Minor
A complementary minor is taken in addition to a student’s main program. There is no direct admission in a complementary program; the choice is made after admission and registration in a bachelor program.
Compulsory courses (12 credits)
Optional courses (18 credits)
3 credits from:
3 credits from:
3 credits from:
3 credits from:
6 credits from:
Students must take at least 2 courses at the 3000 and 4000 levels for completing a minor.
Some courses have specific prerequisites.
A course that is part of a bachelor degree or a major cannot count as an optional course toward a minor.
Explores the various sides of Critical Thinking: the nature of arguments, common errors in reasoning as well as evaluating evidence and information. Enables students to acquire and develop research and writing skills.
This course is a general introduction to logic. The course introduces students to such basic logical concepts as deduction, induction, validity and invalidity, fallacy, the relation of language to logic, and problems arising from workaday, rhetorical forms of argument.
Acquiring skills for research and writing, including how to critically appraise an article; how to structure an essay; and specific methodology in philosophy and ethics. Contains an overview of different theories in epistemology.
When offered, this course would take one of the following three forms: I. Ancient and Medieval Ethics: Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman Ethics. Selection from Plato’s Dialogues, and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Selection from the Epicureans, Stoics, Neoplatonists, and Aquinas. II. Early Modern Ethics: Renaissance Humanists, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, and Hume. III. Post-Kantian Ethics. Selections from Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, J.S. Mill, T.H. Green. Selections from Moore, the positivists and post-modernists. Western ethics may be compared and contrasted to selected non-Western traditions.
Difference between philosophy of nature and the science of nature. The history of philosophical reflection on nature. The individuation of beings; the relationship between matter and life; the nature of the consciousness in relation to the body, the problem of finality in nature. Impact on environmental ethics and bioethics.
Impact of robotics and new technologies on the patient-healthcare practitioner relationship, medical interventions, the manner in which we perceive our own bodies, and transhumanism.
General history of deontology, with readings from main thinkers in this tradition from its beginnings up to the present day (Kant, Ross, O’Neill). Study of applied dimensions of this approach, as well as of its limitations.
General history of virtue ethics, with readings from main thinkers in this tradition from its beginnings to the present day (Aristotle, MacIntyre, Nussbaum, non-western perspectives). Study of applied dimensions of this approach, as well as of its limitations.
Great Christian philosophers. Relationships between faith and reason. The reciprocal influence of theology and philosophy on one another.
Survey of the major ethical systems in the Western world. Relationship between philosophical and religious thinking in ethical matters. Fundamental questions facing contemporary moral consciousness.
PHI 2154 and PHI 2174 are mutually exclusive. PHI 2154 was previously under course code PHI 3183.
Study of different philosophical conceptions of the human being.
Philosophers and religion. Questions raised by the scientific study of religion in the contemporary period. Contributions of linguistic analysis to the study of the expressions of religious faith.
Examination of the philosophical and psychological research on the formation of ethical judgments. Relationships between judgment, feeling, and moral action. Examination of how various learning theories can be incorporated into teaching ethics to children, how ethics may be taught to children both inside and outside a religious context. Education as a pillar of democratic citizenship.
Life, intellectual context, and philosophical thought of Thomas Aquinas. Study of selected texts.
The philosophical question of God. The problem of the existence of God. The proofs of existence of God. Divine being and divine attributes. God and History. God and Evil. God and Human Freedom.
Principles of ethics consultations. Application of ethical theories to the practice of counselling. How to take decisions in the area of ethics. How to facilitate ethical decision making by individuals and organizations.
Life, intellectual context, and philosophical thought of Augustine. Study of selected texts.
This course was previously PHI2155.
Hermeneutics of the Enlightenment and birth of the modern hermeneutical paradigm in relationship with the history of ideas and the theological preoccupations.
The question of being. First philosophy. Fundamental notions of Aristotelian metaphysics. Several contemporary critiques.
Study of a particular topic, thinker or tradition. Critical analysis of the link between ethics and politics.
Development of fundamental skills in reasoning and critical thinking through the study of argument types, logical structures, criteria used in the evaluation of arguments, and forms of fallacious reasoning.
The birth of philosophy in Ancient Greece and its development, from the 6th to the 4th century B.C. Introduction to the originality and specificity of philosophical discourse through the study of Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Democritus, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
Also offered as CLA2380.
Introduction to major thinkers of the fifth to fourteenth centuries (Augustine to Ockham) and to some of the great questions of the era, concerning such matters as the nature of universals, of knowledge, and of the mind. Particular attention is paid to developments in epistemology and metaphysics.
Introduction to major philosophers, from Descartes to Kant, and philosophical systems (Rationalism, Empiricism) of the 17th and 18th centuries, with emphasis on developments in epistemology and metaphysics.
An introduction to the philosophy of Plato through the reading in their entirety of a selection of dialogues that represent the diversity of his styles, methods, and ideas.
Prerequisite: 12 PHI credits including PHI2380. Also offered as CLA3370.
Survey of the major trends in 20th-century European philosophy: existentialism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, critical theory, structuralism, and poststructuralist.
Prerequisites: 15 PHI credits, including PHI 2383.
An introduction to the philosophy of Aristotle through a reading of selected texts representing his wide-ranging interests in psychology, logic, physics, metaphysics ethics, and politics.
Prerequisites: 12 PHI credits, including PHI 2380. Also offered as CLA3380.
Study of major debates and currents in analytic philosophy, with focus on the core theoretical areas of philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, epistemology and metaphysics.
Prerequisites: 15 PHI credits, including PHI 2170 and PHI 2383. Previously: PHI3378.
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