Courses for Advanced Undergraduates & Graduate Students
520 Advanced Topics in Biomedical Ethics (3:3)
Pr. PHI 220
Detailed examination of a particular issue in biomedical ethics, such as research ethics, assisted suicide and euthanasia, and the acquisition and allocation of organs for transplantation.
523 Philosophy of Social and Behavioral Science (3:3)
Pr. permission of instructor
Issues in philosophy of social and behavioral science from Hume to the present: explanation, theory construction, methodology of the social sciences, the status of the sociology of knowledge.
525 Philosophy of Physical Science (3:3)
Pr. PHI 325
Study of a major current issue in the philosophy of science such as scientific progress and change, scientific methods, experiment and theory, scientific explanation, rationality, scientific realism, relations between philosophy of science and history of science. Examples drawn from modern history of the physical sciences.
527 Philosophy of Biological Science (3:3)
Pr. PHI 325
one course in biology recommended
Examination of concepts of law, theory, explanation, evidence, classification, and reduction using examples drawn from biology. Investigation of problems related to alternative conceptual systems and conceptual change in biology, the nature of the biological subject matter, and the place of biology among the natural sciences.
545 Social Philosophy (3:3)
Pr. PHI 321 or 331 or 335
Topics from social, political, and legal philosophy, such as property, justice, punishment,
liberalism, conservatism, and a study of such major figures as Hobbes, Rousseau, Locke, Mill, and Rawls.
555 Epistemology (3:3)
Pr. 319 or permission of instructor
Skepticism, the analysis of knowledge, confirmation and induction, apriori knowledge, naturalized epistemology.
559 Philosophy of Mind (3:3)
Pr. PHI 111 or 251 or 252
The mind-body problem, identity theories, functionalism, reductive and eliminative materialism, behavioral and causal theories of mind.
565 Philosophy of Language (3:3)
Pr. PHI 111 or 251 or 252
Theories of truth, meaning, and reference. Origin and nature of human language and its relations to animal and machine language.
575 Advanced Logic (3:3)
Pr. 311 or permission of instructor
Axiomatic first order quantification theory with completeness theorems. Numbers and sets. Paradoxes and type theory. Introduction to modal logic.
590 Aesthetics (3:3)
Pr. 322 or permission of instructor
Readings in the major philosophies of art, analysis of evaluative judgment and argument, the nature of aesthetic concepts, artistic truth, the art object, and the aesthetic experience.
Please refer to The Graduate School Bulletin for additional graduate-level courses.
