Auburn Bulletin 2023-2024

Department of Philosophy

The curriculum in Philosophy at Auburn cultivates skills in thinking, writing, and logical criticism, preparing students for any career path in which these skills are valued. Many Auburn graduates with a BA in Philosophy have chosen to pursue degrees from professional schools, whether in law, business, or medicine. Others have chosen to enter seminary or to pursue graduate degrees in philosophy. Others have found success entering the workforce immediately, starting their own businesses, working in media outlets, or pursuing careers in politics.  

Philosophy Courses

PHIL 1010 INTRODUCTION TO LOGIC (3) LEC. 3. Humanities Core. Basic logical principles and applications: definition, informal fallacies, categorical logic, elementary propositional logic, analogy, and selected inductive inferences.

PHIL 1017 HONORS LOGIC (3) LEC. 3. Pr. Honors College. Humanities Core. Basic logical principles and applications: definition, informal fallacies, categorical logic, elementary propositional logic, analogy, and selected inductive inferences.

PHIL 1020 INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS (3) LEC. 3. Humanities Core. Major ethical theories from the history of philosophy, their foundations in epistemology and metaphysics, and their extension into social thought. May count either PHIL 1020 or PHIL 1023.

PHIL 1027 HONORS ETHICS (3) LEC. 3. Pr. Honors College. Humanities Core. Major ethical theories from the history of philosophy, their foundations in epistemology and metaphysics, and their extension into social thought.

PHIL 1030 ETHICS AND THE HEALTH SCIENCES (3) LEC. 3. Humanities Core. Ethical inquiry into such major issues as abortion, eugenics, physician-assisted suicide, euthanasia, health-care delivery methods, and informed consent.

PHIL 1037 HONORS ETHICS AND THE HEALTH SCIENCES (3) LEC. 3. Pr. Honors College. Humanities Core. Ethical inquiry into such major issues as abortion, eugenics, physician-assisted suicide, euthanasia, health-care delivery methods, and informed consent.

PHIL 1040 BUSINESS ETHICS (3) LEC. 3. Humanities Core. Types of ethical theory; application to such normative issues in commerce as advertising, management, and business abroad.

PHIL 1050 INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY (3) LEC. 3. Humanities Core. Principal theories and thinkers in political philosophy from antiquity to the present.

PHIL 1060 PHILOSOPHY EAST AND WEST (3) LEC. 3. Humanities Core. Principal thinkers and theories in four philosophical traditions: Indian, Chinese, European, and Arabic.

PHIL 1070 ART, VALUE, AND SOCIETY (3) LEC. 3. Humanities Core. Introduction to philosophical aesthetics, focusing on the relationship of artistic values and the extra-artistic values of societies that house them.

PHIL 1080 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION (3) LEC. 3. Humanities Core. Philosophy of religion, including questions about God's existence, relationship of reason and faith, religious epistemology, and language.

PHIL 1090 PHILOSOPHY OF RACE AND GENDER (3) LEC. 3. Humanities Core. Philosophical issues associated with race and gender, including role of biology and social construction, nature of prejudice, questions about justice and redress.

PHIL 1100 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY (3) LEC. 3. Humanities Core. Methods of philosophical inquiry and examination of selected philosophical topics. May count either PHIL 1100 or PHIL 1103.

PHIL 1110 ETHICAL AND CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATIONS OF SCIENCE (3) LEC. 3. Introduction to the moral and conceptual foundations of science, concentrating on ethical facets of scientific research, theorizing, and knowledge production, as well as conceptual issues regarding the nature of causation, induction, scientific explanation and confirmation. May count either PHIL 1110 or PHIL 1113.

PHIL 1120 INTRODUCTION TO ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS (3) LEC. 3. Ethical inquiry into environmental issues such as non-human animal welfare, environmental justice, global climate change, resource use, and conservationism versus preservationism.

PHIL 2110 LOGIC AND REASONING (3) LEC. 3. Students will refine their ability to wield the tools of logical analysis in situations which call for precise reasoning, learning to apply these tools in a variety of contexts.

PHIL 2970 GATEWAY SEMINAR (3) LEC. 3. An introduction to philosophy through special topics. The course is designed to provide students with the basic skills required for more advanced work in philosophy. Topics vary. Course may be repeated for a maximum of 6 credit hours.

PHIL 3050 AESTHETICS (3) LEC. 3. Pr. At least 3 credits in PHIL 1000-1999. Modern and contemporary theories of the nature of art.

PHIL 3060 PHILOSOPHY OF FILM (3) LEC. 3. Pr. At least 3 credits in PHIL 1000-1999. (Area l) Consideration of philosophical issues raised within particular films and by the nature of cinematic representation in general.

PHIL 3100 ETHICAL THEORY (3) LEC. 3. Pr. At least 3 credits in PHIL 1000-1999. (Area I) Overview of contemporary questions and positions in ethics, including moral realism, the rationality of moral action, subjectivism and non-cognitivism, naturalism, and various theories of practical reason.

PHIL 3110 SYMBOLIC LOGIC (3) LEC. 3. Pr. At least 3 credits in PHIL 1000-1999. (Area IV) Propositional logic and predicate logic through relations; natural language and logic; some philosophical problems in logic.

PHIL 3200 RACE AND JUSTICE (3) LEC/SEM. Pr. A grade of D or higher in PHIL 1000-2999. This course is an intermediate introductory course that examines themes of race and justice from a philosophical perspective in both historical and contemporary contexts.

PHIL 3300 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION (3) LEC. 3. Pr. At least 3 credits in PHIL 1000-1999. (Area II) Nature of religion, religious experience, religious knowledge, religious theories of humanity and evil, arguments for the existence of God and immortality of the soul.

PHIL 3330 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY (3) LEC. 3. Pr. At least 3 credits in PHIL 1000-1999. (Area III) Philosophical thought from the Pre-Socratics through the Hellenistic philosophers, emphasizing Plato and Aristotle.

PHIL 3340 HISTORY OF EARLY MODERN PHILOSOPHY (3) LEC. 3. Pr. At least 3 credits in PHIL 1000-1999. (Area III) Philosophical thought from Descartes to Kant, emphasizing major figures in the rationalist and empiricist traditions.

PHIL 3350 HISTORY OF LATE MODERN AND PRE-ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY (3) LEC. 3. Pr. At least 3 credits in PHIL 1000-1999. (Area III) Philosophical thought from Kant to the Pre-Analytic philosophers, possibly including Schopenhauer, Hegel, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, James, Brentano, Frege, Meinong, Cook-Wilson, Bradley, and Moore.

PHIL 3360 HISTORY OF EARLY ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY (3) LEC. 3. Pr. At least 3 credits in PHIL 1000-1999. (Area III) Philosophical thought in the early Analytic period, including the works of Russell, Moore, Wittgenstein, and members of the Vienna Circle.

PHIL 3400 MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY (3) LEC. 3. Pr. At least 3 credits in PHIL 1000-1999. (Area III) Philosophical thought from late antiquity through the Middle Ages, with emphasis on the ideas of Plotinus, Islamic thinkers, Augustine, Abelard, Anselm, and Thomas Aquinas.

PHIL 3500 EPISTEMOLOGY (3) LEC. 3. Pr. At least 3 credits in PHIL 1000-1999. (Area II) Origin, nature, kinds, and validity of knowledge, with considerations of faith, institution, belief, opinion, certainty, and probability.

PHIL 3510 PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE (3) LEC. 3. Student must have taken at least one philosophy course prior to taking PHIL 3510. Empirical meaning, verifiability, measurement, probability, causality and determinism.

PHIL 3530 PHILOSOPHY OF PHYSICS (3) LEC. 3. An overview of the philosophy of physics, with attention to topics such as the nature of matter, motion, change, space, time, space-time, time travel, Einstein's theories of special and general relativity, and non-relativistic quantum mechanics.

PHIL 3540 PHILOSOPHY OF MIND (3) LEC. 3. Pr. At least 3 credits in PHIL 1000-1999. (Area II) Classical and modern texts on the phenomenology of consciousness and mind-body problems.

PHIL 3550 PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE (3) LEC. 3. Pr. At least 3 credits in PHIL 1000-1999. (Area II) Survey of contemporary philosophical discussions of the nature of language.

PHIL 3600 CLASSICAL POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY (3) LEC. 3. Pr. At least 3 credits in PHIL 1000-1999. At least one course in philosophy at the 1000 level. Political thought of classical thinkers, including Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Mill, Spencer, and Marx. (Area I for PHIL major)

PHIL 3620 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY (3) LEC. 3. Pr. POLI 3020. or at least one PHIL course at the 1000 or 2000 level. A survey of major schools of 20th- and 21st-century political thought, including liberalism, communitarianism, libertarianism, feminism, and anarchism. May count either PHIL 3620 or POLI 4340.

PHIL 3640 PHILOSOPHY OF LAW (3) LEC. 3. Pr. At least 3 credits in PHIL 1000-1999. (Area I) Functions of law, including judicial reasoning, ground of authority, natural law, legal responsibility, punishment, civil disobedience, and the relation of law to ethics.

PHIL 3660 APPLIED ETHICS (3) LEC. 3. Pr. At least 3 credits in PHIL 1000-1999. Advanced philosophical study of the ethical issues that arise in intellectual endeavors, such as law, business, military science, and engineering.

PHIL 3700 METAPHYSICS (3) LEC. 3. Pr. At least 3 credits in PHIL 1000-1999. (Area II) Critical analysis of such topics as monism and pluralism, freedom and determinism, realism and nominalism, and the mind-body problem.

PHIL 3740 EXISTENTIALISM (3) LEC. 3. Pr. At least 3 credits in PHIL 1000-1999. (Area II) Selected works of such authors as Kierkegaard, Neitzsche, Sartre, Jaspers, and Heidegger.

PHIL 3800 FEMINISM AND PHILOSOPHY (3) LEC. 3. Pr. At least 3 credits in PHIL 1000-1999. This is an intermediate level philosophy course introducing students to feminist philosophers' attempts to grapple with traditional philosophical problems that either directly or indirectly bear on issues of gender and oppression. Texts may include historical and contemporary discussions of topics of concern to feminists, in any of the following areas: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of science, language, law and social political philosophy.

PHIL 3970 SPECIAL TOPICS (3) LEC. 3. Pr. At least 3 credits in PHIL 1000-1999. Topics vary. Course may be repeated for a maximum of 6hours.

PHIL 4110 ADVANCED LOGIC (3) LEC. 3. Pr. PHIL 3110 or Departmental approval. Advanced topics in logic. For example: soundness, completeness, incompleteness, set theory, proof theory, model theory, non-standard logics.

PHIL 4920 INTERNSHIP (3) INT. 200. SU. Opportunity to apply skills acquired in classroom in career setting. Internship must be supervised and appropriate to major.

PHIL 4960 SPECIAL PROBLEMS IN PHILOSOPHY (1-6) IND. Pr., Departmental approval. Reading program on a particular philosopher, period, or problem. Course may be repeated for a maximum of 6 credit hours.

PHIL 4967 HONORS SPECIAL PROBLEMS IN PHILOSOPHY (1-3) IND. Pr. Honors College or Departmental approval. Reading program on a philosopher, period, or problem. Course may be repeated for a maximum of 3 credit hours.

PHIL 4970 SPECIAL TOPICS (3) LEC. 3. Pr. At least 6 credits in PHIL 3000-3999. Advanced topics in ethics and value theory, metaphysics and epistemology, or history of philosophy. Emphasis on readings drawn from the contemporary, professional literature. Course may be repeated for a maximum of 9 credit hours. Area distribution requirement fulfilled depends on class content.

PHIL 4980 UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH (3) PRA. Pr. A grade of D or higher in PHIL 4000-4999. Pr. One 3-hour philosophy class at the 4000 level or instructor permission. Capstone course in which students develop previously written paper into presentation to be delivered at end-of-semester conference.

PHIL 4997 HONORS THESIS (1-3) IND. Pr. Honors College. Senior thesis. Course may be repeated for a maximum of 3 credit hours.

PHIL 6950 SEMINAR (1-3) SEM. Pr., Departmental approval. Content varying from movements of thought to an extensive study of one of the great thinkers. Course may be repeated for a maximum of 3 credit hours.

Religion Courses

RELG 1020 INTRODUCTION TO THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES (3) LEC. 3. Historical-critical study of the Hebrew scriptures in their cultural setting; emphasis on development of ancient Hebrew thought.

RELG 1030 INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW TESTAMENT (3) LEC. 3. Historical-critical study of the New Testament in its cultural setting; major issues in New Testament study.

RELG 1040 INTRODUCTION TO WESTERN RELIGIONS (3) LEC. 3. Introduction to Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, with attention to Druze religion and Bah'al. May count either RELG 1040 or RELG 3340.

RELG 1050 INTRODUCTION TO EASTERN RELIGIONS (3) LEC. 3. Introduction to Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, with secondary attention to other Asian religions. May count either RELG 1050 or RELG 3330.

RELG 4960 SPECIAL PROBLEMS IN RELIGIOUS STUDIES (3) LEC. 3. Independent study on a special topic. Course may be repeated for a maximum of 6 credit hours.

RELG 4970 SPECIAL TOPICS (3) LEC. 3. Course may be repeated with change in topics.

Philosophy

  • ELFSTROM, GERARD A., Professor
  • GORODEISKY, KEREN, Professor
  • GRAHAM, JODY L., Associate Professor
  • HAMAWAKI, ARATA, Associate Professor
  • JOLLEY, KELLY D., Goodwin-Philpott Professor
  • LOCKHART, JENNIFER, Associate Professor
  • LOCKHART, TOM, Associate Professor
  • LONG, RODERICK T., Professor
  • MARCUS, ERIC A., Professor
  • MILLER, DAVID, Associate Professor
  • ROHRBAUGH, GUY, Professor
  • RUDOLPH, RACHEL ETTA, Assistant Professor
  • SHECH, ELAY, Associate Professor
  • SHELLEY, JAMES R., Professor
  • WATKINS, G. MICHAEL, Professor and Chair