Course Objectives | Humanities Department

Students will:

Recognize the foundations, central ideas, and expressions of a variety of cultures, value systems,
and philosophical perspectives.
Think critically about the historical development of foundations, central ideas, and expressions
within society and how these inform contemporary conversations.
Demonstrate an increased ability to communicate ideas about cultures, value systems,
philosophical perspectives and historical context in verbal and written form.
Identify and evaluate great texts and enduring creative expressions that provide important sources
of information about cultures, value systems and philosophical perspectives.

Students will demonstrate:

A basic knowledge of the various speculative traditions and prominent thinkers in Western and
world philosophy, including epistemology, human nature, metaphysics, reality and being, ethics,
and religion.
A basic understanding of the way in which philosophical traditions form contemporary world
views.
Enhanced analytical and critical reading and writing skills.
The ability to apply philosophical methods of analysis to everyday experiences.
A knowledge of the enduring creative expressions of humans that reflect our experiences, as well
as our feelings and ideas about ourselves, other humans, the past, and the universe.
Progress in answering the “big questions” for themselves and in realizing the universality of the
human condition, by learning how others have asked the same questions in creative ways.

Students will gain understanding of big questions found in the creative works in the history of
philosophy.
Students will analyze claims, definitions, and concepts presented by important historical figures,
and discuss their efforts, both in discussion and in formal writing.
Students will define and examine their own personal value systems in relation to important
historical claims.

Students will gain understanding of big questions of Epistemology found in the history of
philosophy.
Students will analyze claims, definitions, and concepts presented by important historical figures
concerning the nature and purpose of knowledge, and discuss their efforts, both in discussion and
in formal writing.
Students will be able to construct a well-reasoned, well-articulated argument about the subject of
their choosing.

Students will:

Demonstrate a knowledge of the historical foundations for at least three of the nine living
traditions cited in the course description.
Describe the nature and diversity of world religions, including points of commonality and
difference.
Articulate questions presented by these traditions, including how other academic disciplines
interact with these traditions.
Think critically about these traditions, becoming aware of one’s own biases when approaching primary texts.

Students will:

Identify argument forms in ‘statement logic’ and utilize tests such as truth tables and proofs to determine the validity of the argument.
Understand the structure and purpose behind categorical arguments, including the historical significance of such arguments.
Pinpoint informal fallacies found from various media sources and respond to such fallacies in articulate, constructive ways.

Students will:

Describe the substance of discipline of aesthetics, including primary ‘big’ questions (definition of ‘art’, nature/purpose of metaphor, art’s relation to knowledge), methodology, and major viewpoints in the history of the study.
Develop an awareness of beauty and the significance of the aesthetic experience as a fundamental characteristic and of human experience by gaining an appreciation for the task of aesthetic reflection on the artistic realm in the western philosophic traditions.
Identify the connection between the study of aesthetics and other academic disciplines, and express those connections through a semester long research project.

Students will:

Demonstrate an enriched appreciation of literature through the distinctive tools of philosophic inquiry, analysis, and argumentation.
Engage major philosophical issues (definition/question of personal identity, author/reader interplay, possibility of objective knowledge) often found in works of literature.
Utilize the critical thinking, analytic, and writing skills that were developed through a semester long paper project.