Philosophy

Degrees and Certificates

Classes

PHI 7110 : Philosophy of Socrates

A study of the priority of definition, unity of virtue, irony, philospher's relation to the polis, friendship, character formation and the elenctic method which identifies Socrates in Plato's early dialogues, including Alcibiades, Apology, Charmides, Crito, Euthydemus, Euthyphro, Gorgias, Hippias Major, Hippias Minor, Ion, Laches, Lysis, Meno, Protagoras, and Republic I.

Credits

3

PHI 7220 : Aristotle: Theoret Phil

An examination of Aristotle's theoretical philosophy based on selections from the Metaphysics, Physics, De Anima, and the "Organon."

Credits

3

PHI 7230 : Aristotle: Practical Phi

An examination of Aristotle's practical philosophy based on selections from the Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, Rhetoric, and Poetics.

Credits

3

PHI 7300 : Roman Philosophy

The focus of this seminar is on the Romanization of Greek philosophy. the scope is late republic to waning empire, and the figures covered generally include (but are not limited to) Plotinus and Augustine. Of special concern is the nature and fate of autarkic virtue -- the dominant ideal of philosophical self-sufficiency -- under Stoic, skeptical, Platonic, and Epicurean regimes. Counts for distribution credit in ancient philosophy.

Credits

3

PHI 7330 : Medieval Philosophy

A study of selected texts from Christian, Jewish, and Islamic thinkers. This course will also include reference to the origins medieval philosophy in ancient philosophy and/or the anticipation of modern philosophical concerns.

Credits

3

PHI 7340 : Topics in Hist Philosophy

A number of important topics, e.g., space and time or the eternity of the world, are best considered both in immediate historical settings and across traditional historical divisions. Such topics will be considered as they are defined and redefined in ancient, medieval, and modern terms.

Credits

3

PHI 7410 : Augustine's Speculative

Augustine's epistemology, anthropology, and metaphysics. Topics include the possibility and process of knowledge, freedom, the problem of evil, the existence and nature of God.

Credits

3

PHI 7420 : Augustine's Prac Phil

Augustine's ethics, social and political philosophy, and philosophy of history. Topics include Happiness, Good and Evil, the Family, the State, origins and destiny of the human being.

Credits

3

PHI 7510 : Aquinas: Metaphysics

The nature of metaphysics; the potency-act relationship; essence-existence; matter-form; substance-accidents; efficient, final, and exemplary causality; the existence and nature of God; the transcendentals.

Credits

3

Prerequisites

199930

PHI 7520 : Aquinas: Ethics and Law

Selected texts from the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas on the nature of morality and the essence of law. Special attention given to such topics as human destiny, human acts, habits, virtues, and law.

Credits

3

PHI 7610 : Topics: Early Mod Phil

Selected texts and themes from the early modern period. The readings will be taken from major philosophical figures of the period such as: Descartes, Locke, Malebranche, Leibniz, Spinoza, Berkeley, Hume, Reid.

Credits

3

PHI 7640 : Spinoza

A study of such major works as the Ethics or Theologico-Political Treatise in their historical context and with respect to contemporary problems.

Credits

3

PHI 7720 : Kant's Practical Phil

The principle themes of Kant's practical philosophy. Selected readings from the Critique of Practical Reason, the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, the Critique of Judgement, The Metaphysical Elements of Justice, and other writings.

Credits

3

Prerequisites

199720

PHI 7730 : Kant's Third Critique

A close reading of the third critique along with some of the contemporary responses to it by Lyotard, Gadamer, Derrida, Arendt, Deleuze.

Credits

3

PHI 7920 : Hegel's Logic

A detailed reading of both Hegel's 1812 Science of Logic and the 1830 Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences. A study of Hegel's dialectical treatment of the logical categories, initiating with the famous triad "Being- Nothingness-Becoming."

Credits

3

PHI 7930 : Hegel's Phil of Right

A study of Hegel's social and political philosophy with particular emphasis upon its influence upon contemporary thought.

Credits

3

PHI 8020 : Marx

The early philosophical writings of Marx; the influence of Hegel and Feuerbach on him; the problem of humanism.

Credits

3

Prerequisites

199620

PHI 8070 : Nietzsche

Nietzsche's relationship to Schopenhauer; the Apollonian and the Dionysian; the critique of morals; the death of God; the "Ubermensch"; eternal recurrence; the will to power; Nietzsche's relationship to existentialism and phenomenology.

Credits

3

PHI 8090 : American Philosophy

A survey of the thought of the philosophers of America's classical period, roughly 1875 to 1935, such as Pierce, James, Royce, Mead, Santayana, and Dewey. They are closely connected to the movements named idealism, naturalism, and pragmatism.

Credits

3

PHI 8110 : History of Analytic Philosophy

The development of analytic philosophy from its beginnings in Moore and Russell up to the present; topics such as: logic and language, the mind-body problem, and ontology.

Credits

3

PHI 8210 : Husserl

The problem of psychologism, the ideal of a strict science; transcendental phenomenology; phenomenology and idealism; the phenomenology of the lifeworld; Husserl's phenomenology and existential phenomenology.

Credits

3

PHI 8220 : Heidegger's Being/Time

A reading of Heidegger's early masterpiece, taking up such issues as the question of being, the idea of fundamental ontology, the analytic of Dasein, exxistence, being-in-the- world, care, resoluteness, temporality and historicity; the pre-Being and Time period; the "turning" after Being and Time.

Credits

3

PHI 8230 : Sartre

The development of Sartre's philosophy from the phenomenological beginnings, to dialectic, and beyond.

Credits

3

PHI 8250 : Merleau-Ponty

Interpretation of phenomenology; science and the lifeworld; perception; body and language; art and being.

Credits

3

PHI 8260 : Gadamer

A study of Gadamer's major writings focussing on Truth and Method and treating such issues as the hermeneutic circle, objectivism and relativism, the tradition, the classic, understanding, dialogue, play, the work of art, history, language; Gadamer's interpretation of Plato, Aristotle, and Hegel; the exchanges with Habermas and Derrida.

Credits

3

Prerequisites

199620

PHI 8280 : Arendt

The major themes of her philosophy including, labor, work, and action; the private, the social, the public; totalitarianism, revolution, and civil disobedience; Eichmann and evil; freedom and authority; thinking, willing, and judging.

Credits

3

PHI 8310 : Levinas

A study of Levinas' principal works, Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, emphasizing such issues as ethics as first philosophy, the question of the other, sensibility, substitution, and responsibility; the influence of Levinas on Derrida and Lyotard and the question of postmodernism and ethics; Levinas' critique of Heidegger.

Credits

3

PHI 8340 : Derrida

A study of Derrida's principal writings, from the early work on Husserl to the present treating such issues as: the idea of deconstruction, difference, trace, arch-writing, textuality, the signature, literature, the gift, the quasitranscendental, the ethical and political implications of deconstruction; relationship to Heidegger.

Credits

3

PHI 8350 : Foucault

A close study from Foucault's principal texts and interviews of some combination of the following themes: archaeology, genealogy, taxonomy, transgression, voices from the outside, the author, the death of man, power, discipline, cart- ography, panoptocism, the archive, the event series, the limit experience, the aesthetics of existence.

Credits

3

PHI 8420 : Healthcare Ethics

A comparison and contrast of various theoretical approaches to healthcare ethics. Issues include healthcare rationing, human beginnings, death with dignity, refusing medical interventions, and professional-patient/client interactions.

Credits

3

Prerequisites

199530

PHI 8430 : Concept Hlth and Disease

Consideration of the various and often competing epistemological/aesthetic approaches that ground the non- moral judgements about what is healthy or diseased, what is normal or abnormal, what is beautiful or disfigured, and what is a good quality of life.

Credits

3

PHI 8510 : Political Philosophy

A survey of major political theories from works such as Plato's Republic, Machiavelli's The Prince, Hobbes' Leviathan, Rousseau's Discourses, Hegel's Philosophy of Right, and Rawls' Theory of Justice with some consideration of such contemporary post-Hegelian thinkers as Kojeve and Fukayama who maintain that political philosophy has come to an end.

Credits

3

Prerequisites

199730

PHI 8520 : Liberalism & its Critics

A study of the historical development of liberalism from Hobbes to contemporary liberal theory with careful attention to the critique of liberalism mounted by contemporary communitarian theory, especially the theories of Alistair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, and William Gladstone.

Credits

3

PHI 8530 : Crit Thry Frankfurt Schl

A study of the historical development of critical theory in the Frankfurt School, from its inception in Kantian philosophy to its present formation in the work of Jurgen Habermas.

Credits

3

PHI 8540 : Feminist Theories

A study of the philosophical foundations of a philosophy of women with an emphasis on the metaphysical, ethical, and epistemological questions raised by feminist criticism.

Credits

3

PHI 8550 : Body Politics

Readings and discussions studying the centrality of the body for theories about and practices of politics. Themes such as the lived body, structured body, fluid body, disciplined body, desiring body, gendered body, marked body will be treated in the works of writers such as Sartre, Merleau- Ponty, Irigaray, Foucault, Deleuze, Lingis, Butler.

Credits

3

PHI 8560 : Philosophy of Language

Theories of reference, meaning, semiotics and symbolism and their historical implications in the twentieth century. Authors may include: Saussure, Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Derrida, Lacan, Davidson.

Credits

3

PHI 8630 : Philosophy of the Image

A study of the aesthetics of painting, photography and film in light of the commentaries by Heidegger, Derrida, Barthes, Goodman, Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, Deleuze, and Rosalind Krauss.

Credits

3

Prerequisites

199820

PHI 8640 : Philosophy Contemporary Music

A critical revaluation of Hanslick's On the Musically Beautiful with an ear for the comments in selected writings by Nietzsche, Atalli, Cage, Adorno, Barthes, Goodman, and Kivy as well as for the music made by selected contemporary composers.

Credits

3

PHI 8870 : Consortium I

Graduate courses offered at the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University and taken by students participating in the Greater Philadelphia Philosophy Consortium.

Credits

3

PHI 8875 : Consortium II

Graduate courses offered at the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University and taken by students participating in the Greater Philadelphia Philosophy Consortium.

Credits

3

PHI 8930 : Pedagogy Workshop

Intensive training in pedagogy for philosophy professors; teaching a mission directed core course; interdisciplinary engagement; course design; lesson planning; creating a cooperative learning environment; assessment; implicit bias; and advising services.

Credits

0

PHI 9010 : Dissertation

To be taken when Ph.D students have completed course work; may only be taken once. Permission from Director of Graduate Studies.

Credits

0