Spring 2025 Courses in Philosophy
Penn State (University Park) Residential Philosophy offerings: SPRING 2025
001: The Big Problems [staff]
Central philosophical questions, including those about truth and reality, knowledge and belief, value and meaning, mind and body, God and soul.
002: Individuals in Society [Rhodes]
Core questions and contemporary issues concerning human life in social and political contexts, including power, justice, government, violence, community, and identity.
003: The Ethical Life [Sweeting, Terrazas]
Core questions and contemporary issues concerning ethical conduct, human values, character, wellbeing, freedom, responsibility, and reasoning about moral problems.
004: The Human Condition [Oni]
Questions about the meaning of life, selfhood, human nature, authenticity, morality and mortality, happiness, and existence.
007: Asian Philosophy [Kwiatek, Imamkhodjaeva]
Philosophical, moral, and aesthetic teachings of Asian traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism (including Zen), Taoism, Confucianism, and Shintoism.
008: Gender Matters [Wallace]
Feminism; questions of gender identity, inequality, oppression, especially in relation with other imbalances of power.
010: Critical Thinking [staff]
Discussion of the standards for good reasoning, argumentation, and language, and of common fallacies; informal logic; exploration of manipulative arguments and propaganda.
011: Science and Truth [Feiten]
The nature of science, scientific reasoning, and the “scientific method”; key concepts include hypothesis, falsification, evidence, models, and theory.
012: Symbolic Logic [Feiten, Agler]
Formal logical structures of propositions and arguments; tests and proof techniques for logical truth and deductive validity.
060N: 1960s Counterculture [Sollenberger]
Explores some of the central philosophical ideas, values, and social scientific theories related to the 1960s Counterculture.
102: Existentialism [Perrault]
Existential thinkers and their studies of human finitude,
angst, faith, imagination, love, and consciousness itself.
103: Ethics [staff]
Historical and contemporary ethical theories, including conceptions of virtue, duty, autonomy, right action and the good life, the foundations of ethical norms, and their validity.
107: Philosophy of Technology [Feiten]
What counts as technology, what role it plays in society and human development, what benefits it might promote, and what obvious or hidden effects deserve criticism.
108H: Social and Political Philosophy [Lim]
This course introduces key topics in social and political philosophy, focusing on the themes of freedom, rights, equality, and responsibility.
109: Aesthetics [Bergsma]
Aesthetic experience and artistic production as conceived from antiquity to the present, with emphasis on the relation of such conceptions to ideas of truth and goodness.
110: Philosophy of Science [Sollenberger]
Examines science as a method of understanding the world and the (possible) ways it differs from “non-scientific” knowing, with special attention to social context.
113: Philosophy of Literature [Vijfhuize]
Investigates the expression of philosophical ideas in literary form and, likewise, literature’s contributions to a philosophical inquiry into fundamental questions of human existence.
114: Feminist Philosophy [Payne]
Examines feminist philosophy and the intersections of gender, race, sexuality, class, and other dimensions of identity in relation to structures of power.
118: Environmental Ethics [White]
Do nonhuman animals and nature have intrinsic value? How should we respond to climate change? Let’s reflect!
119: Ethical Leadership [staff]
Studies moral questions concerning leadership and the development of admirable and effective leadership qualities.
120N: Knowing Right from Wrong [Silver]
The nature of moral ideas, beliefs, and behaviors in contemporary contexts.
124: Philosophy of Religion [Abaci]
Studies the idea and existence of God, religious experience, religious belief, and religion in relation to science.
126w: Metaphysics [Agler]
Dive into the exciting world of metaphysics by exploring the nature of time, persons, and free will.
127H: Philosophy of Mind [Droege]
Explores the mystery of consciousness through a multidisciplinary approach from Descartes’ dualism through contemporary neuroscience. Issues include evolution, the self, free will, and AI.
132: Bioethics [White]
Examination of approaches and issues in medical ethics, such as abortion, pandemic policy, and justice in healthcare.
139: Latino/a Philosophy [Mendieta]
The historical experience of Latino/a peoples and their impact on “American” philosophy. Covers race, class, gender, and ethnicity in relation to the Latino/a experience, and thus ethics, political theory, legal theory, critical philosophy of race, and feminist philosophy.
200: Ancient Philosophy [Host]
The origins of the discipline in Ancient Greece, with attention to the Sophists, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, as well as related intellectual enterprises.
201: Medieval Philosophy [Host]
Key themes developed by the philosophers from the long millennium between the fall of Rome and the rise of the Renaissance, many of whom responded to ancient Greek philosophy in the context of their theological commitments.
202: Modern Philosophy: 1600–1800 [Host]
This course offers a survey of the philosophies of Early Modern philosophers, including Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume.
203: 19th Century Philosophy [Bergsma]
European philosophy from Kant to Bergson, focusing on the ways in which individuality has been thought in relation to time, history, and ethical life.
204: 20th Century Philosophy [Droege]
Considers perception and reality (Russell), the social construction of meaning (Wittgenstein), racial difference (Du Bois), and ethics without absolutes (de Beauvoir).
205: American Philosophy from 1840 [Wretzel]
Wild, free, chaotic, irreverent, daring, bold. American philosophers see in themselves a legacy of rebellion that wants nothing to do with the fusty remainders of European repression, feudalism, monarchism, and imperialism. They seek a form of thinking that is public, democratic, and modern, one that embraces life in all its fullness, challenging its readers to live freely, with boundless curiosity, courage, authenticity, and truth.
242N: Happiness and Well-Being [Kwiatek]
An analysis and comparison of philosophical (conceptual) and psychological (social-scientific) methods for studying human flourishing.
426w: Seminar in Metaphysics [Agler]
This course investigates three topics in metaphysics: properties, objects, and time. In exploring these topics, the course addresses questions such as: How do objects resemble each other? Do ordinary objects like chairs and tables exist, or is the world just particles? Does the present exist, or is it simply the result of how we perceive the world?
461: Plato [Moore]
A close study of the most-assigned work of philosophy, Plato’s Republic, along with the Athenian comedies that first dramatized its core philosophical issues (utopia, equality of women, criticism of money) and the Sophistic-era views it responds to.
472: Islamic Philosophy [Brockopp]
A survey of the major texts from the Islamic philosophical tradition, focusing primarily on the classical period (ninth to twelfth centuries) and its influence on modern thinkers. We read translations of those who made an impact on European civilization (Algazel, Avicenna, Averroes, etc.) as well as lesser-known scholars, such as Basran saint Rabia al-Adawiyya (d. 801) and African leader Usuman dan Fodio (d. 1817). Our goal is a solid understanding of the depth and breadth of Islamic philosophy.
476: Hegel [Wretzel]
The aim of this class will be a detailed reading of Hegel’s most famous book, the Phenomenology of Spirit. We will be treating this text as a work in proto-existentialism: the focus will be on Hegelian notions of despair, anxiety, irony, freedom, ambiguity, and a dialectical rationalism that is only slightly discernible from absurdism. We will make frequent appeal to secondary sources and to existentialist readings where Hegelian thinking figures prominently. Our reading will thus see Hegel less as the canonical system builder, the totalizer who fixes all being within a rigid and inflexible system of thought, and more as someone who thinks in a way that is adequate to a living, breathing, and constantly self-reinventing being.
485: Heidegger [D. Aggleton]
This course will examine the evolution of Heidegger’s thinking about technology, how it reframes human consciousness of the world, and how it culminates in the “fourfold,” the gathering of sky, earth, divinities, and mortals. This concept may sound strange, and it should, because it tries to articulate something so basic and seemingly obvious that we lack the language to talk about it: what is a “thing”?
• For 500-level seminars, see https://philosophy.la.psu.edu/graduate/currentgrads/graduate-course-descriptions/
• For questions, email Christopher Moore, Director of Undergraduate Studies in Philosophy, c.moore@psu.edu