We added two philosophy courses to winter: PHIL 100: Intro to Philosophy and PHIL 350: Intro to Epistemology. Both courses are relatively small (30 cap), 5 credits and satisfy “W” and SSc. They were added quite late, so there is currently plenty of space for new transfers or students who are looking to make changes.
PHIL 100 is no doubt relatively familiar to most advisers. However, I’ve included a description of the Epistemology course, just in case you don’t already know why epistemology makes philosophers eyes light up and want to learn something new today.
PHIL 100B
MW 8:30-10:20
sln: 22381
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PHIL 350A
TTh 8:30-10:20
sln: 22382
Course description:
Broadly speaking, epistemology is the study of knowledge and rationality. The main aim of this class is to acquaint you with some of the core questions, problems, and positions in epistemology. We’ll be asking questions such as the following: What is knowledge? How can we know anything about the external world? Are knowledge and certainty the same thing? Does knowledge require a foundation? What makes a true belief a justified true belief? Are all sources of knowledge experiential? Additionally, we'll be exploring how social dimensions of life can affect our rationality. In particular, we'll discuss how social structures which inhibit or magnify information can affect us—what are known as "epistemic bubbles" and "echo chambers".