In this course we focus on questions driving the discipline by exploring theories of reality and the nature and limits of knowledge. To be effective in resolving societal issues, like increasing happiness, requires understanding these complex and essential fields.

In this course, we consider ethical problems and forms of ethical reasoning within the larger context of social and political philosophy.

Attention is given to specific ongoing problems, including poverty, famine, abortion, punishment, animal rights, or environmental sustainability amongst others.

Terms offered: fall, spring, summer. Max hours: 3 Credits. GT: Course is approved by the Colorado Dept of Higher Education for statewide guaranteed transfer, GT-AH3

Introductory course developing skills in argumentation, critical thinking, and scientific reasoning. Covers a wide array of topics including rules of logical inference, informal fallacies, problem-solving, and probabilistic reasoning, these analytical and critical thinking skills are tested on LSAT and MCAT. In this course, we discuss issues central to advancement in the sciences, and towards knowledge in general. In the course, you will learn valuable skills for employers.

Examines basic issues in social and political philosophy, including justice, freedom, individuality, power and community

We consider theories of reality, including topics like: What is the nature of substance? What are space and time? What are universals and particulars?

Covers truth-functional and quantificational logic through polyadic first-order predicate calculus and theory of identity. Attention is given to such problems in metatheory as proofs of the completeness and consistency of systems of logic. Prereq: A passing grade in PHIL 2441 or MATH 3000 or permission from the instructor is required in order for students to enroll in this course. Cross-listed with MATH 3440

This course explores ways ideology functions within culture. Specific attention is given to how ideology creates and maintains racist and sexist patterns of thought and behavior. By analyzing the methods and sources of ideological forces we explore different thinkers claims about if and how eliminating racist and sexist thinking is possible as an individual or as a collective society.

A close study of Immanuel Kant's revolutionary thought, focusing on Kant's ontology, epistemology, and ethical theory, as they are articulated in his Critique of Pure Reason and Critique of Practical Reason. Kant was the quintessential thinker of the Enlightenment and “modern era,” a transitional figure in the history of philosophy, and his philosophy is relevant in the contemporary era on many levels.

China is a fascinating world with its own characteristic orientation to philosophical questions. Chinese thinkers produced the "Flowering of a Hundred Schools of Thought" in the Axial Age, the same period of time in which philosophy was coming to birth in ancient Greece. Covers some of the Chinese schools, including Confucianism, Taoism, Mohism, Legalis, Chinese "logic," and the later schools of schools of Neo-Confucianism, Neo-Taoism and Chinese Buddhism.

A seminar on key problems and thinkers in the nineteenth & twentieth-century continental philosophical traditions and their contemporary significance.

Who are we? What do we believe?

Should we accept the views of earlier generations?

American philosophers have different thoughts concerning their intellectual heritage.

Pragmatist philosophers argue philosophy is an active and constructive element concerned with ethics and all human life.

We'll examine philosophical themes spanning the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries

This course explores contemporary feminist thought in philosophy and literature in the 20th and 21st centuries. Topics include lesbianism, black feminism, Chicana feminism, transgender identity, women and work and others. Cross-listed with ENGL 4308, ENGL 5308, PHIL 5308, WGST 4308, WGST 5308.

Nature of religion and methods of studying it. Cross-listed with HUMN 5600, PHIL 5600, RLST 4060, 5060, and SSCI 5600