Philosophy

For a complete list of courses and course descriptions please see the University Catalog.  For further questions please contact the department.

PHI 100(0002-LEC) Class #85276, Contemporary Moral Problems, MWF, 11:00-11:50am, Shibles Hall 217, 3 cr.
Max Enrollment: 40, Instructor: Jessica Miller
Course Description: Examines a variety of moral problems causing controversy in contemporary society. Focuses on evaluating arguments for and against competing solutions to these problems. Also discusses different philosophical strategies for thinking about moral obligations and relationships. Topics surveyed may include: sustainability, racial injustice, gun control, abortion, assisted death, and social media and mental health. Gen Ed: Ethics, West Cult Trad, and Social Context & Inst.  

PHI 100(0991-LEC) Class #85280, Contemporary Moral Problems, Web Online Only – EIGHT WK 10/21/24 – 12/13/24, 3 cr.
Max Enrollment: 39, Instructor: Joe Arel
Course Description: Examines a variety of moral problems causing controversy in contemporary society.  Focuses on evaluating arguments for and against competing solutions to these problems.  Also discusses different philosophical strategies for thinking about moral obligations and relationships.  Topics surveyed may include abortion, affirmative action, euthanasia, feminism, the environment, capital punishment, welfare and aid to the needy, technology, war and racism, among others.  Gen Ed: Ethics, West Cult Trad, and Social Context & Inst.   

PHI 102(0001-LEC) Class #85281, Introduction to Philosophy, MWF, 2:00-2:50pm, Stevens Hall 365, 3 cr.
Max Enrollment: 40, Instructor: Mike Devito
Course Description: An introduction to philosophical thought and critical thinking through a reading of works from the world’s philosophical traditions. Readings will include selections from works by Plato, Aristotle, Nagarjuna, Zhuangzi, Mengzi, Descartes, Elizabeth of Bohemia, and others. Questions will be asked about the nature of wisdom and knowledge, the essence of reality and of ideas, human nature, virtue and community, justice, and political life. Assignments will include discussion posts, and quizzes.  Gen Ed: Ethics and West Cult Trad.  

PHI 102(0003-LEC) Class #85283, Introduction to Philosophy, MW, 3:30-4:45pm, Nutting Hall 102, 3 cr.
Max Enrollment: 40, Instructor: Andy Mallory
Course Description: This course is an introduction to the fundamental ideas and methods of the western philosophical tradition. Students will engage in close, guided readings of significant texts from this tradition and will be given the tools necessary to develop their own original ideas in response to it. Additionally, readings for this course will be presented and organized thematically rather than chronologically, so students can expect to encounter a wide variety of sources within western philosophy. Students should come away from this course with a strong grasp of the core themes of the western philosophical tradition, as well as the ability to articulate their own original ideas regarding it.  Gen Ed: Ethics, West Cult Trad. 

PHI 102(0004-LEC) Class #85284, Introduction to Philosophy, TTH, 2:00-3:15pm, Bryand Global Sciences Center 100, 3 cr.
Max Enrollment: 40, Instructor: Hao Hong
Course Description: This course is intended to introduce undergraduate students to the study of Western Philosophy.  Students should come away from the course with some familiarity with problems and individuals who have influenced the developments of Western philosophical thought.  The course will offer opportunities for students to engage with these problems and with the texts of important philosophers as a means to developing their own skills as thinkers.  While it is not possible even to summarize over 2500 years of Western philosophy, students will develop an understanding of the kinds of questions and ideas that concern philosophers and begin to cultivate their own relationship to those questions and ideas. Gen Ed: Ethics, West Cult Trad 

PHI 102(0990-LEC) Class #85287, Introduction to Philosophy, Web Online Only, 3 cr.
Max Enrollment: 39, Instructor: Joe Arel
Course Description: This course is intended to introduce undergraduate students to the study of Western Philosophy.  Students should come away from the course with some familiarity with problems and individuals who have influenced the developments of Western philosophical thought.  The course will offer opportunities for students to engage with these problems and with the texts of important philosophers as a means to developing their own skills as thinkers.  While it is not possible even to summarize over 2500 years of Western philosophy, students will develop an understanding of the kinds of questions and ideas that concern philosophers and begin to cultivate their own relationship to those questions and ideas. Gen Ed: Ethics, West Cult Trad.

PHI 102(0991-LEC) Class #85288, Introduction to Philosophy, Web Online Only – EIGHT WK 10/21/24 – 12/13/24, 3 cr.
Max Enrollment:39, Instructor: Jessica Miller
Course Description: Introduction to Philosophy is an introduction to the academic discipline of Philosophy. This course introduces students to major questions and methods of inquiry in Philosophy. Methods of inquiry include clear and concise articulation, logical argument, critical analysis, and synthesis.  In addition to basic logic, topics include epistemology (what is knowledge), metaphysics (what is reality), and practical philosophy (how should we live our lives?).    Gen Ed: Ethics, West Cult Trad.  

PHI 103(0001-LEC) Class #83591, Think!, MWF, 9:00-9:50am, Williams Hall 219, 3 cr.
Max Enrollment: 40, Instructor: Robby Finley
Course Description: A study of principles used to distinguish correct from incorrect reasoning including the nature of thought, uses of language, recognition of arguments, informal fallacies, purposes and types of definition, deduction and induction.  Emphasis on understanding and mastering through practice some fundamental techniques for testing the soundness of many different kinds of reasoning.  Gen Ed: West Cult Trad.  

PHI 104(0001-LEC) Class #84824, Existentialism and Literature, MW, 2:00-3:15pm, Nutting Hall 102, 3 cr.
Max Enrollment: 40, Instructor: Andy Mallory
Course Description: Existentialism is a revolutionary movement in 20th century philosophy that studies the ways in which it is up to us to make our lives and our world meaningful. The texts we will read in this course will offer insightful and perspective-shifting studies of human nature in addition to challenging us to reflect personally on the values by which we live and, indeed, to ask ourselves whether we are honest with respect to how we live our lives. We will also consider works of contemporary literature that help to bring out these existentialist themes in particularly vivid and intimate ways through their content as well as their form of expression.  Gen Ed: Ethics, West Cult Trad, Artistic and Creative Expression.   

PHI 105(0001LEC) Class #83592, Introduction to Religious Studies, TTH 12:30-1:45pm, Williams Hall 203, 3 cr.
Max Enrollment: 40, Instructor: Derek A Michaud
Course Description: An analysis of religion as an expression of human culture past and present. Considers institutional and non-institutional manifestations of religion as conveyed through myth and symbol, religious experience, struggle for societal change, mysticism, and quests for the articulation of human values. Inquiry by various disciplines will be considered, e.g., anthropology, psychology, sociology, history, philosophy, and theology. Gen Ed: West Cult Trad, and Social Context & Inst.  

PHI 210(0001-LEC) Class #84081, Classical Greek & Roman Philosophy, MWF, 1:00-1:50pm, The Maples 110, 3 cr.
Max Enrollment: 25, Instructor: Robby Finley
Course Description:  This course offers a survey of ancient Greek (and Roman) philosophy with the goals of (i) introducing students to central questions in ancient philosophy, (ii) connecting those questions to debates in philosophy that continue to be of interest today, and (iii) developing general philosophical skills, such as how to analyze philosophical texts, how to reconstruct arguments, and how to discuss and criticize arguments. We focus on a few major figures and schools of thought: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, and the Stoics and Skeptics (with Presocratics interspersed where appropriate and a brief look at Neoplatonism at the end). Topics range from questions in metaphysics and epistemology (What is the nature of reality? What are the most fundamental entities that make up the world? How do I even approach such questions?) to questions in ethics and political philosophy (What is the good? What is the best sort of life for a human to live? How should groups of humans be structured?) to questions about action and agency (How could I fail to act in accordance with what I think is best? In what sense can my will be said to be free?).   Gen Ed: Ethics, West Cult Trad.   

PHI 232(0001-LEC), Class #84441, Environmental Ethics, TTH, 9:30-10:45am, Lord Hall 100, 3 cr.
Max Enrollment: 40, Instructor: Don Beith
Course Description: A study of environmental ethical principles ranging from the history of Maine ecology to contemporary issues in environmental justice. We will study Thoreau’s The Maine Woods alongside traditional ecological knowledges and Wabanaki thinking, then read the ethics of the built environment through Alexander Wilson’s The Culture of Nature and other social constructivist thinkers, concluding our investigations with Rob Nixon’s Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor and ecofeminist thinkers. Gen Ed: Ethics, Population & the Environment, and Social Context & Inst. .  

PHI 232(0900-LEC), Class #84443, Environmental Ethics, Web Online Only, 3 cr.
Max Enrollment: 29, Instructor: Joe Arel
Course Description: A critical survey of major contemporary discussions of human relationships to nature and the causes of the environmental crisis. Special attention will be given to building an ethical vocabulary for interpreting the place of humans in relation to the non-human. Gen Ed: Ethics, Population & the Environment, and Social Context & Inst.  

PHI 235(0001-LEC), Class #84082, Biomedical Ethics, TTH, 9:30-10:45am, Deering Hall 113, 3 cr.
Max Enrollment: 40, Instructor: Susan Bredlau
Course Description: We will investigate the ways we are always engaged in ethical decision making and how it is often those practices that we assume are helpful or good that most require ethical consideration. We will focus on experiences of illness, disability, and dying to consider how these experiences challenge common understandings of our bodies, health, and what it means to care for others. We will also examine how interactions between individuals are always situations within broader social and political contexts and reflect on how our understanding of disease, mental illness, and scientific research impedes or supports communal, as well as individual, well-being. Gen Ed: Ethics, West Cult Trad, and Social Context & Inst.   

PHI 240(0001-LEC), Class #84560, Social & Political Philosophy, TTH, 12:30-1:45pm, The Maples 217, 3 cr.
Max Enrollment: 20, Instructor: Susan Bredlau
Course Description: A critical study of major social and political philosophers from Plato to the present in light of their ethical and metaphysical systems. Topics include the problem of justice, the nature of the state and its relationship to other social institutions, and the individual. The primary focus will be on normative rather than descriptive theory. Gen Ed: Ethics, Western Cultural Tradition, and Social Contexts & Institutions.  

PHI 250(0001-LEC), Class #84106, Formal Logic, MWF, 3:00-3:50pm, Jenness Hall 108, 3 cr.
Max Enrollment: 40, Instructor: Robby Finley
Course Description: This course is designed as an introduction to the study of deductive reasoning from a formal perspective. It is composed of two intermixed parts: In the first, we develop theories that allow us to represent everyday arguments in a symbolic language and then evaluate whether the corresponding arguments are valid. This is the technical part of the course where you will learn new symbolic languages and associated syntactic and semantic analyses, along with a variety of interesting mathematical results about those languages, their uses, and their abilities. The second part of the course is more philosophical, and we will address questions like: what makes a formal language and rule system a good representation of valid arguments in natural language? Are there natural language arguments these formal systems fail to capture? Can we fix that? What are the uses and limitations of these formal systems? What alternatives are open? These sorts of questions will be in the background as we progress, and we will take some time each week to think about a particular philosophical aspect of the symbolic logic we are learning.  Gen Ed: Quantitative Literacy, West Cult Trad. 

PHI 315(0001-LEC) Class #85919, 19th Century Philosophy, TTH, 11:00am-12:15pm, The Maples 217, 3 cr.
Max Enrollment: 20, Instructor: Don Beith
Course Description: The basic questions of modern human life involve difficult paradoxes and even contradictions. How can self-consciousness emerge from nature? How is free will possible? Where is the individual’s place in making a good society? In this course we study critical thinkers who argue that contradictions, rather than being errors, are key to understanding reality. To grasp this method we will read Hegel, especially his Phenomenology of Spirit, selections of Nietzsche, and Karl Marx’s The German Ideology. The course will conclude by looking at contemporary receptions of these 19th century philosophers, including works from critical theory, feminism and multicultural philosophy. Gen Ed: West Cult Trad. and Social Contexts & Inst.

PHI 351(0001-LEC) Class #85740, Philosophy & Literature, MW 2:00-3:15pm, The Maples 217, 3 cr.
Max Enrollment: 20, Instructor: Jessica Miller
Course Description: This topics course will introduce students to several themes arising at the intersection of philosophy and literature. Topics include what is literature, the paradox of fiction, neuroscience and fiction, metaphor, literature and morality, race, class, gender, and literature, and the differences between philosophical literature and literary philosophy.  Gen Ed: Artistic and Creative Expression.  

PHI 360(0001-SEM) Class #86323, Metaphysics, TTH 9:30-10:45am, The Maples 217, 3 cr.
Max Enrollment: 20, Instructor: Hao Hong
Course Description: Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that concerns itself with the fundamental nature of the world.  Questions that metaphysics attempts to answer include: What do we mean when we say something exists? Do any things other than physical objects (numbers, qualities, God, etc.) exist? Why is there anything rather than nothing? What are human beings: material organisms, immaterial souls, or something else?  What makes you the same person as you were ten years ago? Are we really free to choose our actions, or are our actions (even thoughts) predetermined by something else in the world? What is the nature of time and space? Is time travel possible?  In this course, we will focus on some of those questions and evaluate arguments for different answers that are proposed by philosophers from different philosophical traditions.  This will not only give us a deep understanding of those metaphysical disputes but also help us approach other branches of philosophy.  Gen Ed: West Cult Trad.   

For questions or permission, please contact The Philosophy Department at 207-581-3866 or email Jen Bowen at jennifer.bowen@maine.edu