Philosophy (PHI203)

Course Description
This course examines the principal ethical thinkers of Western Philosophy beginning with Plato and Aristotle and continuing through St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, and Soren Kierkegaard. Various points of similarity and difference between these philosophers and biblical pattern for moral living will be examined closely.

Course Objective
This course introduces students to philosophy. Students will read carefully and critically the primary works addressing the question, How ought we live? The goal of the course is for each student to know and to evaluate arguments of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Mill, and Nietzsche on this question. In addressing this question and these authors, students will be introduced to important questions in ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics and to perennial topics such as soul, nature, knowledge, good, universal, happiness, and faith.

This course promotes the learning objectives for the Classical Liberal Arts Core Curriculum by requiring students to enhance reading and writing skills, refine critical thinking skills, and apply the Judeo-Christian worldview to the study of the liberal arts.