COURSE INFORMATION
This page contains my own short descriptions of some recent and commonly taught classes, including summaries of reading lists. For formal course descriptions students should consult the University Catalogue. Students currently enrolled in these classes can access course details, including complete reading lists and and assignments, through Canvas. For others with questions or to see complete syllabi or reading lists, feel free to contact me directly.
FSYM 101: FRESHMAN SYMPOSIUM
An introduction to liberal arts learning, emphasizing questions about the human condition, reflecting on short stories, novels, literary essays, and poetry. Skills practiced include writing as a process, interpretation of texts, and discussion. The Symposium is the cornerstone for the subsequent sequence of courses in the core curriculum. The evolving reading list was originally inspired by Leon Kass’s anthology, Being Human.
PHIL 103: FOUNDATIONS OF PHILOSOPHY
A core introduction to philosophy, with readings from Plato (Euthyphro, Apology, Republic), Aristotle (selections from Physics and Nicomachean Ethics), Augustine (Confessions), and Thomas Aquinas (selections from Summa Contra Gentiles and Summa Theologiae). Also includes a logic component, with emphasis on evaluating arguments.
PHIL 203: PHILOSOPHY IN THE MODERN AGE
The second required core philosophy class, focusing on how current conceptions of self and society reflect deeper movements in the history of ideas. Special attention to how modern thinkers reformulate questions about knowledge, faith and reason, and political community. Selections from Galileo, Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, Mill, and Nietzsche, bookended by readings that place the history of modern philosophy in the context of the Catholic intellectual tradition.
PHIL 301/MAPS 501: MORAL PHILOSOPHY / ETHICS & THE HUMAN GOOD
An introduction to moral philosophy, with special attention to conceptions of virtue, happiness, and the structure and evaluation of human acts. Readings primarily from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae. Major paper engaging philosophical scholarship in theoretical or applied ethics. Depending on catalogue listing, this course can serve as a capstone ethics course in the undergraduate core curriculum, or as part of the foundational philosophical curriculum for seminary students.
PHIL 321/MAPS 521: METAPHYSICS
An introduction to Aristotelian metaphysics, focusing on the dialectical development of concepts as a means of formulating and answering questions for a science of “metaphysics” — including the question of what such a science is and should be called. Primary text is Aristotle’s Metaphysics, supplemented by Thomas Aquinas’s On the Principles of Nature and On Being and Essence. This course is an elective for undergraduate students and a requirement a the philosophical curriculum of seminary students.
PHIL 400/MAPS 500: THINKING POLITICALLY: ANCIENT ART & MODERN SCIENCE
Offered as an elective serving the Philosophy and the PPE majors, bringing into conversation classical and modern reflection on the nature of decision making in contingent and complex social circumstances. Readings on prudence from Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero were supplemented by scholarship on Aristotle on prudence and deliberation (Callard, Segvic, Hall) and recent reflections from various disciplines (including psychology, economics, and sociology) on practical reasoning. Contemporary authors included Kahneman, Gigerenzer, Tierney, Taleb, Flyvbjerg and Bowles.
PHIL 400/MAPS 500: FRIENDSHIP & CONTEMPLATION IN THE DIGITAL AGE
An advanced philosophy elective, considering the social and intellectual ends of human life and the challenges to attaining them presented by modern technology. Readings included Plato’s Lysis, Cicero’s On Friendship, and Aelred of Rievaulx’s Spiritual Friendship, with selections from Gregory the Great, T.S. Eliot, Christine Rosen, Sherry Turkle, Alan Jacobs, Matthew Crawford, Neil Postman, Richard Weaver, C.S. Lewis, Andrew Sullivan and Alice Ramos.
PHIL 400/MAPS 500: AUTHORITY & THE COMMON GOOD
Designed to give historical context to contemporary debates about Church-State relations (including religious liberty and “integralism”), this course examined how questions about ordering individual human lives in community and relating political and spiritual authority have been shaped by practical and theoretical developments. Readings included classic sources (Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine, Aquinas) and significant theorists of modern Catholic political thought and social teaching (including Brownson, Rommen, De Koninck, Simon, Manent and Hittinger).
PHIL 498: SENIOR SEMINAR — PLATO’S LAWS
A close reading of Plato’s longest work, offered as a capstone seminar for senior philosophy majors. Students took turns leading discussion on each book. Following Plato’s lead, topics covered included piety, natural theology, virtues and moral education, practical reasoning, political authority, intercultural dialogue, social/political epistemology and the relationship between philosophy and politics.