Loyola University Chicago

Department of Philosophy

PHIL 130: Philosophy & Persons

PHIL 130: Philosophy & Persons

The Generic Catalog Description

This course introduces students to the fundamental philosophical issues that bear on our understanding of persons in three equally weighted components, namely, Persons & Knowledge, Persons & Values, and Persons & Reality.


PHIL 130: Philosophy & Persons

Peter Bergeron

This is the first course in the Philosophical Knowledge section of the Core Curriculum. It introduces students to the fundamental philosophical issues that bear on our understanding of persons. The unifying question is: What is a person? The course has three equally weighted components, each with its own unifying questions, namely: 1) Persons & Knowledge. What is it for persons to have knowledge, including knowledge in such areas as logic, science, morality, and religion? 2) Persons & Values. What is value? When does something have value for a person, for instance in ethics, aesthetics, education, the environment, bioethics, and religion? What is the ground of, or basis for, value in human life? Are values culturally relative? 3) Persons & Reality. What exactly are persons, and how are they related to the entities acknowledged in religion (e.g., God and souls), metaphysics (e.g., substances and abstract entities), and science (e.g., matter and causal relations)?


PHIL 130: Philosophy & Persons

 

This is the first course in the Philosophical Knowledge section of the Core Curriculum. It introduces students to the fundamental philosophical issues that bear on our understanding of persons. The unifying question is: What is a person? The course has three equally weighted components, each with its own unifying questions, namely:

1: Persons and Knowledge. What is it for persons to have knowledge, including knowledge in such areas as logic, science, morality, and religion?

2: Persons and Values. What is value? When does something have value for a person, for instance in ethics, aesthetics, education, the environment, bioethics, and religion? What is the ground of, or basis for, value in human life? Are values culturally relative?

3: Persons and Reality. What exactly are persons, and how are they related to the entities acknowledged in religion (e.g., God and souls), metaphysics (e.g., substances and abstract entities), and science (e.g., matter and causal relations)?

The philosophers we will be reading present an integrated worldview in which questions of knowledge, value, and what we are as persons intersect.


PHIL 130: Philosophy and Persons

Victoria Wike

This introductory core course is designed to acquaint the student with some of the classical themes and topics in Western philosophy. The course is divided into three segments, each one dealing with a central philosophical topic or issue. The three segments consist in: (1) persons and knowledge; (2) persons and reality; and (3) persons and values. In the first segment (weeks 1-4), we will ask what it means for us to have knowledge, the nature and scope of our knowledge, and in what areas we may want to assert this.  In the second segment (weeks 5-10), we will ask about the nature of what is real, including the nature of persons, substance, the soul, the existence of God, free will, and causality, among other issues.  In the third segment (weeks 11-15), we will inquire about the nature of value, including whether the good is merely what is useful or whether there is intrinsic good; the nature of the highest human good (e.g., virtue, happiness, pleasure, material success); the role of deliberation in moral reasoning


PHIL 130: Philosophy and Persons

This is the first course in the Philosophical Knowledge section of the Core Curriculum. It introduces students to the fundamental philosophical issues that bear on our understanding of persons. The unifying question is: What is a person? The course has three equally weighted components, each with its own unifying questions, namely: Persons & Knowledge, Persons & Values, and Persons & Reality.