Future Course Offerings

Philosophy courses run throughout the year. To learn more, see the courses descriptions in the calendar.

Please refer to Register for Classes for published course schedules. The list below remains tentative until the official schedule is released. The course delivery mode may be subject to change.


Fall 2025

 

PHIL 1100 General Introduction to Philosophy  

 

PHIL 1111 Sustainability and Ethics  

 

PHIL 1145  Critical Thinking

 

PHIL 1150 Introduction to Formal Logic  

 

PHIL 1202  Pillars of Chinese Philosophy: Zen, Theory and Practice  

 

PHIL 2110  Moral Theory  

 

PHIL 2210  Epistemology  

 

PHIL 3033 Business Ethics 

 

PHIL 4110 Special Topics

Course Title: Why Be Normal? 

Course Description: Do we have a moral obligation to conform? In the words of Robert Chapman, the rise of capitalism has created an "empire of normality" that has transformed the body into a "productivity machine". This push for productivity has led to a system that punishes or excludes people who do not conform, both socially and economically. In this course we will examine the ways in which non-conforming minds and bodies are marginalized in a capitalist socio-economic system. We will examine neurodiversity and disability in the context of capitalist demands and challenge the concept of a "normal mind" and "normal body". We will address chronotype discrimination and the productivity bias that morning people are less lazy than night owls. We will explore the centering of cis-male bodies both socially and economically and the resulting marginalization of women and gender non-conforming people. This course will also examine the social mandate to share the beliefs of the majority and pursue a "normal" life path prioritizing productivity, consumption and conformity with capitalist values. Social pressures to conform are all around us. But we just might find some demands have little normative force - there might not be much to the claim that we ought to be normal after all.

 

PHIL 4430 Special Topics

Course Title: Consciousness, Perception, Emotion, and Embodiment

Course Description/Learning Outcomes: Upon successful completion of this course, students will understand and be able to articulate some of the nuances and questions regarding the following topics:

 

  • Different sorts of mind-body problems

  • Important technical terms like “qualia,” “subjectivity,” “intentionality,” “dualism,” “monism,” “emergence,” “epiphenomenalism,” “embodiment,” and more

  • Some historical positions on the mind-body relation: Plato versus Epicurus and the ancient materialists, René Descartes, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Isaac Newton

  • The subjective nature of consciousness and the problems to which they give rise: the explanatory gap & the hard problem; troubles for functionalism and artificial intelligence

  • Reactions to the problem of subjectivity: different kinds of dualism, behaviourism, functionalism, eliminativism, mind-brain identity, panpsychism

  • Different modes of perception, pseudonormal vision, unique hues, colour subjectivism and their implications for behaviourism and functionalism

  • Levels of consciousness & animal consciousness: does consciousness come in degrees?

  • Emotion theory: cognition & judgement, embodiment & affect, or somewhere in between?

     

Spring 2026

 

PHIL 1100 General Introduction to Philosophy 

PHIL 1110 Introduction to Moral Philosophy 

PHIL 1145 Critical Thinking

PHIL 1150 Introduction to Formal Logic 

PHIL 2106 Ancient Greek Philosophy 

PHIL 2215 Metaphysics 

PHIL 3010 Health Care Ethics 

PHIL 3033 Business Ethics 

PHIL 3100 Great Philosophers of the 20th Century 

PHIL 4120 Topics in Philosophy of Religion