Philosophical Knowledge

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Learning Outcome: Demonstrate an understanding of philosophical questions and traditions.

Philosophical learning promotes informed reflection on various areas, topics, and figures in philosophy. Students should become familiar with influential philosophical questions, positions, and methods of inquiry, and they should develop intellectual attitudes that enable them to identify and assess implicit presuppositions, and to formulate and defend solutions to philosophical issues, including ethical issues.

Competencies: By way of example, Loyola graduates should be able to:

• Demonstrate an understanding of major philosophical questions with careful attention to the historical and conceptual development of these questions and to the contributions they make to human understanding.
• Articulate some of the major problems and responses central to philosophical inquiry, including questions concerning truth and knowledge, reality, and moral values and social justice.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the importance of philosophical inquiry for examining and assessing the theoretical foundations and assumptions underlying major disciplines of knowledge (such as, for example, in the areas of philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, and social and political philosophy).
• Demonstrate the ability to provide reasoned argument in support of their ideas, to assess judiciously the underlying assumptions of their positions, and to provide fair and reasonable evaluations of alternative positions.

Philosophical Knowledge Courses