Courses Recommended for First-Years
Philosophy courses offered in the 2020-2021 academic year that are recommended for first-year students
PHIL UN1001 Introduction to Philosophy
Survey of some of the central problems, key figures, and great works in both traditional and contemporary philosophy. Topics and texts will vary with instructor and semester.
PHIL UN1010 Methods and Problems of Philosophical Thought
Critical introduction to philosophical problems, ideas and methods.
PHIL UN2108 Philosophy and History.
An introduction to historical (from 1800) and contemporary themes in the philosophy of history. Themes include Historicism, Historicity, Universality and Particularity; the debate over Positivism; the historical nature of concepts and meaning; time and tense: Past, Present Future; the Temporality of experience; the nature of Tradition and Practice; Epistemic, Revolutionary, and Paradigmatic change; Memory and the writing of one’s history (Autobiography).
PHIL UN2101 The History of Philosophy I: Pre-Socratics to Augustine
Exposition and analysis of the positions of the major philosophers from the pre-Socratics through Augustine. This course has unrestricted enrollment.
PHIL UN2201 History of Philosophy II: Aquinas to Kant
PHIL UN2101 is not a prerequisite for this course. Exposition and analysis of the metaphysics, epistemology, and natural philosophy of the major philosophers from Aquinas through Kant. Authors include Aquinas, Galileo, Gassendi, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant.
PHIL UN2655 COGNITIVE SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY.
This course will survey a number of topics at the intersection of cognitive science and philosophy. Potential topics include free will, consciousness, embodied cognition, artificial intelligence, neural networks, and the language of thought.
PHIL UN2685: Introduction to Philosophy of Language
This course gives students an introduction to various topics in the Philosophy of Language.