Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the Student Link for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

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  • GRS PH 610: Continental Rationalism
    A critical study of major texts of seventeenth-century philosophy.
  • GRS PH 611: British Empiricism
    A critical study of major texts of British Empiricists, with emphasis on Locke and Hume.
  • GRS PH 612: Philosophy of the Enlightenment
    A critical examination of that family of philosophical and political movements that called itself "the Enlightenment." Students analyze key texts by Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Smith, Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot, Jefferson, Madison, Kant, and Hegel.
  • GRS PH 613: Kant
    A study of Kant's critical philosophy, focusing on one or more of his works.
  • GRS PH 615: Nineteenth-Century Philosophy
    Course subtitle: "Constructing and Deconstructing Autonomy". We will ask: To what extent is a practical agent free or autonomous? We examine answers to these questions by figures such as Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche and Freud. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings, Critical Thinking.
    • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Critical Thinking
  • GRS PH 618: Marx and Marxism
    Philosophical foundation of Marxism and its development. Critical study of Marx's writings stressing questions of philosophy, political economy, science, and history. Emphasis on Marx's theory of relation of praxis to consciousness. Later (including contemporary) Marxists and critics. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry I, Critical Thinking.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Social Inquiry I
    • Critical Thinking
  • GRS PH 619: Nietzsche
    An intensive study of Nietzsche's philosophical thought. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings.
    • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
    • Historical Consciousness
  • GRS PH 622: Analytic Philosophy
    A survey of the basic works of twentieth-century analytical philosophy.
  • GRS PH 624: Wittgenstein
    An intensive (line by line) study of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations.
  • GRS PH 626: Phenomenology
    Rigorous examination of foundations of philosophical phenomenology in Husserl and others. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Writing-Intensive Course, Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings.
    • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
    • Oral and/or Signed Communication
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • GRS PH 627: Heidegger and Existential Philosophy
    A study of the main topics of Heidegger's philosophy against the background of his interpretation of Husserl's phenomenology, Kant's transcendental philosophy, and ancient Greek philosophy, with an emphasis on the concepts of being, time, and truth.
  • GRS PH 630: American Philosophy
    Detailed analysis of William James and John Dewey and their theories of meaning, truth, consciousness, and experience. Consideration of these theories in connection with selected issues in Husserl, Wittgenstein, and Michael Oakeshott.
  • GRS PH 633: Symbolic Logic
    Study of methods characteristic of modern deductive logic including use of truth tables, Boolean normal forms, models, and indirect and conditional proofs within the theory of truth-functions and quantifiers.
  • GRS PH 636: Gender, Race, and Science
    Examines issues in feminist philosophy, philosophy of race, and philosophy of science. Is "race" a genuine scientific category or a social construct? How have views about gender and race changed? Why are there still so few women and minority scientists?
  • GRS PH 640: Metaphysics
    A survey of basic questions in contemporary metaphysics that may include reality, time, change, free will, personal identity, and causation.
  • GRS PH 643: Philosophy of Mind
    The topic is sentience, embodiment, and the brain. The aim is to develop a "neurophenomenological" approach to consciousness and embodied experience in cognitive science and the philosophy of mind.
  • GRS PH 645: The Philosophy of Love
    What is love? What different forms does it take (e.g. parental love, romantic love)? Is love non- rational or are there reasons of love? We aim to answer these and other philosophical questions by focusing on contemporary philosophical writings on love.
  • GRS PH 651: Contemporary Ethical Theory
    An examination of contemporary English and American moral theories. Topic for Fall 2019: The Color Line and the Problem of Reparations.
  • GRS PH 656: Topics in Philosophy and Religion
    Topic for Fall 2021: Buddhism as Philosophy. Topics include Buddhist philosophy of mind, religious knowledge, controversies with rival philosophers, and the path to nirvana. Seminar coordinates with the fall lecture series in the Institute for Philosophy and Religion.
  • GRS PH 659: Political and Legal Philosophy
    Examination of the individual's responsibilities under law, specifically of the idea that there is a general moral obligation to obey the law, including unjust law, and the contrasting idea of civil disobedience-- the possibility of morally justified resistance to law.

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