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The
LSU Department of Philosophy offers a wide range of courses
designed to encourage students to think critically, to
analyze and evaluate propositions and arguments, and to ask
questions about meaning, truth, and how we ought to live.
Some philosophy courses deal with issues that arise in other
fields of study and in certain professions and vocations.
Such courses include professional ethics, bioethics,
philosophy of art, philosophy of science, and philosophy and
film. Logic courses are especially recommended for students
in business, mass communication, and pre-law.
[General
education
courses are marked with a single star *. A course marked
with two stars **
only counts toward general education requirements for
students who are not under the Fall 2010 catalog
requirements.
Course descriptions are below the list.]
Go
here for Fall
2012
COURSE DESCRIPTIONS.
INTRODUCTORY
*1000
Introduction to Philosophy
1001
Honors: Introduction to Philosophy
*1021
Introduction to Logic
2000
LEVEL
LOGIC
*2010
Symbolic Logic I
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
*2033
History
of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy
2034 HONORS (Ancient and Medieval)
*2035 History
of Modern Philosophy
2036 HONORS (Modern)
2053 HONORS (Ancient and Medieval)
PHILOSOPHY
OF SCIENCE
2786
Logic,
Science, and Society
METAPHYSICS
AND
EPISTEMOLOGY
2745 Knowledge and
Reality
MORAL AND SOCIAL AND POLITICAL
PHILOSOPHY
2000
Contemporary Moral Problems
2018 Professional
Ethics
*2020 Ethics
2021 Environmental
Ethics
2025 Bioethics
AESTHETICS
**2023 Philosophy of
Art
*2024
Philosophy in Literature
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
*2028 Philosophy
of Religion
SELECTED TOPICS AND INDEPENDENT
READING
2963, 2964, 2965 HONORS
COLLOQUIUM
2953 HONORS
3000
LEVEL
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
3110
The Philosophy of Socrates
3090 Friedrich
Nietzsche
METAPHYSICS,
EPISTEMOLOGY, AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
3950
Introduction to Epistemology
MORAL
AND
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
3052 Moral
Philosophy
CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY
3001 Existentialism
3003 French
Existentialism
AESTHETICS
3002
Philosophy and Film
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
3015
Christian Philosophy
SELECTED TOPICS AND
INDEPENDENT READING
3020
Special Topics in Philosophy
4000
LEVEL
LOGIC
4010
Symbolic Logic II
4011
Topics in Advanced Logic
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
4920
Presocratic Philosophy
4922 Plato
4924 Aristotle
4926
Hellenistic Philosophy
4928
Medieval
Philosophy
4931
Descartes,
Spinoza, and Leibniz
4933 Locke,
Berkeley, Hume
4935 Kant
4936 19th
Century Philosophy
4938
Philosophical
Thought in America
4939 Kierkegaard
4972 Kant's
Moral Philosophy
METAPHYSICS,
EPISTEMOLOGY, AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
4950
Advanced Epistemology
4951
Philosophy of Science
4952 Topics
in Metaphysics
4953
Contemporary
Analytic Philosophy
LANGUAGE
& MIND
4941 Philosophy
of Mind
4914
Philosophy of Language
MORAL AND SOCIAL AND
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
4015
Philosophy of Male and Female
4098 Politics
and Ethics
4942
Topics in Meta-Ethics
4943
Problems in Ethical Theory
4945
Political Philosophy
4946 Philosophy
of Law
4972 Kant's
Moral Philosophy
CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY
4003
Contemporary French Philosophy
4015
Philosophy of Male and Female
4948 Phenomenology
4954
Recent Speculative Philosophy
AESTHETICS
4940 Aesthetics
4002 Philosophy
of Film
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
4944
Philosophical Theology
SELECTED TOPICS AND
INDEPENDENT READING
4786 Selected
Topics
4991
Independent
Reading and Research
7000
LEVEL
7901
Seminar
in Contemporary Analytic Philosophy
7903
Seminar
in Continental Philosophy
7905
Seminar
in History of Philosophy
7910 Seminar
7991
Independent
Reading and Research
8000
LEVEL
8000 Thesis
Research
INTRODUCTORY
COURSES
*
1000 Introduction to Philosophy
(3) Major works on such themes as appearance and
reality, human nature, nature of knowledge,
relation of mind and body, right and good,
existence of God, and freedom and determinism.
1001
Honors:
Introduction to Philosophy
(3) Prereq.: ENGL 1002 or equivalent. Same as PHIL
1000, with a special honors emphasis for qualified
students. Credit will not be given for both this
course and PHIL 1000.
*
1021 Introduction to Logic
(3) No special background presupposed.
Formal and informal reasoning; introduction to
propositional logic; formal and informal
fallacies; scientific reasoning.
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2000
LEVEL
COURSES
LOGIC
*
2010 Symbolic Logic I
(3) Classical propositional and first-order
predicate logic; syntax and semantics of formal
languages; translation between formal languages
and English; formal methods of proof.
HISTORY
OF
PHILOSOPHY
*
2033 History of Ancient and Medieval
Philosophy
(3) An honors course, PHIL 2034, is also
available. Introduction to philosophy through a
study of some of the main writings of classical
and medieval philosophy.
2034 HONORS
Tutorial in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (1) To
be taken concurrently with PHIL 2033. 1 hr. of
tutorial instruction per week for honors students.
*
2035 History of Modern Philosophy
An honors course, PHIL 2036, is also available.
Introduction to philosophy through a study of some
of the main writings of modern philosophy.
2036 HONORS (Modern)
Tutorial in Modern Philosophy (1) To be taken
concurrently with PHIL 2035. 1 hr. of tutorial
instruction per week for honors students.
2053
HONORS
(Ancient and Medieval)
Philosophical Colloquium (3) Prereq.: a grade of B
or higher in at least one other philosophy course;
or consent of instructor. Subject drawn from
prominent philosophical works.
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
2786
Logic, Science, and Society
(3) Prereq.: completed analytical reasoning area
of general education or consent of instructor.
Logic, evidence, probability, and induction;
objectivity and relativism; technology and utopia.
METAPHYSICS
AND EPISTEMOLOGY
2745
Knowledge and Reality
(3) Introduction to central epistemological and
metaphysical questions: mind and matter; causation
and free will; space and time; meaning and truth;
the nature of knowledge and justified belief;
perception, memory, reasoning, and testimony as
sources of knowledge and justified belief.
MORAL
AND
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
2000
Contemporary Moral Problems
(3) Philosophical study of contemporary moral
problems such as capital punishment, preferential
treatment, sexual equality, sexual liberation,
terrorism, war and nuclear arms, animal rights,
world hunger, environmental ethics, and the
morality of suicide.
2018
Professional Ethics
(3) Special problems of obligation and evaluation
related to law, medicine, politics, and education,
as well as business, engineering, and
architecture; altruism, trust, vocation, codes of
honor, professional privilege, and
responsibilities for others arising from
differential abilities.
* 2020 Ethics
(3) Classical and recent theories of obligation
and value, including works of philosophers such as
Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hume, and Nietzsche;
topics including freedom, rights, justification of
moral judgments.
2021 Environmental Ethics
(3) Ethical relations to other humans through the
environment and to non-humans within the
environment. Topics may include: animal
rights, the intrinsic value of nature, deep
ecology, climate change, and pollution.
2025 Bioethics
(3) Defining health and disease; deciding on
rights, duties, and obligations in the
patient-physician relationship; abortion and the
concept of a person; defining and determining
death; euthanasia and the dignity of death;
allocation of medical resources, both large-scale
and small-scale; experimentation with fetuses,
children, prisoners, and animals; genetic testing,
screening, and interference.
AESTHETICS
** 2023
Philosophy of Art
(3) Philosophical theories of beauty, art, and art
criticism.
*
2024 Philosophy in Literature
(3) Philosophical themes in world literature:
fiction, poetry, drama, and autobiography.
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
* 2028
Philosophy of Religion
(3) Same as REL 2028. Essence and meaning of
religion as a pervasive phenomenon in human
societies; faith and reason, nature of divinity,
arguments for and against God's existence,
religious knowledge and experience, morality and
cult, the problem of evil.
SELECTED TOPICS AND
INDEPENDENT READING
2963, 2964,
2965 HONORS
Independent Work for Honors Students (1,1,1)
Prereq.: sophomore standing, completion of at
least 3 hrs. of philosophy with a grade of B or
higher, and a gpa of at least 3.00 in all work
taken. Readings, conferences, and reports
underfaculty direction.
COLLOQUIUM
2953 HONORS
Philosophical Colloquium (3) Prereq.: a grade of B
or higher in at least one other philosophy course;
or consent of instructor. Subject drawn from
prominent philosophical works.
return to top
3000
LEVEL
COURSES
HISTORY
OF
PHILOSOPHY
3090
Friedrich Nietzsche
(3) See GERM 3090.
3110
The Philosophy of Socrates
(3) Early dialogues of Plato; Socrates on
pleasure, friendship, virtue, justice, courage,
temperance, wisdom, and happiness; on knowing the
better and following the worse; on reason and
inspiration; Socratic irony.
METAPHYSICS,
EPISTEMOLOGY, AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
3950
Introduction
to
Epistemology
(3)
Survey
of central issues in the theory of knowledge:
knowledge as justified true belief; the Gettier
problem; induction as a source of justification; a
priori knowledge; fallibilist vs. infallibilist
and internalist vs. externalist conceptions of
justification; structure of justification.
MORAL AND SOCIAL AND
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
3052 Moral
Philosophy
(3) May be taken twice when topics vary. Topics in
ethics and meta-ethics: egoism, consequentialism,
deontology, moral relativism, virtue ethics,
values, ethics and religion; naturalistic fallacy,
truth and justification, realism and objectivity,
motivation and practical reasoning, autonomy, and
game theory.
CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY
3001
Existentialism
(3) Basic themes of existentialist philosophy; the
works of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Jaspers,
Heidegger, Camus, Marcel, and Sartre.
3003
French Existentialism
(3) Major themes, issues, and theories of the
French existentialist; existence, essence, and the
question of Being; death, nothingness, and
anxiety; freedom, responsibility, and values; the
ethical and the other; authors include Jean-Paul
Sartre, Simone De Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty;
Albert Camus, Emamnuel Levinas, Jean Beaufret,
Gabriel Marcel, Emmanuel Mounier.
AESTHETICS
3002
Philosophy and Film
(3) Films as philosophical texts.
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
3015
Christian Philosophy
(3) Prereq.: one course in either philosophy or
religious studies or equivalent. Also offered as
REL 3015. Applications of philosophy to such
themes in Christianity as knowing God, nature, and
the structure of faith, revelation, incarnation,
faith and science, Christianity and other faiths.
SELECTED TOPICS AND
INDEPENDENT READING
3020
Special
Topics in Philosophy
(1-3) May be taken twice for credit when topics
vary.
return to top
4000
LEVEL
COURSES
LOGIC
4010 Symbolic Logic II
(3) Prereq.:
PHIL 2010 or consent of instructor.
Syntax and basic model theory of classical
first-order logic; soundness and completeness.
4011
Topics in Advanced Logic
(3)
Prereq.: PHIL 4010 or consent of
instructor. Also offered as LING 4011.
Topics
may include advanced metatheory of symbolic
languages, intensional logics, and Montague
grammar.
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
4920
Presocratic Philosophy
(3) Prereq.: PHIL 2033 or equivalent. Study of the
major Presocratic Philosophers from Thales up to
and including the Sophists.
4922 Plato
(3) Prereq.: PHIL 2033 or equivalent.
4924 Aristotle
(3) Prereq.: PHIL 2033 or equivalent. Topics from
Aristotle's Metaphysics, Physics, De Anima, and
the logical treatises.
4926
Hellenistic Philosophy
(3) Prereq.: PHIL 2033 or equivalent. Study of the
major Hellenistic PHilosophical Schools: the
Epicureans, the Stoics, and the Sceptics.
4928
Medieval
Philosophy
(3) Also offered as REL 4928. Study of three major
figures in medieval philosophy; emphasis on the
development of the patristic, monastic, and
scholastic traditions.
4931
Descartes,
Spinoza, and Leibniz
(3) Prereq.: 6 hrs. of philosophy or consent of
instructor. 17th century rationalism, with
emphasis on epistemology and metaphysics.
4933
Locke, Berkeley, Hume
(3) Language, epistemology, ontology, self, God,
causation, realism, and idealism in the writings
of these British empiricists.
4935 Kant
(3) Prereq.: PHIL 2035 or equivalent. Basic topics
and arguments in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.
4936
19th Century Philosophy
(3) Prereq.: PHIL 2033 and 2035; or equivalent.
19th century philosophy, with emphasis on German
thought; readings in Fichte, Hegel, Marx,
Nietzsche, Bergson, and others.
4938
Philosophical
Thought in America
(3) Late 19th and early 20th centuries; topics
from such philosophers as Peirce, James, Royce,
Dewey, Santayana, Ward, and Mead.
4939 Kierkegaard
(3) Also offered as REL 4939. Study of his works,
such as, Either/Or, The Sickness Unto Death, Fear
and Trembling, Concluding Unscientific Postscript,
Stages on Life's Way, and The Present Age. Also
offered as REL 4939.
4972
Kant's Moral Philosophy
(3) Study of some or several of Kant's principal
works in moral philosophy such as, Groundwork of
the Metaphysics of Morals, Metaphysics of Morals,
Critique of Practical Reason, and Anthropology
From a Pragmatic Point of View.
METAPHYSICS,
EPISTEMOLOGY, AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
4950
Advanced Epistemology
(3)
Topics
may include naturalized epistemology, internalism
vs. externalism about justification, a priori
knowledge, justification and truth, skepticism,
Bayesian approaches to justification,
contextualist theories of knowledge, and the
possibility of non-inferential justification.
4951
Philosophy
of Science
(3) Prereq.: consent of instructor. Philosophical
issues related to concept formation and theory
construction in the natural, behavioral, and
social sciences.
4952
Topics in Metaphysics
(3) May be taken twice when topics vary. Such
topics as ontology, modalities, universals, truth,
causation, reductionism, identity (physical and
personal), realism, and the meaning of life.
4953
Contemporary
Analytic Philosophy
(3) Prereq.: one logic course and either PHIL
2035 or 4933. Topics from leading philosophers
in such contemporary movements as logical
empiricism, formalism, and ordinary language
analysis, including Moore, Russell,
Wittgenstein, Carnap, Goodman, Ryle, Strawson,
and Quine.
PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE
AND MIND
4941
Philosophy of Mind
(3) Prereq.: PHIL 2033 and 2035; or equivalent.
Recent philosophical treatments of human nature;
the mind-body problem, identity of the person in
time, the person as rational and volitional, and
relation of the person to the world.
4914
Philosophy of Language
(3) Prereq.: one logic course or consent of
instructor. Also offered as LING 4914. Various
theories of meaning, their implications and
presuppositions, and their relevance to issues
in such areas as theory of perception, theory of
truth, metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of mind
and action.
MORAL AND SOCIAL AND
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
4098
Politics and Ethics
(3) Also offered as POLI 4098. Ethical
theory
and its application to politics, domestic and
international; ethical issues of public policy
and conduct will be examined.
4942
Topics in Meta-Ethics
(3) Prereq.: two courses in philosophy or
consent of instructor. May
be taken for a max. of 6 sem. hrs. of credit
when topics vary.
Naturalistic fallacy, truth and meaning, realism
and objectivity, motivation and practical
reasoning, autonomy, and justification of
ethical theory.
4943
Problems
in Ethical Theory
(3) Prereq.: two courses in philosophy or
consent of instructor. Recent developments in
ethics.
4945
Political Philosophy
(3) Prereq.: PHIL 1000 or 2020 or equivalent.
Freedom, obligation, authority, justice, law,
the state, and revolution.
4946
Philosophy of Law
(3) Moral issues in foundations of law and legal
authority; nature of law; civil disobedience;
principles of punishment; legal liability;
morals legislation; Good Samaritan laws; moral
basis of contract law.
4972 Kant's Moral Philosophy
(3) Study of some or several of Kant's principal
works in moral philosophy such as, Groundwork of
the Metaphysics of Morals, Metaphysics of
Morals, Critique of Practical Reason, and
Anthropology From a Pragmatic Point of View.
CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY
4003
Contemporary French Philosophy
(3) Major contemporary French philospohers,
including Bergson, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, De
Beauvior, Levinas, Derrida, Foucault, Nancy
Ricoeur, Marion, Janicaud; themes such as the
rethinking of ethics, the question of humanism,
and political thought; intellectual movements
such as structuralism and post-structuralism,
phenomenology, hermeneutics and deconstruction,
feminism and psychoanalysis.
4015
Philosophy
of Male and Female
(3) Philosophical examination of the concepts of
human nature that underlie a variety of theories
about women and femininity.
4948
Phenomenology
(3) Prereq.: PHIL 2035 or 4936 or equivalent.
Contemporary phenomenology; reading in Husserl.
4954
Recent
Speculative Philosophy
(3) Prereq.: two other philosophy courses or
consent of instructor. Theories of being and
knowing in recent absolute idealism, process
philosophy, and phenomenological existentialism.
AESTHETICS
4940 Aesthetics
(3) Meaning and truth in the arts; artistic
intention; critical canons.
4002
Philosophy of Film
(3) Therories of film.
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
4944
Philosophical Theology
(3) Prereq.: two courses in philosophy and/or
religious studies. Also offered as REL 4944.
Major themes and works in philosophical
theology.
SELECTED TOPICS AND
INDEPENDENT READING
4786 Selected
Topics
(3) May be taken for a max. of 6 sem. hrs. when
topics vary.
4991
Independent
Reading and Research
(1-3) Prereq.: written consent of instructor and
department. May be taken for a max. of 6 hrs. of
credit when topics vary. Total credit earned as
a graduate student in PHIL 4991 and PHIL 7991
combined may not exceed 9 hrs.
return to top
7000
LEVEL
COURSES
7901
Seminar
in Contemporary Analytic Philosophy
(3) Philosophy of language, metaphysics, realism,
anti-realism, and philosophy of logic and
mathematics.
7903
Seminar
in Continental Philosophy
(3) Major figures and/or movements in continental
philosophy.
7905
Seminar
in History of Philosophy
(3) May be taken for a max. of 9 hrs. of credit
when topics vary. Study of a major philosopher or
school of philosophy.
7910 Seminar
(3) May be taken for a max. of 6 hrs. of credit
when topics vary. May be offered as LING 7910 when
topic is appropriate.
7991
Independent
Reading and Research
(1-6) Prereq.: written consent of instructor and
departmental director of graduate studies. Total
credit earned as a graduate student in PHIL 4991
and PHIL 7991 combined may not exceed 9 hrs.
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8000
LEVEL
COURSES
8000 Thesis
Research
(1-12 per sem.) S/U grading.
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