Advanced Philosophy Course

Lesson 1 • Historical Periods and Key Figures

Surveys ancient, medieval, modern, and contemporary philosophy chronologically. Contextualizes arguments within intellectual and cultural conditions.

Lesson 2 • What Philosophy Is and Does

Defines philosophy by distinguishing it from science, religion, and opinion. Grounds the chapter by clarifying the discipline's scope and methods.

Lesson 3 • Core Branches and Their Questions

Maps epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, logic, and aesthetics onto their central problems. Provides a structural overview students reference throughout the course.

Lesson 1 • Argument Mapping and Reconstruction

Teaches diagrammatic methods for visualizing complex multi-premise arguments. Students reconstruct philosophical arguments in standard form for critical evaluation.

Lesson 2 • Informal Fallacies and Rhetoric

Catalogs common informal fallacies and distinguishes persuasion from valid argument. Equips students to critique real-world philosophical and public discourse.

Lesson 3 • Propositional Logic Basics

Introduces truth values, connectives, and truth tables as tools for evaluating validity. Builds the formal foundation required for all subsequent argument analysis.

Lesson 4 • Deductive Argument Forms

Covers modus ponens, modus tollens, disjunctive syllogism, and hypothetical syllogism. Students identify valid forms and detect structural fallacies.

Lesson 1 • Sources of Knowledge

Evaluates perception, memory, testimony, and reason as epistemic sources. Students assess the reliability and limits of each source systematically.

Lesson 2 • Skepticism and Its Responses

Analyzes Cartesian, Humean, and external-world skepticism alongside major responses. Students construct and evaluate anti-skeptical strategies.

Lesson 3 • Theories of Justification

Contrasts foundationalism, coherentism, and reliabilism as competing justification theories. Students evaluate each theory against standard objections.

Lesson 1 • Personal Identity and Persistence

Examines psychological continuity, bodily continuity, and narrative theories of personal identity. Students apply these theories to thought experiments about survival.

Lesson 2 • Modality: Necessity and Possibility

Covers possible worlds semantics, essential properties, and the analytic-synthetic distinction. Students reason rigorously about necessity, contingency, and essence.

Lesson 3 • Ontology and Categories of Being

Introduces ontological categories—substances, properties, relations, and events. Students learn to apply ontological parsimony and evaluate competing ontologies.

Lesson 4 • Causation and Explanation

Surveys regularity, counterfactual, and mechanistic theories of causation. Students evaluate causal claims in philosophical and scientific contexts.

Lesson 1 • Virtue Ethics and Character

Examines Aristotelian eudaimonia, virtues, practical wisdom, and neo-Aristotelian revivals. Students assess virtue ethics as an alternative to rule-based frameworks.

Lesson 2 • Metaethics: The Status of Moral Claims

Examines moral realism, anti-realism, expressivism, and error theory. Students evaluate what moral language means and whether moral facts exist.

Lesson 3 • Consequentialism and Utility

Analyzes classical and preference utilitarianism, rule consequentialism, and objections. Students apply consequentialist reasoning to complex moral dilemmas.

Lesson 4 • Moral Reasoning and Reflective Equilibrium

Teaches the method of reflective equilibrium for balancing principles and intuitions. Students practice revising moral theories in response to counterexamples.

Lesson 1 • Intentionality and Mental Content

Examines how mental states represent the world through intentionality and content theories. Students distinguish narrow from wide content and evaluate externalism.

Lesson 2 • Language, Thought, and Communication

Investigates speech act theory, pragmatics, and the relationship between language and cognition. Students analyze how context shapes meaning beyond literal content.

Lesson 3 • Consciousness and Qualia

Analyzes the hard problem of consciousness, phenomenal experience, and the knowledge argument. Students assess whether physicalism can account for subjective experience.

Lesson 4 • The Mind-Body Problem

Surveys substance dualism, physicalism, and property dualism as solutions to the mind-body problem. Students evaluate each position using standard thought experiments.

Lesson 1 • Ethics of Technology and AI

Analyzes moral agency, algorithmic bias, privacy, and responsibility in technological systems. Students evaluate ethical frameworks for governing emerging technologies.

Lesson 2 • Social and Political Justice

Covers distributive justice, social contract theory, and structural inequality. Students evaluate competing conceptions of fairness and legitimate political authority.

Lesson 3 • Environmental and Animal Ethics

Examines moral standing, intrinsic value, and obligations to non-human entities. Students apply ethical theories to environmental policy and animal welfare debates.

Lesson 1 • Research Design in Philosophy

Covers literature review, problem formulation, and methodology selection for philosophical research. Students produce a research proposal with a clear argumentative agenda.

Lesson 2 • Analytic vs. Continental Methods

Contrasts the analytic tradition's clarity-focused methods with continental hermeneutics and phenomenology. Students identify methodological assumptions underlying philosophical disputes.

Lesson 3 • Philosophical Writing and Argumentation

Develops skills in thesis construction, objection anticipation, and scholarly prose. Students draft and revise a complete philosophical argument paper.

Lesson 4 • Thought Experiments and Intuition Pumps

Analyzes the epistemic role of thought experiments and their limits as philosophical evidence. Students design original thought experiments to test philosophical claims.