Goucher College 2011-2012 Undergraduate Catalogue

Nov 23, 2024

Goucher College 2011-2012 Undergraduate Catalogue PLEASE NOTE: This is an archived catalog. Programs are subject to change each academic year.

Philosophy Major

Print Degree Planner (opens a new window) |

One of the major goals of a liberal arts education is to help students initiate reflection on the meaning and significance of their own experience as individuals, as members of community, and as beings in the cosmos. This reflection begins primarily with the attitude of the perplexed knower: One knows enough to ask questions but does not know enough to find answers to them. Such questioning is the attitude of the philosopher; it realizes that it is more important to understand the questions themselves than to know all the answers. As the liberal arts education ultimately brings one to philosophy, philosophy brings the basic experiences and issues into question. What is truth? What can I know? What can I hope for? What is useful? What is moral? How can I learn to distinguish what is unique to me from what I have in common with others? How shall I act to achieve worthy goals for myself and others? Asking these fundamental questions is the task of philosophy.

Philosophical deliberation on these fundamental questions develops an understanding that is sensitive to the human as it finds the place of values in society and reality. The philosophy program asks the students’ own questions, and, so questioning, students put themselves in question. Such studies reveal a remarkable unity—the unity of the venture of questioning and of one’s experience as a questioner. Philosophical studies help students to develop self-awareness, self-confidence, and toleration grounded in a strong sense of responsibility. In short, to take control of their lives.

Unlike any other discipline, philosophy continuously returns to its own fundamental questions and answers, as well as the questions of other disciplines. The department emphasizes both the history of philosophy and the practice of philosophizing. With the history of philosophy, students discover the background and the issues; with the practice of philosophizing, students develop skills of analysis and methodological self-awareness in solving contemporary problems of interpretation, ethics, society, and science. Through its investigation of the underlying assumptions and structures of other disciplines, philosophy examines and develops the perceptions of reality and the structures of thought from which social sciences, sciences, art, and literature have emerged.

The questions asked in the historical works of philosophy, as well as the contemporary, are worthy of study in themselves, but these questions can also lend assistance to other scholarly and professional aspirations. Because of their broad-based perspectives, students of philosophy are able to find the unifying theses that tie together the strands of the liberal arts education. Because philosophy develops analytic, synthetic, and organizational skills, philosophy students have an excellent acceptance rate to both law school and medical school. Philosophy also lends itself to other careers that call for problem-solving abilities, leadership, and clarity of expression and thought.

Students majoring in philosophy must successfully complete the following requirements (36 credits):

One course in logic:

PHL 176 - Logic (3 Cr.)

Two courses in ethics, from among the following:

Four courses from the history sequence:

Five 200- or 300-level electives; three of these must be at the 300 level.

(One 100-level philosophy course, except for Logic, may replace a 200-level elective.)

Writing Proficiency Requirement for Philosophy Major

Each student is required to produce a substantial amount of writing throughout her/his years as a philosophy major. We recognize, however, that not all course papers rise to the level of excellence. Consequently, we require that each student demonstrate that this excellence has been achieved either:

by having a paper published, for instance, in an undergraduate journal, in a campus essay magazine, or in another peer-reviewed forum,
by enrolling in a philosophy course that incorporates a revision process for the final essay (ideally this would include a peer-to-peer workshop component as well),
by writing a senior thesis, or
by assembling a senior-year writing portfolio that will include three of the student’s best papers written on a philosophical topic during his or her years at Goucher. This portfolio will be submitted for review to the student’s adviser no later than March 1 of the senior year (or October 1, in the case of a December graduation).