Spring 2024 Tenure-Track Faculty Course Schedule

Note: all scheduling information is provisional and subject to change due to unforeseeable events. We recommend confirming the information on this page with an advisor before adding a class, especially if the exact schedule or faculty member assigned to the class is especially important to you. You can get up-to-date advising from Natalie Oliva – noliva@fullerton.edu. You may also search classes on the CSUF Schedule of Classes webpage

Professor Course Time
Calarco Medieval Philosophy (PHIL 291) Tuesday/Thursday 11:30 a.m.
Calarco Kant and the 19th Century (PHIL 301) Tuesday/Thursday 1:00 p.m.
Calarco Existentialism (PHIL 323) Tuesday/Thursday 2:30 p.m.
Coplan Greek Philosophy (PHIL 290) Wednesday 4:00 p.m.
Coplan Philosophy of Sex and Love (PHIL 325) Tuesday/Thursday 1:00 p.m.
Davis Introduction to Philosophy (PHIL 100) Monday/Wednesday 10 a.m. & 11:30 a.m.
Davis Ethical Theory (PHIL 410) Monday/Wednesday 2:30 p.m.
DiPaolo Introduction to Ethics (PHIL 120) Tuesday/Thursday 11:30 a.m. & 1:00 p.m.
Howat Introduction to Logic (PHIL 106) Monday/Wednesday 10 a.m.
Howat 1st Course Symbolic Logic (PHIL 368) Monday/Wednesday 1 p.m.
Howat Philosophy of Language (PHIL 435) Monday/Wednesday 11:30 a.m.
Lambeth Rationalism and Empiricism (PHIL 300) Tuesday/Thursday 10 a.m. & 1 p.m.
Lee Philosophy of Feminism (PHIL 343) Tuesday/Thursday 10 a.m.
Lee Philosophical Argument and Writing (PHIL 315) Tuesday/Thursday 11:30 a.m.
Lee Phil. Approaches to Race, Class, & Gender (PHIL 377) Online asynchronous
Liu Asian Philosophy (PHIL 350) Tuesday/Thursday 11:30 a.m.
Liu Seminar in Contemporary Philosophy (PHIL 490) Tuesday/Thursday 2:30 p.m.
Nichols Philosophy of Sex and Love (PHIL 325) Tuesday/Thursday 2:30 p.m.

 

Spring 2024 Course Descriptions

 

Calarco: Medieval Philosophy (PHIL 291)

This is a survey course covering the key philosophical figures and schools that emerge during the late ancient period up through the medieval era, and ending with the Renaissance and Reformation. We will briefly examine the central philosophical schools and figures in the Imperial period (Epicurean, Stoic, Skeptic, and Cynic; Plotinus, Plutarch, and Porphyry) before turning to the most influential thinkers and philosophical debates from the early, middle, and late medieval period (Augustine, Boethius, Avicenna, Maimonides, Aquinas, among others). The course will conclude with an examination of philosophers and themes from the late medieval and Renaissance eras. Here we will take up issues surrounding sexual difference, nonhuman others, religious differences, and the colonial encounter (Christine de Pizan, Erasmus, Montaigne, and las Casas, among others). Depending on student interest, we might also read contemporary appropriations of medieval philosophical debates by philosophers such as Gilles Deleuze and Giorgio Agamben.

Students who wish to provide input on the course content can contact the instructor for a feedback form.

 

Calarco: Kant and the 19th Century (PHIL 301)

This course is an introduction to the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and an exploration of the impact of Kant’s thought on 19th philosophy. The main post-Kantian figures we will be examining are G. W. F. Hegel, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud. As Kantian and 19th century thought ranges over a wide variety of philosophical fields of inquiry, we will be touching on several important philosophical themes and topics, including: epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, politics, and philosophical anthropology. Throughout our study of these thinkers and themes, we will seek to be cognizant of the relationship of this philosophical field to the themes of race, class, gender, and the more-than-human world. To this end, we will examine brief critical analyses of Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud from both classical and contemporary authors. The course will be conducted primarily in lecture/group discussion format.

 

Calarco: Existentialism (PHIL 323)

This course is an introduction to existentialist perspectives on such themes as potentiality, meaning, authenticity, community, and bad faith and their relationship to ontology, ethics, and politics. To this end we will examine the writings of seminal existentialist philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger before turning to an analysis of subsequent developments, applications, and critiques of their thought in the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre, Emmanuel Levinas, Frantz Fanon, and Simone de Beauvoir. The course will be conducted primarily in lecture/discussion format.

 

Coplan: Greek Philosophy (PHIL 290)

This course explores the origins of Western philosophy through a survey of ancient Greek philosophy from the early Greek philosophers (or Presocratics) through Aristotle.  We will begin by briefly considering the cultural context in which philosophy emerges as an alternative to the dominant worldview of mythology.  Next, we will study some important early Greek philosophers and their respective notions of philosophy.  From there we will examine key ideas and methods of the Sophists and then Socrates.  The final two sections of the course will focus on Plato and Aristotle.

 

Coplan: Philosophy of Sex and Love (PHIL 325)

This topic-based course on philosophy of sex and love will examine a variety of philosophical and psychological accounts of love and sex, as well as depictions of romantic love in poetry and film. The first part of the course will concentrate on historically important discussions and accounts of love and sexual desire, including work by Plato, Shakespeare, Augustine, and Freud. The second part will focus on theories of love and desire developed in contemporary psychology, contemporary philosophy, and 20th century existentialist philosophy and will analyze and evaluate representations of love, desire, and gender roles in contemporary popular culture. In the third part of the course, we will closely examine the love relationship at the center of Michel Gondry’s 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, paying special attention to the ways in which the film’s depiction of this relationship challenges and revises standard Western notions of love. 

 

Davis: Introduction to Philosophy (PHIL 100)

Nature, methods and some of the main problems of philosophy. Primarily for freshmen and sophomores. Not a prerequisite for advanced courses.

 

Davis: Ethical Theory (PHIL 410)

This is an upper-division survey course on ethical theory.  Ethical theory is a blend of normative ethics and metaethics.  We’ll focus mainly on the normative part, and read seminal authors working within four major kinds of moral theory: consequentialism (Utilitarianism is the main version), nonconsequentialism (Kantian ethics is the main version), virtue ethics (with special focus on Aristotle), and contractarianism (also known as contractualism or social contract theory).  We’ll also read contemporary writings in each of those traditions.

 

DiPaolo: Introduction to Ethics (PHIL 120)

Should we take down confederate monuments? Is eating meat ethical? Should people lose their jobs and be shamed for making hurtful jokes on social media? When does a punishment fit the crime? Is it ethical to prevent your children from overcoming a disability? Should schools and neighborhoods be integrated to alleviate the costs of racism and diminish the harms of racial segregation? In this class, we will address these and many other ethical questions.

 

Howat: Introduction to Logic (PHIL 106)

Every day, through social media and the internet, most of us are exposed to vast quantities of information. Much of this information is bogus (hyperbole, bullshit, propaganda, “fake news”, etc.). A lot of it is designed to get us to react in a very basic, non-rational way (like/dislike, feel angry or outraged), to drive web traffic, boost ad revenue, and influence our behavior (esp. what we buy). In this climate, it’s very hard to know what is true and real. It’s difficult to avoid being manipulated and lied to by corporations, politicians, and trolls. The good news is there’s an app for that called Logic. Learning logic is the key to developing the single most valuable skill you can learn in college (and possibly in life) - how to tell a good argument from a bad one and how to avoid the common, silly mistakes we all make when we try to figure out what’s true and what’s false.

 

Howat: 1st Course in Symbolic Logic (PHIL 368)

All of us constantly face questions about what we ought to believe. At least in professional contexts and when the stakes are high, we ought to believe only those things for which we can find good evidence. The combination of a controversial conclusion and the evidence we can find in its favor is an argument, and the activity of constructing, deconstructing, reconstructing, and critiquing arguments is the very essence of responsible intellectual inquiry in every discipline, from math and physics to nursing and English literature.

 

Most arguments in philosophy and mathematics are deductive – they are designed to prove the relevant conclusion definitively. This is a course in the analysis and evaluation of such arguments. Our primary concern will be distinguishing good (valid) deductive arguments from bad (invalid) ones. We will learn to (1) translate English sentences and arguments into logical symbols, (2) show that symbolic arguments are valid or invalid by using truth tables, and (3) use the rules of logic to validly derive conclusions from premises. We will study sentential logic and will be introduced to predicate logic. This course is cross-listed with Math 368.

 

Howat: Philosophy of Language (PHIL 435)

This course addresses three main themes in the recent philosophy of language: (1) semantics, or the study of the nature of meaning; (2) pragmatics, or the study of the nature of speech-acts, conversational norms, implicatures, etc.; and (3) the application of semantics and pragmatics to ethically and politically significant speech (e.g. slurs, generics, propaganda, misinformation, etc.).

 

Lambeth: Rationalism and Empiricism (PHIL 300) 

The early modern period saw an incredible amount of progress, both in natural science and philosophy. Throughout this course, we will engage with a question that preoccupied early modern philosophers: how can we reconcile an increasingly scientific worldview with religious convictions? Can we spell out a convincing connection between the physical body and the spiritual mind, as rationalists like Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza attempted? Should we abandon our commitment to absolutes, and build up our philosophy from empirical observations, as empiricists like Locke and Hume attempted? In addition to reviewing mainstream rationalist and empiricist views, this course will pay special attention to the contributions of philosophers who have traditionally been underrepresented in the early modern canon, including Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and Anton Wilhelm Amo.

 

Lee: Philosophical Argument and Writing (PHIL 315)

The relation between thinking and writing has a long history of philosophical contestation.  Captured in Aristotle’s image of thought thinking itself, many argue that thought can occur without words, hence the commonly said adage by students, “I understand it but I just can’t say it.”  Within the last century, the poststructuralist movement has argued that thought cannot occur without words.  Hence if one cannot say it, one cannot think it.  In the act of speaking--or in this case of writing--thought comes into existence.  Whatever one’s particular stance on this question, this class commences steadfastly in the belief that thought comes into existence through writing.  We will read only four philosophy articles, but we will write outlines, write drafts, and write some more, all towards developing increased clarity in our writing and our thoughts.  

 

Lee: Philosophy of Feminism (PHIL 343)

We live at a time when women have equal rights, equal access, and are finally recognized as equal citizens in the United States, so is feminist philosophy still needed today?  This class definitely argues—yes, even without the #me too movement.  Feminist philosophy does not begin and end by solving a problem about rights and politics but by understanding how the difference of gender and sex is relevant to every area of human life.  We shall begin with speculations as to what does it mean to be a woman, to be the gender of female.  How are we different from men?  How are we the same and different from other women?  The class then turns to the question of knowledge specific to women, feminist epistemology: can women claim specific knowledge as women?  We turn to the condition of pleasure and fear of sexuality for women, including the force of compulsory heterosexuality.  The class ends by circling back around to the question of what does it mean to be a woman, but through poststructuralist and psychoanalytic theoretical frameworks to the question of the differences and the non-differences between sex and gender.

 

Lee: Philosophical Approaches to Race, Class, and Gender (PHIL 377)

Despite the history of analyzing race, class, and gender as separate phenomena, the three are integrally connected.  Perhaps because our present analysis predominantly treats them as three wholly separate entities, we have yet to achieve an encompassing understanding of them. This class will focus on the interstitial connections among the three.  

Students will gain knowledge of texts regarding the formation of race, class, and gender.  Students will be introduced to the structure of power in the social construction of identifying features such as sexuality. Beginning from the binary that usually defines studies of race — the black-white binary — we shall continue to ask how gender, class, sexuality, and the Latin-American and Asian-American identities disrupt and force the dialogue to change and expand its parameters.

 

Liu: Asian Philosophy (PHIL 350)

This course will teach Asian philosophies with heavy emphasis on Chinese philosophy such as Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism (especially Zen), and Neo-Confucianism. We will study the different worldviews, conceptions of human nature and the good life from these philosophical perspectives, and where suitable, make comparisons with Western philosophies, religions and values. The course will be conducted in the lecture/discussion format.

 

Liu: Seminar in Contemporary Philosophy (PHIL 490)

Philosophy seminar serves as the culminating course for philosophy majors before graduation. It emphasizes active learning and encourages vibrant discussion. With each specific topic chosen by the instructor, students will develop their abilities in formulating and presenting their philosophical perspectives.

 

Nichols: Philosophy of Sex and Love (PHIL 325)

Our approach will be to gain important factual information about the biology of love and sex as we move to answer questions of philosophical importance. In the midst of a political environment in which many people think that they can change their sex or gender merely with a decision, the biology-focused first three weeks of this section of PHIL 325 distinguishes it from other sections. We will cover why humans evolved as two sexes, sexual dimorphism between males and females, comparative sex anatomy between humans and many non-human species, sexual development, a variety of sex and sexual-genetic disorders, and the relation of sex to gender. From here we move to discussion of gender. This will include topics such as: how quantitative analyses of world folktales tell us about assist in falsifying claims that gender is a social construction mainly dependent on nurture, not nature; the Fraternal Birth Order Effect, explanations of the origins of homosexuality, and its philosophical implications; the role of the lack of education among women in countries and cultures with high rates of terrorists; the 'blank slate' theory of human nature and why rape is a sexual act that is not primarily about power; common hormonal changes in the process of falling in love and how you can prepare for them; and attachment theory and romantic love. Join us and inform your thinking about sex and love with factual information and rigorous philosophical reflection. Custom-made course reader. Midterm & Final, Online Quizzes, In-Class Writing.