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Permanent Courses
Course information found here includes all permanent offerings and is updated regularly whenever Academic Senate approves changes. For historical information, see the Course Catalogs. For actual course availability in any given term, use Course Search in the Portal.
- Frequency: Offered each semester.
- Domains/Capstone: 1S
An exploration of some of the central questions and problems addressed by philosophers, such as: What is it to be a person? How can we live well and act responsibly? What is the nature of justice? Is it possible to act freely? What can we know about the world around us? What is the relationship between the mind and body? These questions, and others like them, are at the heart of philosophy. In this course, we will engage them through the writings of philosophers who have taken on these questions themselves. Expect to think carefully and write critically, skills meant to serve you in and beyond college.
- Frequency: Offered each semester.
- Domains/Capstone: 5T
- Prerequisite: not open to students who have taken Philosophy 115.
- Frequency: Offered occasionally.
- Domains/Capstone: 5T
- Prerequisite: not open to students who have taken Philosophy 110.
An examination of the origins of philosophical reflection in Greek myth, where human self-knowledge emerges from narratives about the gods. This course traces themes of being and becoming, thought and experience, and cyclical time through pre-socratic philosophers like Thales, Heraclitus, and Parmenides to Plato and Aristotle. Many of these thinkers are keenly attuned to the ways in which human thinking and action are embodied social processes that require an interdependence between agents and their social contexts. Finally, we examine some major Roman philosophical responses to these themes, like epicureanism, stoicism, and skepticism, where the seeds of many subsequent Christian and modern conceptions of subjectivity and individualism are sown.
- Frequency: Offered every other fall.
- Domains/Capstone: 5T
- Prerequisite: Philosophy 110 or 115 or consent of instructor.
The 17th and 18th centuries were an age of great philosophical exploration, culminating in what we now call the Enlightenment. From Descartes to Kant, philosophers debated the nature of knowledge, the relationship between mind and body, the possibility of freedom in a causal world, and the role and limits of reason. In the 19th century, philosophers such as Hegel and Marx both extended and critiqued the project of the Enlightenment. More recently, theorists have worked to situate Enlightenment philosophy in its historical context and to challenge its basic assumptions. This course examines a range of texts associated with the Enlightenment and its critics.
- Frequency: Offered every other fall.
- Domains/Capstone: 5T
- Prerequisite: Philosophy 110 or 115, or consent of instructor.
- Frequency: Offered every third semester.
- Domains/Capstone: 5T
- Prerequisite: Philosophy 110 or 115, or consent of instructor.
- Frequency: Offered each spring.
- Domains/Capstone: 5T
- Prerequisite: Philosophy 110 or 115, or sophomore standing.
An examination of ethical questions related to the environment and our place in it. Special emphasis on issues concerning our moral responsibility to beings and entities that are physically, metaphysically, and/or temporally distant from us. These may include distant persons, nonhuman animals, natural objects, species, and ecosystems, as well as future iterations of these.
- Frequency: Offered every other fall.
- Domains/Capstone: 5T
- Prerequisite: Philosophy 110 or 115, or sophomore standing.
- Cross-list: Also listed as Environmental Studies 224.
- Frequency: Offered occasionally.
- Domains/Capstone: 5T
- Prerequisite: Philosophy 110 or 115, or sophomore standing.
- Frequency: Offered occasionally.
- Domains/Capstone: 5T
- Prerequisite: Philosophy 110 or 115, or consent of instructor.
Selected problems, movements, and thinkers in philosophy. May be repeated for credit if topic is different.
- Frequency: Offered occasionally.
- Domains/Capstone: 5T
- Prerequisite: Philosophy 110 or 115, or consent of instructor.
The human mind may be the last great mystery of the physical world- the thing that sets us apart from other animals and seems to defy physical law. In fact, consciousness holds the special title of “The Hard Problem.” Traditional philosophy of mind examines the mind-body problem, usually as it has been conceived and explored through analytic philosophy. This course looks at those texts that have defined and shaped the field historically, while including texts from other philosophical traditions that have only recently changed how the mind-body problem is understood. These include texts from phenomenologists, pragmatists, and linguists, among others. We survey many authors and perspectives, while remaining grounded in the classical texts of the field.
- Frequency: Offered even years, spring semester.
- Domains/Capstone: 5T
- Prerequisite: Philosophy 110 or 115.
- Cross-list: Also listed as Cognitive Science 241.
Examination of the concept of law and the concept of justice, with a particular focus on 20th and 21st century philosophical theories of each concept, as well as critical contemporary discussions of those theories.
- Frequency: Offered every other fall.
- Domains/Capstone: 5T
- Prerequisite: Philosophy 110 or 115, or Political Science 180, or consent of instructor.
- Frequency: Offered occasionally.
- Domains/Capstone: 5T
- Prerequisite: Philosophy 110 or 115 or sophomore standing.
- Frequency: Offered occasionally.
- Domains/Capstone: 5T
- Prerequisite: Philosophy 110 or 115, or consent of instructor.
- Frequency: Offered occasionally.
- Domains/Capstone: 5T
- Prerequisite: Philosophy 110 or 115 or sophomore standing.
- Cross-list: Also listed as Interdisciplinary Studies 260/Critical Identity Studies 307.
- Frequency: Offered odd years, fall semester.
- Domains/Capstone: 5T
- Prerequisite: Political Science 180 or sophomore standing.
- Cross-list: Also listed as Political Science 280.
- Frequency: Offered each spring.
- Prerequisite: Political Science 180 or sophomore standing.
- Cross-list: Also listed as Political Science 285.
Study of individual philosophers, central problems, or major movements. May be repeated for credit if topic is different.
- Frequency: Offered occasionally.
- Prerequisite: at least 3 courses in philosophy.
A capstone course for philosophy majors and minors, typically including a shared engagement with a philosophy text or texts, an exploration of the research process in philosophy, and reflection on the philosophy major/minor in the context of institutional and departmental learning goals and life after Beloit College.
- Frequency: Offered each fall.
- Domains/Capstone: CP
- Prerequisite: junior standing and at least 3 courses in philosophy, or consent of instructor.
- Prerequisite: sophomore standing.