Courses

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

• CAS PH 310: History of Modern Philosophy
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: one philosophy course or sophomore standing. - An examination of seventeenth- and eighteenth century philosophy from Descartes to Kant, with emphasis on the nature and extent of knowledge, the relation of mind to body, the nature of personal identity, the problem of free will, and the problem of evil. Readings from Rene Descartes, Princess Elizabeth, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Benedict Spinoza, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant. 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, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
  • Research and Information Literacy
• CAS PH 340: Metaphysics and Epistemology
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPH160) or consent of instructor. - This course is about metaphysics (the study of what there is, and how it all relates) and epistemology (the study of knowledge, and how we can know things about the world) and their intersection. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings, Critical Thinking.
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  • Critical Thinking
  • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
• CAS PH 350: History of Ethics
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: one philosophy course or sophomore standing. - Are there fundamental principles for determining the right way to act ethically? How do different eras answer this question? What is the significance of these differences? This course addresses these questions by examining classical ethical texts from different historical traditions. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings, Ethical Reasoning, Critical Thinking.
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  • Critical Thinking
  • Ethical Reasoning
  • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
• CAS PH 360: Symbolic Logic
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: one philosophy course or sophomore standing. - A survey of the concepts and principles of symbolic logic: valid and invalid arguments, logical relations of statements and their basis in structural features of statements, analysis of the logical structure of complex statements of ordinary discourse, and the use of a symbolic language to display logical structure and to facilitate methods for assessing the logical structure of arguments. We cover the analysis of reasoning with truth-functions ("and", "or", "not", "if. . . then") and with quantifiers ("all", "some"), attending to formal languages and axiomatic systems for logical deduction. Throughout, we aim to clearly and systematically display both the theory underlying the norms of valid reasoning and their applications to particular problems of argumentation. The course is an introduction to first-order quantificational logic, a key tool underlying work in foundations of mathematics, philosophy of language and mind, philosophy of science and parts of syntax and semantics. It is largely mathematical and formal in character, but lectures situate these structures within the context of questions raised in contemporary philosophy of language and mind. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings, Quantitative Reasoning I, Critical Thinking.
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  • Critical Thinking
  • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
  • Quantitative Reasoning I
• CAS PH 401: Senior Independent Work
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: senior standing, consent of instructor and department, and approval of Honors Committee. - Individual tutorial instruction and directed research at distinction level.
• CAS PH 402: Senior Independent Work
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: senior standing, consent of instructor and department, and approval of Honors Committee. - Individual tutorial instruction and directed research at distinction level.
• CAS PH 403: Plato 1
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two courses in philosophy or consent of instructor. - (Knowledge of Greek is helpful but not required. Familiarity with Greek philosophy is helpful.) A close reading of one of Plato's Dialogues.
• CAS PH 405: Aristotle 1
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: CASPH 300 - What do we know from perception? How should we understand the forms of practical and theoretical knowledge we humans can develop, and how are they different from the forms of knowledge available to other animals? How do we learn to be good---what sort of knowledge, and what else does this require? This class is a survey of Aristotle's attempt to answer these and related questions.
• CAS PH 408: History of Medieval Philosophy
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPH300) sophomore standing and CAS PH 300 and two other philosophy courses, or consent of instructor. - Topic for Fall 2020: Jewish and Islamic Philosophy and Mysticism. Thematic introduction to mysticism and philosophy, with a focus on dynamics of religious experience. Readings from medieval Jewish and Islamic philosophy; Sufi mysticism and philosophy; Kabbalah, Biblical interpretation, Sufi poetry, Hebrew poetry from the Golden Age of Muslim Spain.
• CAS PH 409: Maimonides
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPH300) - A study of major aspects of the thought of Maimonides. Primary focus on the Guide of the Perplexed, with attention to its modern reception in works by Baruch Spinoza, Hermann Cohen, Leo Strauss, and others. Also offered as CAS RN 420. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings, Oral and/or Signed Communication.
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  • Oral and/or Signed Communication
  • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
• CAS PH 412: Philosophy of the Enlightenment
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPH310) - 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. Also offered as CAS PO 592 and CAS HI 514.
• CAS PH 413: Kant
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two previous PH courses, or consent of instructor. - A study of Kant's critical philosophy, focusing on one or more of his works.
• CAS PH 415: Nineteenth-Century Philosophy
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: CASPH 310 and one other philosophy course. - A survey of nineteenth-century European philosophy, focused on G.W.F. Hegel and the critical reception of his work by Soren Kierkegaard and Karl Marx. 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.
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  • Critical Thinking
  • Historical Consciousness
  • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
• CAS PH 416: Hegel
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPH310) and two courses in philosophy above the 100 level or consent of the in structor. - A study of Hegel's systematic philosophy, focusing on one or more of his works.
• CAS PH 418: Marx and Marxism
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two previous PH courses, or consent of instructor. - Marxism is treated as a conceptual framework for understanding history and society, as a critique of capitalism and a program of transforming it, with an analysis of both its philosophical and ethical presuppositions. The evolution of its theoretical bases is critically examined. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry I, Critical Thinking.
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  • Critical Thinking
  • Historical Consciousness
  • Social Inquiry I
• CAS PH 419: Nietzsche
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: CASPH 310 and two other philosophy courses, or consent of instructor. - This course responds to the current moment in American political culture by exploring why we're so polarized and how knowledge and ignorance are shaped by social organization and psychology. The course begins by studying theories of misinformation, echo chambers, tribalism, and populism (including Trumpism) before entering into debates about politically contentious topics such as trans rights, immigration, and policing.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
• CAS PH 422: Analytic Philosophy
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: successful completion of CAS PH 360, or equivalent knowledge of quanti fication theory. - An examination of some aspects of the development of twentieth-century analytic philosophy, with an emphasis on works by Frege, Russell, the Logical Empiricists (also known as Logical Positivists), and Quine.
• CAS PH 424: Wittgenstein
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: CASPH 310 and two other philosophy courses, or consent of instructor. - An intensive (line by line) study of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Philosophical Investigations.
• CAS PH 426: Phenomenology
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two previous PH courses, or consent of instructor. First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120). - 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.
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  • Oral and/or Signed Communication
  • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS PH 427: Heidegger and Existential Philosophy
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: two philosophy courses. - This course critically examines what, in the case of human beings, it means to be, based upon Heidegger's "existential" posing of this question in his early, but unfinished work, Being and Time. Effective Spring 2026, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings, Research and Information Literacy, The Individual in Community.
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  • The Individual in Community
  • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
  • Research and Information Literacy