Philosophy Courses | 2024-2025 Graduate Catalog | SIU

(Same as POLS 405) An examination of various aspects of democratic thought, including the liberal tradition and its impact upon the United States. Fulfills the CoLA Writing-Across-the-Curriculum (WAC) requirement. Prerequisite: POLS 114 or consent of instructor.

Credit Hours: 3

(Same as LING 410) A survey and introduction to theories on the nature of "truth" and "meaning" and their relationship to natural language. Potential topics include: reference, definite descriptions, externalism, modality and possible worlds.

Credit Hours: 3

(Same as SOC 415) An examination of the theoretical structure and nature of the social sciences and their epistemological foundations. The relationship of social theory to social criticism; theory and praxis. Historical experience and social objectivity. Social theory as practical knowledge.

Credit Hours: 3

An exploration of historical and philosophical perspectives on the theories, methods, practices, and institutions of the sciences, including the natural and social sciences, mathematics, medicine, and engineering. Topics may include the nature of the scientific process and scientific method, the origins and historical development of the sciences, theory change, experiments, models, objectivity, scientific realism, and the role of values in science.

Credit Hours: 3

This course focuses on African, Caribbean, and Latin American philosophers who have and continue to contribute to the development of post-colonial philosophy. In this class we will examine how post-colonial thinkers challenge and rework some of the main areas of philosophy, such as epistemology, political philosophy, ethics, philosophy of language, etc., by decentering the colonial assumptions that underpin these areas and their development. This class explores what this decentering means, not only for postcolonial theory, but also for how we think of race, class, gender and other forms of oppression and liberation, globally. Restricted to junior standing.

Credit Hours: 3

(Same as JRNL 434) Explores the moral environment of the mass media and the ethical problems that confront media practitioners. Models of ethical decision-making and moral philosophy are introduced to encourage students to think critically about the mass media and their roles in modern society.

Credit Hours: 3

This class explores the relationship between human beings, globalization, and the natural world. It will use both classical and contemporary literature on nature and address such topics as climate change, deep ecology, colonialism, third world ecofeminism, indigenous environmentalism, environmental racism, and eco-genocide.

Credit Hours: 3

(Same as POLS 403) The theory of political and social foundations; the theory of the state, justice, and revolution. Classical and contemporary readings such as: Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Marx, Dewey, Adorno and others. Prerequisite: PHIL 340 or PHIL 102 or consent of instructor.

Credit Hours: 3

Study of contemporary philosophical essays on topics at the intersection of law and philosophy, such as abortion on demand, capital punishment, plea bargaining, campus speech codes, legalization of addictive drugs, and animal rights, and what systematic philosophers, such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, and H.L.A. Hart, have written about the nature of a legal system and the appropriate realm of legal regulation.

Credit Hours: 3

(Same as WGSS 456A) A general survey of feminist theory and philosophical perspectives.

Credit Hours: 3

(Same as WGSS 456B) A special area in feminist philosophy explored in depth, such as Feminist Ethics, French Feminism, Feminist Philosophy of Science, etc.

Credit Hours: 3

(Same as WGSS 456C) Explores the work of one or more specific women philosophers, for example Hannah Arendt, Simone DeBeauvoir, etc.

Credit Hours: 3

This course will study the rise of Transcendentalism as a philosophical movement in early Nineteenth Century New England. Focus will be on Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau with possible attention to Margaret Fuller and other figures like Hedge, Parker and Brownson.

Credit Hours: 3

(Same as AFR 499A) A survey of major thinkers and themes in the history of African American Philosophy from colonial times to the 20th century. Prerequisite: at least one previous course in either Philosophy or Africana Studies with a grade of C or better.

Credit Hours: 3

(Same as AFR 499B) A survey and critical examination of a range of theories on the nature and meaning of "race," the intersection of race with class and gender, and the promotion of racial progress. Such theories include racial realism and idealism, racial biologism, cultural race theory, social constructivist theory, integrationism, separatism, racial eliminativism, cosmopolitanism, and especially critical race theory. Prerequisite: at least one previous course in Philosophy or Africana Studies with a minimum grade of C.

Credit Hours: 3

(Same as AFR 499C) A seminar on varying topics, themes, and figures in African, African American, and/or Caribbean Philosophy, e.g., "W.E.B. Du Bois and His Contemporaries," "Pan-Africanism," "Philosophies of Liberation," "Black Feminism," "Contemporary African Philosophy," "Philosophies of the Caribbean." Prerequisite: At least one previous course in Philosophy or Africana Studies with a minimum grade of C.

Credit Hours: 1-6

We will examine several important theories that define art by focusing in on only one aspect, for example, imitation, expression, form, institutional setting, or even indefinability. What role does imagination play in each of these accounts, and does this tell us something important about how people experience their world?

Credit Hours: 3

Credit Hours: 3

Credit Hours: 3

Credit Hours: 3

(Same as CLAS 470A) Survey of Plato's dialogues mostly selected from those of the middle period (Meno, Phaedo, Symposium, Republic, Phaedrus), perhaps along with some from the early period (especially Protagoras) and late period (Sophist, Timaeus). Prerequisites: PHIL 304A or CLAS 304A, and PHIL 304B or CLAS 304B with minimum grades of C, or consent of instructor.

Credit Hours: 3

(Same as CLAS 470B) A general survey of the Aristotelian philosophy including the theory of nature, metaphysics, ethics, and political philosophy. Readings will consist of selections from the corpus. Prerequisites: PHIL 304A or CLAS 304A, and PHIL 304B or CLAS 304B with minimum grades of C, or consent of instructor.

Credit Hours: 3

An examination of some of the most important figures and themes in medieval philosophical thought. Medieval debates in the area of metaphysics, natural philosophy, epistemology, ethics and politics will be explored in reading the works of such figures as Augustine, Boethius, Abelard Avicenna, Averroes, Maimonides, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Ockham and Nicholas of Cusa.

Credit Hours: 3

An examination of the thought of one of the central and most influential figures of the medieval world. Possible subjects of the course are Augustine of Hippo, Al-Ghazali, Moses Maimonides, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Dante Alighieri or William Ockham.

Credit Hours: 3

Study of the philosophy of one or more of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Malebranche, Wolff. Prerequisite: PHIL 305A or B or consent of instructor.

Credit Hours: 3

Study of the principles of British empiricism as represented by Locke. May also include study of Berkeley. Prerequisite: PHIL 305 or consent of instructor.

Credit Hours: 3

Study of the principles of British empiricism as represented by Hume. May also include study of Berkeley. Prerequisite: PHIL 305 or consent of instructor.

Credit Hours: 3

This course will focus on reading Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Topics will include: the idea of a well-lived life (happiness), the relation of reason and desire, character formation, deliberative and moral reasoning, the types of human excellence, friendship and the role of philosophy in a well-lived life. Readings may include: Greek drama (e.g., Antigone, Medea), Aristotle's Politics, and contemporary writers in "virtue ethics."

Credit Hours: 3

An examination of several major philosophical traditions or figures in Buddhism, such as Madhyamika, Yogacara, Zen, Mind-Only, and the Kyoto School, emphasis on their social and historical contexts.

Credit Hours: 3

Philosophical trends in Europe from the end of the 19th Century to the present. Phenomenology, existentialism, the new Marxism, structuralism, and other developments. Language, history, culture and politics.

Credit Hours: 3

The course will survey the Presocratic movement from the Milesians, Heraclitus and the Pythagoreans to the Eleatics, Empedocles, Anaxagoras and Democritus. Topics will include: the idea of nature, origin/source/principle (arche), the mathematical and nature, Being, pluralism and monism, the atomic theory. Some attention may be paid to the Sophists and the Epicureans.

Credit Hours: 3

From the Colonial Era to the Eve of World War I. This course will trace the transplantation of European philosophy to the New World and watch its unique process of development. Movements such as Puritanism, the theory of the American Revolution, the philosophical basis of the Constitution, transcendentalism, idealism, Darwinism and pragmatism and such figures as: Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Josiah Royce, Charles Sanders Peirce, and William James.

Credit Hours: 3

From World War I to the Present. The major American philosophers of the 20th Century, covering such issues as naturalism, emergentism, process philosophy, and neopragmatism. Figures include: John Dewey, George Herbert Mead, George Santayana, Alfred N. Whitehead, C. I. Lewis, W. V. Quine, and Richard Rorty.

Credit Hours: 3

Seminar focusing on readings taken from major classical to contemporary writings in the subject of metaphysics (e.g., Aristotle's Metaphysics, Descartes' Principles, Whitehead's Process and Reality, etc.) or on special movements or on problems in the subject (e.g., substance, causation, reductionism, etc.).

Credit Hours: 3

Analysis of a problem in philosophical theology or the phenomenology of religion or of the work of a particular thinker.

Credit Hours: 3

(Same as LING 500) Discussion of the formal mechanisms used to encode meaning in natural language. Potential topics include: predication, definiteness, quantification, and semantic modeling.

Credit Hours: 3

Seminar focusing on readings taken from major classical to contemporary writings in the theory of knowledge (e.g., Plato, Theaetetu; Aristotle, De Anima; Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding; Quine, Ontological Relativity; Rorty, The Mirror of Nature, etc.) or on movements or on problems in the subject (the object of knowledge, justification, method, etc.).

Credit Hours: 3

Seminar focused on one or more advanced topics in the Philosophy of Science, such as the role of values in science, public trust in science, scientific realism, philosophy of quantum physics, philosophy of biology.

Credit Hours: 3

Relations of law, morality, and politics, and consideration of problems and issues in philosophy of law.

Credit Hours: 3

An examination of the fundamental assumptions underlying twentieth century British and American moral theory. Special attention is given to recent attempts to develop a psychologically realistic moral philosophy that avoids both moral absolutism and extreme forms of relativism.

Credit Hours: 3

Introduction to the methodology and ethics of teaching philosophy; supervision of teaching assistants. Restricted to philosophy graduate students on assistantship contract.

Credit Hours: 1

Ongoing supervision of teaching assistants and discussion of pedagogical, ethical and professional issues. Prerequisite: PHIL 551.

Credit Hours: 1

Instruction in the methods of teaching philosophy and direct supervision of course teaching. Prerequisite: PHIL 551.

Credit Hours: 1

A seminar on varying topics, themes, and figures in African, African American, and/or Caribbean Philosophy, e.g., "W.E.B. Du Bois and His Contemporaries," "Pan-Africanism," "Philosophies of Liberation," "Black Feminism," "Contemporary African Philosophy," "Philosophies of the Caribbean.

Credit Hours: 3-6

Selected topics or writings.

Credit Hours: 3

(See CMST 562)

Credit Hours: 3

A reading of Nietzsche's works and critical discussion of his major themes in light of their historical and contemporary reception.

Credit Hours: 3

An examination of the conceptual foundations and historico-philosophical theories of the Institute for Social Research School, known as critical theory, covering one or more of the major first- and second-generation thinkers: Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Habermas.

Credit Hours: 3

(Same as WGSS 565) An examination of major figures and problems in continental feminism, focusing on metaphysical, ethical, political, and aesthetic theories in the works of Beauvoir, Kristeva, Iragaray, Butler, and Kofman.

Credit Hours: 3

An examination of psychoanalytic theory in the context of continental philosophy, studying the foundation of psychoanalysis and major developments since Freud, including French psychoanalytic theory, the British School, and developments in American psychoanalysis.

Credit Hours: 3

One or more American idealists. Recent seminars have been devoted to the thought of Brand Blanshard and Peter A. Bertocci.

Credit Hours: 3

A focused study of various aspects of Peirce's philosophy such as his pragmatism and semiotics.

Credit Hours: 3

A critical examination of James' pragmatism, radical empiricism and pluralism.

Credit Hours: 3

An examination of such themes in Dewey's philosophy as the influence of Darwin, nature and experience, aesthetics, technology and democracy.

Credit Hours: 3

A critical examination of Mead's theories regarding the social self and social life.

Credit Hours: 3

A careful and systematic reading of Husserl's major works or treatment of important themes throughout his writings, such as, the problem of evidence, perception and rationality, time-consciousness, phenomenology of association, or the lifeworld.

Credit Hours: 3

This course features a close reading of Heidegger's masterwork, BEING AND TIME, supplemented by selected later essay and secondary literature as suggested by the instructor.

Credit Hours: 3

The emergence of Greek philosophy in the sixth century B.C., the Milesians, Heraclitus and the Pythagoreans; the Eleatic movement and Parmenides, and the critical systems of Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and atomism; concluding with a discussion of the Sophistic movement and Socrates. Epic, lyric and dramatic literature of the period may be examined as well as philosophical writings.

Credit Hours: 3

Intensive reading of selected texts focusing on some aspect of Plato's thought or on Platonism as a movement.

Credit Hours: 3

Intensive reading on several texts, analyzing selected portions of Aristotle's thought.

Credit Hours: 3

This course will focus on a major work by Merleau-Ponty (such as the Phenomenology of Perception), or will develop a major theme (perception, aesthetics, politics) in his thought by consulting several of his works.

Credit Hours: 3

This course will be devoted to a detailed and systematic study of one of Levina's major works, such as Totality and Infinity or Otherwise than Being, or to a survey of key elements of his thought contained in his many important essays.

Credit Hours: 3

Credit Hours: 3

Credit Hours: 3

This course is devoted to a systematic reading of Scheler's works that concern any one of the many dimensions of his thought, for example, the nature of "person", ethics and value theory, the philosophy of religion, the sociology of knowledge, or politics.

Credit Hours: 3

Selected topics or problems in philosophy. Repeatable for 12 hours per term, 30 hours toward degree.

Credit Hours: 1-12

Supervised readings for qualified students. Prerequisite: Students must have written permission from the Graduate Director to register for more than six hours at each level.

Credit Hours: 1-16

This seminar provides a focus on philosophical research methods and philosophical writing. This course is particularly appropriate for students working to prepare their preliminary examination papers, to polish a paper for publication as a journal article, or otherwise working to enhance their research and writing skills.

Credit Hours: 3

Minimum of four hours to be counted towards a Master's degree.

Credit Hours: 2-6

Repeatable for 16 hours per term, 30 hours toward degree.

Credit Hours: 1-16

For those graduate students who have not finished their degree programs and who are in the process of working on their dissertation, thesis, or research paper. The student must have completed a minimum of 24 hours of dissertation research, or the minimum thesis, or research hours before being eligible to register for this course. Concurrent enrollment in any other course is not permitted. Graded S/U or DEF only.

Credit Hours: 1

Must be a Postdoctoral Fellow. Concurrent enrollment in any other course is not permitted.

Credit Hours: 1