmative action. The examination of the abstract moral theories will provide a foundation for addressing the issues in applied ethics which will elevate the latter discussions from the level of just "trading intuitions". The examination of the practical issues will make the moral theories discussed more concrete and provide a basis for evaluating them.
Requirements include midterm and final exams and two short papers (2-3 pages each).
240 -- Philosophical Problems in the Arts
5 Credit Hours, Offered in: AUInstructor: brown.68
The questions in this course range from very general ones that cover all the arts to very specific ones that pertain to specific art forms. Sample issues to be addressed: Why are movies such a powerful art form? Can something be a work of art simply by being called "art"? Is there an important distinction popular art and "fine" art? Can art give a true picture of reality? Is there any real way to tell the difference between good and bad art? Can white people really do justice to black music? Should pornography be criminalized? Text is Aesthetics: A Reader in Philosophy of the Arts, ed. David Goldblatt and Lee Brown (Prentice-Hall), second edition and John Berger's Ways of Seeing (Penguin). Films and/or videos will supplement readings. Requirements: one quiz, three midterms, and a final examination.
240 -- Introduction to the Philosophy of Art
5 Credit Hours, Offered in: SUInstructor: kraut.1
The goal is to understand and assess various traditional and contemporary views about the nature and function of art. Here are some questions to be considered: Can aesthetic values be objective? Is art criticism more than an expression of individual aesthetic preference? What is the difference between creative innovation and fraudulence? Is there such a thing as "the right way to feel" in response to an artwork, or the "correct interpretation" of a text or painting? Can art be understood in isolation from the cultural, economic, and political details of the social context in which it is produced? Is art primarily a vehicle for the expression of emotion? If a "theory" of art is even possible, how is it relevant to the creation and/or appreciation of art? In thinking about these questions, we will try to remain focused on the realities of music, painting, film, and other art forms. Therefore, it would be helpful if students had some knowledge of art history, and/or working familiarity with some contemporary art form. Requirements: two mid-terms, cumulative final, two 4-5 page papers, and participation in class discussion.
250 -- Symbolic Logic
5 Credit Hours, Offered in: AUInstructor: caplan.16
In this course, we will address the question of what counts as good reasoning. We will do this by (i) learning how to translate natural language sentences into sentences in a formal language, (ii) learning the semantics for the formal language, and (iii) learning how to do proofs in that language. Although we won't prove meta-logical results about the relation
between the semantics and the proofs, we will state and discuss such results.
250 -- Symbolic Logic
5 Credit Hours, Offered in: SUInstructor: kraut.1
Ordinary physical objects have a basic structure; various natural sciences (physics, chemistry, etc.) help us understand this basic structure, thus enabling us to deal with the physical world more effectively. Analogously: ordinary language and ordinary arguments have a basic structure; part of the role of symbolic logic is to help us understand this basic structure, thus enabling us to argue and reason more effectively. In this course, we will develop a theory of valid argumentation adequate to handle all deductive reasoning found in science, mathematics, and in most other disciplines. Along the way, we will reflect upon such notions as logical truth, logical form, the nature of language, valid deductive arguments, etc. The student should emerge from this course more sensitive to the structure of deductive arguments, and better equipped to evaluate them. There will be three one-hour exams, plus a cumulative final. TEXT: E.J. Lemmon, Beginning Logic.
270 -- Introduction to Philosophy of Religion
5 Credit Hours, Offered in: AUInstructor: brown.2703
Should we believe in God? Certainly many people have believed, but were they making some kind of a mistake? Does it even make sense to talk about a supreme being? If it does, do we have any substantial evidence for the existence of such a thing? What should we make of the claim that miracles have occurred, or that people have directly experienced God? When, if ever, is it rational to have faith? If God does exist, why does he allow so many horrible things to happen? And besides, in this scientific day and age, isn't it simply retrogressive to believe in supernatural things? These are the main questions that will occupy our attention in this class. Although we will occasionally investigate the historical background of these topics, our focus will be on current work in the philosophy of religion. The dispute between theists and atheists is as lively as ever. Let's see why.
301 -- History of Ancient Philosophy
5 Credit Hours, Offered in: AUInstructor: rudavsky.1
Is Western philosophy nothing but a footnote to Plato? In what ways have ancient thinkers influenced the content of subsequent philosophy? In this course we shall examine the works of the major Greek philosophers in an attempt to understand both their own theories as well as their contributions to modern philosophy.
302 -- History of Medieval philosophy
5 Credit Hours, Offered in: AUInstructor: sanson.7
This course is a survey of the history of philosophy from Augustine (b. 354 CE) to the 14th century. We will read primary texts by such figures as Augustine, Philoponus, Boethius, Ghazali, Averroes, Avicenna, Anselm, Abelard, Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham. The course will be structured around three interconnected topics: creation; the soul; free will. These topics will take us into a cluster of fundamental issues in metaphysics epistemology, philosophy of mind, and ethics. Requirements will most likely include two papers and an exam.
304 -- History of 18th-Century Philosophy
5 Credit Hours, Offered in: AUInstructor: shabel.1
This course will focus on the ideas of three major philosophers of the Eighteenth Century: Leibniz, Hume, and Kant. Topics to be discussed include causation, substance, the nature of mind, and the possibility of knowledge, as well as the historical connections among the ideas of the three thinkers. Course requirements are likely to include three exams.
431 -- Ethical Theory
5 Credit Hours, Offered in: AUInstructor: farrell.4
A study of five major moral theories, from original texts, with an emphasis on understanding them and then assessing their merits and demerits as systematic accounts of the nature of morality. Requirements will include three short (five-page) papers, a small-group class presentation, and a mid-term and final exam.
465 -- Philosophy of Action
5 Credit Hours, Offered in: AUInstructor: roth.263
Selected topics from the philosophy of action and related areas including practical rationality, moral psychology, and the metaphysics of free will. Specific issues that may be explored include reasons and the explanation of action, weakness of the will, self-knowledge in action, intentions, shared agency, motivation, and the status of principles of practical reason.
601.02 -- Aristotle and His Critics
5 Credit Hours, Offered in: AUInstructor: Rudavsky.1
This course will focus on several issues in the works of Aristotle and his medieval commentators. Topics may include: the problem of free will and future contingents; creation of the world vs. eternity of the world; immortality of the soul; infinity and continuity; happiness and living the good life. In each of these cases, we will first read what Aristotle has to say about the topic in question, and then turn to selected critiques of the Aristotle texts in medieval philosophy, drawing from the Jewish, Christian and Islamic philosophical traditions. All readings will be in English. Students should have taken at least one course in ancient or medieval philosophy.
REQUIREMENTS: Substantial term paper (12-15pp) and take-home final exam.
603 -- Studies in the 17th Century Philosophy
5 Credit Hours, Offered in: AUInstructor: hartz.1
This will be an intensive examination of Leibniz's metaphysics, centered around some main texts in Leibniz: Philosophical Essays (ed. Ariew and Garber, Hackett). Emphasis will be placed on understanding Leibniz's position or positions on such topics as substance, mereology, simples, composites, aggregates, phenomena, animals, space, time, and causation. Two exams and one 6-8 page paper will be used to assess your performance.
667 -- Advanced Philosophy of Mind
5 Credit Hours, Offered in: AUInstructor: wu.572
We will study color and the perception of color. If time, we will also study pain and the experience of pain. Both pain and color are puzzling in that they seem to be dependent on the perceiver, yet we are also inclined to think of them as objective properties of things. Requirements: class participation, argument analysis for each lecture, two 7-10 page papers.
672 -- Philosophy of Literature
5 Credit Hours, Offered in: AUInstructor: schroeder.404
Literature is full of fascinating characters who make vivid just how complicated the moral world is. Shakespeare's Hamlet, for instance, is responsible in one way or another for seven deaths. Is he blameworthy for all of them? Is he more blameworthy for Ophelia's death or Polonius's? Are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern just getting what they deserve? These are questions that we can try to answer before we have done any philosophy, but which we can do a better job of answering with philosophy's help. In this course, we will read Hamlet and several other literary works by more contemporary authors, and try to think the best thoughts we can about the ideas they raise regarding such things as blame and praise, love, guilt, honesty, and freedom. To help us along the way, we will also read philosophical work on these topics by Aristotle, Kant, Strawson,
830 -- Seminar in Value Theory
5 Credit Hours, Offered in: SUInstructor: farrell.4
A research seminar in which we'll look at and appraise some of the moral principles for warfare in traditional "just war" theory, relative to a discussion of recent real-world issues like "preventive war," torture, and deliberate harm to the innocent in an allegedly just cause. Requirements will include a series of short papers reacting to recent literature on some of these topics, a seminar presentation, and a final research paper.
H101A -- Honors Introduction to Philosophy
5 Credit Hours, Offered in: AUInstructor: lee.2014
In this course, we will introduce ourselves to the art of philosophy. We will aim to learn how to articulate one's views about a philosophical issue and defend this view by providing good arguments. Some examples of the topics we will be dealing with are: skepticism about the external world, the mind in a physical world, the problem of evil, and the nature of values.
H101A -- Introduction to Philosophy
5 Credit Hours, Offered in: AUInstructor: shabel.1
In this course, we will begin the study of philosophy by carefully examining several classic philosophical texts. We will read these texts in an attempt to understand the positions that some great philosophers take on a variety of philosophical issues, including the nature of human knowledge, the relation of mind and body, the possibility of immortality, and the value of reflection. More generally, we will develop our skills as critical readers and writers, seeking to interpret, analyze, and evaluate philosophical arguments. We might on occasion use contemporary films to illustrate the philosophical ideas under discussion.
H101A -- Honors Introduction to Philosophy
5 Credit Hours, Offered in: AUInstructor: shapiro.4@osu.edu
This course will cover some basic philosophical issues, using primary texts. We will begin with the nature of morality and justice, through Plato's Apology, Euthyphro, and Republic. This will be followed with a discussion of the nature and extent of Knowledge, through David Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, and then with issues concerning the nature of society through John Stuart Mill's classic On Liberty. Evaluations will be through a series of short essays and an all-essay final examination.
