Instructor: Dr. Claire Horsik

Course Description:  

The central goal of the course is to learn critical thinking skills that are used by living philosophers and that will be useful in all your courses and throughout your life. We will learn these skills while considering philosophical questions from different areas of philosophy, so that we meet a second goal, learning that philosophy isn’t just about reading the work of famous thinkers in the past; it is a living discipline with active researchers who consider a broad range of issues. For example, these questions include: Do you know that the objects and events you experience are real, or is Elon Musk right in thinking we are probably living in a simulated reality? What should you believe, particularly when the source of knowledge is what other people tell you? Does the internet raise new problems about knowledge, because of its social nature? What does the moral principle “do the greatest good for the greatest number” omit about morality, and how is this relevant to programming and purchasing self-driving cars? Do you understand what you think and feel better than you understand what other people think and feel? What does it mean to say that a group of people is oppressed?  

Although many of these problems have their roots in the history of philosophy, and we will learn about the work of some notable historical figures, especially the 17th-century French philosopher Rene Descartes, most of the readings for the course were written by living philosophers specifically for undergraduates. 

 Instructor: Dr. Alexandru Radulescu

Course Description:

This class is about the Declaration of Independence. This is a very interesting document, and many people have written about it, both within academia and without. Even if you disagree about its importance (and many do), it certainly has been influential in American history. Ours will be a philosophical approach: we’ll be interested in what the text says, and whether there are any good arguments for or against the claims it seems to make. Consider this most famous sentence of the Declaration: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The texts we will be reading are all, to some extent, about ideas that can be found here.  

René Descartes’s Meditations talk about what we can be properly said to know, and the relation between that, science, and God.  John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government was read by Jefferson, and many ideas in it are echoed in the Declaration (and many are not). A useful contrast will be found in Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, where we see a radically different understanding of the relationship between the state and its citizens. John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty talks about the notion of liberty. Consider this class an introduction to both philosophy and the Declaration of Independence. 

 Instructor: Dr. Robert Johnson 

Course Description:

Moral philosophers seek reasoned answers to questions about how we should live, what we should value, and the nature of morality. For example, is morality objective or relative to culture? Are we morally required to be vegetarians? What is social justice? Is abortion ever morally permissible? As an introduction to philosophical ethics, we shall charitably interpret and evaluate reasoned answers to these (and other) questions. We shall then work on developing our own reasoned answers through essay writing.

Instructor: Dr. Phillip Robbins 

Course Description:

This course provides the tools you need to reason better when deciding what to believe and what to do. It draws from several fields: cognitive psychology, behavioral economics, logic, probability, and decision theory. We will consider empirical evidence about ‘heuristics and biases’ — spontaneous judgments that can be predictably irrational. And we will study what good deductive, causal, and probabilistic reasoning looks like. But the goal of the course is entirely practical: to develop effective reasoning skills with clear applications in your personal and professional life. The course is open to students from all areas of the University interested in improving their reasoning ability and their ability to construct and recognize compelling arguments. These skills may be helpful in a wide variety of university subjects and extra-academic pursuits, indeed, in everyday life more generally.

Instructor: Dr. Troy Hall

Course Description:

This extremely popular course considers issues of patient autonomy, consent, healthcare rights, abortion, euthanasia, and animal and human research from an agenda-free perspective. It is also perfect as a first philosophy or ethics course, as fundamental ethical theories are explained before integrating them with medical cases. Many students have reported that taking this course was a positive transformative experience for them at Mizzou. Taught by College of Arts and Science Green and Purple Chalk teaching awards-winner Dr. Troy Hall. Note: this course qualifies as a credit towards the new Certificate in Ethical Theory and Practice. For more information, go here: https://philosophy.missouri.edu/undergrad/certificate-ethical-theory-and-practice.

Instructor: Dr Claire Horisk

Course Description:

Do you love solving puzzles like Sudoku? Then this is a great course for you. We will learn how to solve logical puzzles, by learning a formal logical language and formal methods of evaluating arguments. Having logical abilities is great for anyone who needs to reason—and that is all of us—and is an especially useful skill if you are interested in law, business, or linguistics. Logic also serves as a fundamental basis for computer science and artificial intelligence.

Instructor: Dr. Troy Hall

Course Description:

This popular course counts as a Diversity Intensive Course. Truly a course for everyone, Environmental Ethics explores our relationship to each other and the natural world. A perfect first philosophy course or ethics course, cutting-edge contemporary topics such as animal ethics, sustainability, environmental justice and racism, ecofeminism, deep ecology, and eco-terrorism are covered in an agenda-free way. Taught by College of Arts and Science Green and Purple Chalk teaching awards-winner Dr. Troy Hall. Note: this course qualifies as a credit towards the new Certificate in Ethical Theory and Practice. For more information, go here: https://philosophy.missouri.edu/undergrad/certificate-ethical-theory-and-practice.

Instructor: Dr. Marta Heckel

Course Description:

This course focuses on some of the most influential philosophical ideas and texts from the early modern period of history in Europe, and will cover such figures as Descartes and Kant. The aim of the course is for students to gain an understanding of key views and arguments of modern philosophy and to engage critically with them; to understand arguments and texts; evaluate, defend, and criticize arguments of their own and of others; and think critically about philosophical issues.

Instructor: Dr. Kenny Boyce

Course Description:

Can we genuinely know that we live in a real world and not an elaborate simulation?  If so, how?  What things are rational for us to believe?  How are our commonsense and scientific beliefs justified?  Can we have rationally justified beliefs regarding matters such as morality, politics, and religion?  Does the fact there is so much disagreement in these areas give us reason to doubt those beliefs?  These are just a few of the questions we will explore this semester, as we explore epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge and rational belief).

Instructor: Dr. Andrew Melnyk

Course Description:

Science raises many philosophical questions, but this course is organized around just one of them.  Science today enjoys unrivaled prestige as humanity’s best guide to the nature of the world around us, but does it deserve this prestige?  The question at once prompts others.  For example, is there such a thing as the scientific method?  If so, what is it?  Observation is assumed to play the role of neutral arbiter between competing scientific theories, but can it play that role?  Can it be rational to prefer one theory over another?  Or is the choice always arbitrary?  Has science made progress—rather than simply having changed—over the centuries?  We will explore many different—and incompatible—answers to such questions.

Instructor: Dr. Robert Johnson

Course Description:

Normative and meta-ethical theories. Topics may include the rationality and objectivity of morality, the meaning of moral language, the differences between deontological, utilitarian and virtue theories

Instructor: Dr. Bina Gupta

Course Description:

This course constitutes a historical-critical analysis of selected philosophies of India and China. The primary emphasis will be placed upon the historical development of Asian philosophies within the classical period. It will explore a broad range of philosophical issues discussed in the Vedas and Upanishads, Advaita Vedanta, the Bhagavad Gita, Theravada Buddhism, the Confucian Analects, and the Tao Te Ching.