Mar 29, 2024  
2017-2018 Catalog 
    
2017-2018 Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

PHI 350 - Fall 2017: Liberalism and its Critics 1689-2017; Spring 2018: Children, Philosophy, and Human Nature


Fall 2017

Instructor: Studtmann

Liberalism and its Critics 1689-2017

Satisfies the Philosophy major seminar requirement.
Counts as an elective for the Philosophy minor.

 

Spring 2018

Instructor: Griffith

In various areas of philosophy, philosophers write and think about certain aspects of human nature - e.g., how human minds work, how human beings make choices, how emotions and desires figure into one’s psychology and identity.  Philosophers also write and think about what is distinctive about human beings so as to make us candidates for personhood, selfhood, and moral agency.  Usually these discussions center on typical human adults.  But in this course, we will explore what happens when the discussions are expanded to include children.  Some of the questions we might think about are: When does a child become a person?  What is required for a child to become a moral agent? Does a child have a self?  How do children learn about and conceptualize the world?  How do children make choices?  We will think about whether asking these questions about children helps illuminate the broader questions (e.g., what is personhood, what is required for moral agency, how do we interact and learn about the world, and so on).

Satisfies the Philosophy major seminar requirement.
Counts as an elective for the Philosophy minor.

Prerequisites & Notes
This course can be repeated for credit given sufficiently distinct topics: check with the department chair. (Fall, Spring)