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Philosophy Minor


Pre-minor requirements: any 100-level Philosophy course.

Minor requirements: 15 semester hours of 300 or above level courses in philosophy to be selected in consultation with the program advisor. This includes the required capstone course, PH 490.

Program student learning outcomes are assessed individually in specific course work (course student learning outcomes) and cumulatively in the capstone course, PH 490.

Philosophy Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this program, the student will demonstrate:

  1. An understanding of the perennial problems that form Western philosophical thinking

  2. An understanding of the question, “why is there something rather than nothing?”

  3. An understanding of the theories of meaning and use of language in creating meaning in personal and social contexts

  4. An understanding of the major similarities and differences in approaches and content of classical and contemporary ethical theories

  5. An understanding of justice, its relationship to peace and its context in Catholic Social Teaching and how this tradition compares with other theories of justice and peace

  6. An understanding of various concepts of meaning that challenge the nihilism suggested by the limits of human life, including the Catholic response that we do something because we have been loved into existence