Past Courses

A comprehensive survey of one or a number of chosen problems such as the nature, limit and source of human knowledge, truth, skepticism, foundationalism and holism, justification, theories of perception, criteria of knowledge and its classification.

A study of some topic chosen by the instructor in any one or more trends of thought in contemporary philosophy.

An in-depth examination of one or more philosophical schools or major thinkers from any period of the history of philosophy including 20th century.

Debates between liberal, radical, and socialist feminism and ecofeminism. Analysis of issues such as the links between patriarchy and capitalism, domestic violence, psychological and ideological roots of women's oppression, dual systems theory, the domestic labor debate, sex/gender theory and intersectionality, the issue of representation, formation of agents of resistance against discourses of victimization.

Issues in ontology, such as metaphysical, cognitive, linguistic, conceptual, and social-political matters.

An intensive study in theory of knowledge such as evidential, doxastic, ontological, social-political, cognitive, historical and evolutionary matters.

A critical investigation of Plato's philosophical position, tracing its development on the basis of his early, middle and late dialogues.

An in-depth study of selected material with a view to elucidating the fundamental principles and discussions of the naturalistic perspective.

The relationships, such as composition and constitution, between matter, material objects, and their parts. The nature of matter, the persistence conditions of ordinary objects, and the relationships between human persons and their bodies.

An examination, from analytic and continental perspectives, of issues concerning truth, such as ontological, phenomenological, socio-political, and historical matters.

A philosophical study of the nature of time and temporal beings. Whether the flow of time is objective, whether the past or the future exist, the paradoxes concerning time travel, the nature of change and persistence.

The nature of logic and the use of logic(s) to deal with philosophical issues such as vagueness, logical consequence, relevance, conditionals, and modalities.

An examination of problems raised in the study of human behavior and society. Some of the problems to be discussed include method, objectivity, explanation, individualism and holism.

Theories of logical, natural, conceptual, and metaphysical modalities. Deontic and epistemic modalities.

An in-depth study of some of the major issues and controversies in political thought.

Issues in the post-Kantian hermeneutical tradition and its development from philology to textual hermeneutics, to historical studies, and to a general account of human understanding. Selected texts by philosophers such as Hegel, Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, Gadamer, and Derrida.

An in-depth analysis of the theoretical and practical employment of pure reason according to Kant.

An in-depth study of the philosophy of Marx based on some of his major works.

An in-depth study of the philosophy of Heidegger based on some of his major works

An investigation of rationalist principles in terms of the writings and arguments of such thinkers as Descartes and Spinoza.

A survey of the existentialist movement in philosophy starting with Kierkegaard and running through Nietzche, Heidegger and Sartre.

An examination of Husserl's method of phenomenological analysis and its impact upon such thinkers as Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Sartre.

A study of the philosophical positions of such thinkers as Royce, Pierce, William James and Dewey.

Supervised reading in areas of special interest to the student.

An intensive study of presocratic philosophy on the basis of the existing fragments and out standing commentaries.

An inquiry into Islamic philosophy on the basis of the works of major philosophers at the Islamic world and with the main problems of the tradition.

A discussion of some of the major issues and problems in contemporary philosophy on the basis of selected texts.

An examination of theories concerning the analysis of human action, intention, describability of action and its ontic consequences, reasons and causes, differences between voluntary and merely intentional action, freedom of the will and responsibility.

An in-depth study of some of the major issues and controversies in the philosophy of science.

A study and discussion of some of the major issues in Aesthetic theory.

The existence of mathematical entities, their nature and knowledge. Some of the positions to be studied include logicism, intuitionism and formalism.

An examination of the problem of human freedom and determinism in relation to action and intention, taking into consideration the metaphysical and/or moral implications.