Major Concentration Philosophy (36 credits)

Offered by: Philosophy     Degree: Bachelor of Arts

Program Requirements

Required Course (3 credits)

  • PHIL 210 Introduction to Deductive Logic 1 (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : An introduction to propositional and predicate logic; formalization of arguments, truth tables, systems of deduction, elementary metaresults, and related topics.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    • Restriction: Not open to students who are taking or have taken MATH 318

Complementary Courses (33 credits)

33 credits, of which no more than 9 may be at the 200 level and at least 9 must be at the 400 or 500 level, distributed as follows:

18 credits from Groups A, B, C, D, E, and F:
3 credits from Group A
3 credits from Group B
6 credits, two courses from either Group C or Group D
3 credits from Group E
3 credits from Group F

15 additional credits from Groups A, B, C, D, E or F or from other Philosophy (PHIL) courses. Only one of PHIL 200 or PHIL 201 may be included in the program.

Group A

3 credits from:

  • PHIL 306 Philosophy of Mind (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : A survey of major positions of the mind-body problem, focusing on such questions as: Do we have minds and bodies? Can minds affect bodies? Is mind identical to body? If so, in what sense "identical"? Can physical bodies be conscious.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

  • PHIL 310 Intermediate Logic (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : A second course in Logic. NB. The course will be technical in nature, and some mathematical aptitude is essential. The emphasis is on the expressive properties of standard logical systems, including implications for the philosophy of mathematics. We will study the Completeness of First-Order Logic, then the 'limitative' theorems of Tarski and Gödel.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

  • PHIL 311 Philosophy of Mathematics (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : This course provides an historically informed introduction to philosophy of mathematics. It gives the student an overview of prominent issues and arguments, to enable her to follow and discuss contemporary research in philosophy of mathematics.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

  • PHIL 341 Philosophy of Science 1 (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : A discussion of philosophical problems as they arise in the context of scientific practice and enquiry. Such issues as the philosophical presuppositions of the physical and social sciences, the nature of scientific method and its epistemological implications will be addressed.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

  • PHIL 411 Topics in Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : A course focusing on some philosophical issue (e.g., the nature of numbers or the relation of truth to provability) as it arises in the study of mathematics and logic.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    • Prerequisites: PHIL 210 or the equivalent, and one intermediate course in philosophy

  • PHIL 415 Philosophy of Language (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : An examination of central notions in the philosophy of language (reference, meaning, and truth, e.g.), the puzzles these notions give rise to, and the relevance of these notions to such questions as: What is language? How is communication possible? What is understanding? Is language rule-governed.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    • Prerequisites: PHIL 210 or equivalent and one intermediate course in philosophy

  • PHIL 419 Epistemology (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : A discussion of central topics in the theory of knowledge. The questions addressed in the course may include: What is knowledge? Do we have any knowledge? What is the relation between knowledge and belief? When is belief justified? Is all knowledge conscious knowledge.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    • Prerequisite: PHIL 210 or equivalent and one intermediate course in philosophy

  • PHIL 421 Metaphysics (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : An examination of central questions in metaphysics in their historical and contemporary forms. Topics may be chosen from such issues as: personal identity, the nature of space and time, the nature of events and properties, possible worlds, and the problem of realism.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    • Prerequisites: PHIL 210 or equivalent and one intermediate course in philosophy

  • PHIL 441 Philosophy of Science 2 (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : An analysis of some key philosophical ideas in science and technology, e.g. problem, explanation, forecast, testability and truth.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    • Prerequisite: PHIL 341 or written permission of the instructor

  • PHIL 470 Topics in Contemporary Analytic Philosophy (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : An advanced discussion of major themes in the analytic tradition.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

Group B

3 credits from:

  • PHIL 375 Existentialism (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : This course will examine the nature of existentialist thought as represented in various philosophical and literary texts. Particular themes to be examined include freedom, alienation, responsibility and choice, and the nature of self.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    • Prerequisite: one course in philosophy

  • PHIL 474 Phenomenology (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : A study of phenomenology from a historical and thematic perspective. The course will typically involve the study of central thinkers such as Husserl, Heidegger, or Merleau-Ponty, with an examination of the nature and development of the phenomenological movement.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    • Prerequisite: one intermediate course in philosophy

  • PHIL 475 Topics in Contemporary European Philosophy (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : Advanced discussion of selected themes in contemporary European philosophy.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    • Prerequisite: one intermediate course in philosophy

Group C

6 credits (two courses) from Group C OR Group D:

  • PHIL 344 Medieval and Renaissance Political Theory (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : A study of Medieval and Renaissance political theory.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

  • PHIL 345 Greek Political Theory (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : An examination of the ethical and political theories of ancient Greece, especially those of Plato and Aristotle.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    • Restriction: Not open to students who have taken POLI 333

  • PHIL 350 History and Philosophy of Ancient Science (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : Topics in ancient pure mathematics (geometry and number theory), "mixed mathematics" (astronomy, music theory, optics, mechanics), and/or natural science (including medicine), studied with a view to philosophical issues raised by the content of ancient science and/or by the logic of scientific argument.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

  • PHIL 353 The Presocratic Philosophers (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : An examination of the surviving fragments of the presocratic philosophers and schools of philosophy, as well as later reports of their views.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

  • PHIL 354 Plato (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : An examination of some of the philosophical problems (those in logic, epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics, e.g.) found in a selection of Plato's dialogues.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

  • PHIL 355 Aristotle (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : An examination of selected works by Aristotle. The course considers issues in moral philosophy as well as those found in the logical treatises, the Physics and Metaphysics, and in the philosophy of mind.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

  • PHIL 356 Early Medieval Philosophy (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : An examination of selected works in the Christian, Islamic and Jewish traditions. Topics in moral and political philosophy, logic and metaphysics, philosophical psychology and epistemology, philosophy of science, and philosophical theology may be discussed.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

  • PHIL 452 Later Greek Philosophy (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : An examination of some of the major post-Aristotelian schools of philosophy. Texts from the Peripatetic, Stoic, Epicurean, Sceptical, Platonic, and medical traditions may be considered. Problems in logic, ethics, physics, epistemology, and metaphysics will be addressed.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

  • PHIL 453 Ancient Metaphysics and Natural Philosophy (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : An examination of central themes of ancient metaphysics and/or natural philosophy as treated by two or more contrasting philosophers or philosophical traditions - probably including Plato and/or Aristotle, and possibly including some Hellenistic or post-Hellenistic schools.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

  • PHIL 454 Ancient Moral Theory (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : An examination of central themes of ancient moral theory as treated by two or more contrasting philosophers or philosophical traditions - probably including Plato and/or Aristotle, and possibly some Hellenistic or post-Hellenistic schools.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

Group D

6 credits (two courses) from Group C OR Group D:

  • PHIL 360 17th Century Philosophy (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : An examination of the work of such seventeenth-century philosophers as Descartes, Hobbes, Gassendi, Malebranche, Leibniz, and the Cambridge Platonists.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

  • PHIL 361 18th Century Philosophy (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : A survey of eighteenth century philosophy, especially British philosophy. Attention is given to fundamental metaphysical, epistemological, and moral issues as reflected in the work of such philosophers as Locke, Shaftesbury, Berkeley, Hutcheson, Butler, Hume and Reid.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

  • PHIL 366 18th and Early 19th Century German Philosophy (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : An examination of the works of such philosophers as Kant, Fichte, Jacobi, Schelling, and Hegel.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

  • PHIL 367 19th Century Philosophy (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : An examination of the works of such 19th century philosophers as Mach, Helmholtz, Dedekind, Frege, Marx, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Mill and Bradley.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    • Prerequisite: A previous course in philosophy is recommended

  • PHIL 444 Early Modern Political Theory (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : A survey of political and moral theory from the Reformation to the French Revolution including Luther, Montaigne, Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Smith.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    • Prerequisite: at least one course in political philosophy

  • PHIL 445 19th Century Political Theory (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : An examination of various strands of political theory since Rousseau, concentrating on such themes as the understanding of modernity and theories of liberal society.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    • Prerequisite: at least one course in political philosophy

    • Restriction: Not open to students who have taken POLI 434

Group E

3 credits from:

  • PHIL 230 Introduction to Moral Philosophy 1 (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : A survey of a number of historically important and influential theories. Philosophers to be discussed may include Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Bentham, Mill, and Moore.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

  • PHIL 237 Contemporary Moral Issues (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : An introductory discussion of central ethical questions (the value of persons, or the relationship of rights and utilities, for example) through the investigation of currently disputed social and political issues. Specific issues to be discussed may include pornography and censorship, affirmative action, civil disobedience, punishment, abortion, and euthanasia.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

  • PHIL 240 Political Philosophy 1 (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : An introduction to contemporary philosophy of politics by concentrating on a number of contested concepts, such as freedom, justice and equality, in contemporary political philosophy and practice.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

  • PHIL 242 Introduction to Feminist Theory (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : An introduction to feminist theory as political theory. Emphasis is placed on the plurality of analyses and proposals that constitute contemporary feminist thought. Some of the following are considered: liberal feminism, marxist and socialist feminism, radical feminism, postmodern feminism, francophone feminism, and the contributions to feminist theory by women of colour and lesbians.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    • Note: Since this course is being taught abroad, the Victoria Day statutory holiday will not be taken into consideration. Therefore, students are expected to attend their lecture on Monday, May 19, 2014.

Group F

3 credits from:

  • PHIL 334 Ethical Theory (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : A course focusing on central questions in ethical theory such as the nature of the good and the right and the factors which determine moral rightness and wrongness.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

  • PHIL 343 Biomedical Ethics (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : An investigation of ethical issues as they arise in the practice of medicine (informed consent, e.g.) or in the application of medical technology (in vitro fertilization, euthanasia, e.g.)

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

  • PHIL 348 Philosophy of Law 1 (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : A discussion of the nature of justice and law, and of the relationship between them.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    • Restriction: This course is intended for students with a non-professional interest in law, as well as for those considering law as a profession

  • PHIL 427 Topics in Critical Philosophy of Race (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : An advanced discussion of topics in the critical philosophy of race.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    • PHIL 327 or permission of the instructor.

    • Topics vary from year to year.

  • PHIL 434 Metaethics (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : A study of the status of sentences containing moral terms, judgements about moral claims, and the nature of moral facts.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    • Prerequisite: PHIL 334 or written permission of the instructor

  • PHIL 442 Topics in Feminist Theory (3 credits)

    Offered by: Philosophy (Faculty of Arts)

    Overview

    Philosophy : Advanced discussion of topical and central themes in feminist theory.

    Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.

    • Prerequisite: PHIL 242 and one intermediate course in philosophy

Faculty of Arts—2024-2025 (last updated Apr. 3, 2024) (disclaimer)
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