Philosophy
PHIL 1030 - Introduction to Philosophy
3 credit hours
Basic philosophical problems suggested by everyday experience integrated into a coherent philosophy of life through comparison with solutions offered by prominent philosophers. TBR Common Course: PHIL 1030
PHIL 2110 - Elementary Logic and Critical Thinking
3 credit hours
Principles of deductive and inductive reasoning, problem solving, and the analysis of arguments in everyday language.
PHIL 3120 - Perspectives on Science and Math
3 credit hours
Readings, discussions, and activities associated with history and philosophy of science and mathematics.
PHIL 3150 - Ethics
3 credit hours
Examines major ethical theories, the moral nature of human beings, and the meaning of good and right and applies ethical theories to resolving moral problems in personal and professional lives.
PHIL 3160 - Philosophy of Happiness
3 credit hours
Examines the concept of human happiness and its application in everyday living as discussed since antiquity by philosophers, psychologists, writers, spiritual leaders, and contributors to popular culture.
PHIL 3170 - Ethics and Computing Technology
3 credit hours
Exposes students to the fundamentals of ethical theory and familiarizes them with some of the practical, ethical, and legal issues with which they would have to deal as computer scientists.
PHIL 3200 - Asian Thought
3 credit hours
The origins, development, essence, and implications of leading philosophical-religious traditions originating in Asia.
PHIL 3300 - Philosophy of Religion
3 credit hours
Examines issues of religious experience, religious knowledge, faith and reason, the existence and nature of God, evil, religious diversity, life after death.
PHIL 3310 - Atheism and Philosophy
3 credit hours
Examines various philosophical perspectives on atheism, understood as the belief that no transcendent creator deity exists, and that there are no supernatural causes of natural events. Compares and contrasts this belief with familiar alternatives (including theism, agnosticism, and humanism), considers the spiritual significance of atheism, and explores implications for ethics and religion.
PHIL 3340 - Environmental Ethics
3 credit hours
Examines the relation of humans to the rest of nature, clarifying the relevant ethical issues and exploring from various perspectives their application to present and future ecological concerns.
PHIL 3345 - Bioethics
3 credit hours
Explores ethical issues arising from the practice of medical therapeutics, from the development of new biomedical technologies, and more largely from reflections on life's meaning and prospects in the face of changing modalities of intervention fostered particularly by the various life sciences.
PHIL 3350 - American Philosophy, British Roots: A Walk Across the Pond
3 credit hours
Explores the living legacy of ancient peripatetic pedagogy as expressed in American Pragmatist and British Empiricist philosophies of experience.
PHIL 3500 - Philosophy, Race, and Society
3 credit hours
Examines sociopolitical and existential concerns of African Americans, especially in respect to issues of justice, equality, and the very meaning of life in a world of anti-black racism, against the backdrop of "enlightenment" philosophical discourse on race and personhood.
PHIL 3600 - Philosophy and Film
3 credit hours
Examination of the cinematic expression of philosophical issues and development of philosophical issues in cinema.
PHIL 3690 - Social Philosophy
3 credit hours
The main problems of social philosophy are surveyed: the distinctive nature of social reality and the nature of social knowledge and how they relate to value theory.
PHIL 4010 - History of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy
3 credit hours
Prerequisite: PHIL 1030 or permission of instructor. The development of philosophical thought from Thales to Occam. Offered fall only.
PHIL 4020 - History of Modern Philosophy
3 credit hours
The development of philosophical thought from Hobbes to Hegel. Offered spring only.
PHIL 4050 - Nineteenth-Century Philosophy
3 credit hours
Emphasis on movements such as German idealism, the rise of the philosophy of the social sciences, historical materialism, utilitarianism, and early critiques of modernism.
PHIL 4100 - Aesthetics
3 credit hours
The nature of art, aesthetic experience, and artistic creation.
PHIL 4130 - Philosophy and Literature
3 credit hours
Explores philosophical questions about literature, philosophical themes in literature, and differing assessments of the relation of philosophical to literary texts.
PHIL 4150 - Formal Logic
3 credit hours
The nature and methods of formal deductive logic, truth functional logic, quantification theory, identity relations, propositional calculus.
PHIL 4200 - Existentialism
3 credit hours
The nature, significance, and application of the teachings of several outstanding existential thinkers.
PHIL 4240 - Recent Continental Philosophy
3 credit hours
The critical examination of various movements and key figures in recent European philosophy.
PHIL 4250 - Philosophy of Gender
3 credit hours
Examines major work in contemporary feminist philosophy and feminist theory, with particular emphasis on the relation of sex and gender, feminist accounts of inquiry, feminist ethical issues, and feminist aesthetics.
PHIL 4300 - American Philosophy
3 credit hours
Development of American thought with emphasis on naturalism, idealism, and pragmatism.
PHIL 4350 - Philosophy of Language
3 credit hours
Prerequisite: PHIL 2110 recommended. Introduces students to the most influential analyses of meaning, reference, and truth of early twentieth-century Anglo-American philosophy; explores how the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein transforms canonical accounts of language; considers the role of metaphor in human communication and understanding.
PHIL 4400 - Analytic Philosophy
3 credit hours
Examines twentieth-century analytic movement including logical atomism, logical positivism, indeterminacy semantics, ordinary language philosophy.
PHIL 4450 - Marx and Marxism
3 credit hours
An examination of the development of Marxist philosophy up to and including the present.
PHIL 4500 - Philosophy of Science
3 credit hours
The methods, problems, and presuppositions of scientific inquiry.
PHIL 4550 - Philosophy of Mind
3 credit hours
Classical philosophy of mind (emphases: the mind-body problem, theories of consciousness) and contemporary applications of philosophy to psychology (emphases: logic and cognition, emotion and reason, artificial intelligence).
PHIL 4560 - Philosophy of Music
3 credit hours
Examines issues in both traditional philosophies of music and contemporary philosophies of music making and musical perception.
PHIL 4600 - Philosophy of History
3 credit hours
Nature of historical knowledge and problems of historical inquiry; meaning and value of history; reality of the past; historical determinism and human freedom.
PHIL 4800 - Readings in Philosophy
3 credit hours
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor. Directed study concerning a particular philosophical problem or thinker.
Religious Studies
RS 1030 - Introduction to World Religions
3 credit hours
Introduces the study of global religions, highlighting their complexity and strategies for recognizing patterns of similarity and divergence. Topics include history, development, texts, practices, and beliefs.
RS 2030 - Religion and Society
3 credit hours
Introduces the academic study of world religions with an emphasis on the ways religion both influences and is influenced by society and human behavior.
RS 2100 - Introduction to Religion in the Middle East
3 credit hours
An introduction to the religions, people, culture, geography, and history of the Middle East from the distant past to the present.
RS 3010 - The Bible: Its Origin and Content
3 credit hours
Studies the historical development of biblical and extra-biblical texts with an emphasis on cultivating the skills of critical textual analysis, an understanding of reception history, and the emergence of diverse canons and interpretive approaches across different communities, both Jewish and Christian.
RS 3020 - Comparative Religion
3 credit hours
Employs central categories and concepts from the academic study of religion to analyze case studies from Western, Eastern, and Indigenous religions.
RS 3030 - Mapping Religious Diversity
3 credit hours
Explores religious diversity in North America with a focus on local case studies. Students will conduct original, ethnographic research examining religious sites in Murfreesboro.
RS 3040 - The History of Christianity
3 credit hours
A socio-historical survey of Christian thought and practice from the patristic period to the contemporary era. Discusses major events, texts, and figures in Christian history. Includes the study of theological concepts, interpretations of scripture, Christianity and politics, gender and sexuality, and disputes over orthodoxy.
RS 3050 - Rites of Passage
3 credit hours
The study of religious rituals and ceremonies that mark specific points in time, namely those in which individuals experience transition (births, weddings, funerals, and initiations). Explores how rites of passage and religious identities around the world are constructed and serve as sites of both conflict and resolution in a variety of religious traditions and cultural contexts.
RS 3060 - Pilgrimage and Sacred Journeys
3 credit hours
A cross-cultural and comparative examination of the dynamics of religious journeys with the goal of gaining a thorough understanding of the phenomenon of pilgrimage in all its complexity. Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Judaism, Muslim, and indigenous traditions regularly included.
RS 3070 - Supernatural Encounters
3 credit hours
Surveys discourses and rituals associated with the supernatural across world religions. Topics covered might include angelology and demonology, sorcery and witchcraft, hauntings and possessions, and magic and miracles.
RS 3500 - Race and Religion
3 credit hours
Examines the intersections of race, religion, and nation in various historical and cultural contexts.
RS 3600 - Religion and Film
3 credit hours
Examines the cinematic expression of religious traditions and development of religious issues in cinema.
RS 4010 - Global Christianity
3 credit hours
Examines global Christianities focusing on how narratives of the global correspond to and feed into localized religious practices within Christianity in a variety of regional and specific contexts.
RS 4020 - Jesus of Nazareth
3 credit hours
Surveys the diverse portraits of Jesus reflected in the socio-culture interface of the first century CE, early Christian literature, the modern scholarly quest for the historical Jesus, and in light of recent discussions, movements, films, and books
RS 4030 - Contemporary Issues in Indigenous Religions
3 credit hours
Examines and analyzes contemporary issues in the religious lives of Native American, First Nations, Aboriginal, and other indigenous groups from a religious studies perspective.
RS 4040 - Hinduism, Buddhism, and Asian Religions
3 credit hours
Explores historical and socio-cultural developments within Hinduism, Buddhism, and Asian religions, their relation to other religions, and interactions with broader cultural forces.
RS 4050 - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
3 credit hours
Explores historical and socio-cultural developments within Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; their relation to other religions of the world.
RS 4060 - Buddhism in Asian Cultures
3 credit hours
Presents a survey of historical and contemporary Buddhist traditions. Examines the rise and development of Buddhism throughout Asia in areas such as India, Southeast Asia, Tibet, and East Asia. Closely examines doctrines, rituals, ceremonies, and scriptures and compares key similarities and key differences among diverse Buddhist traditions such as Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana Buddhism.
RS 4080 - Islamic Traditions
3 credit hours
Survey of Islamic traditions in various historical and cultural contexts.
RS 4120 - Cults and New Religious Movements
3 credit hours
Investigates how new religious movements emerge, develop, and interact with American society and surveys "cult controversies" in the United States, asking why some new religious movements gain cultural legitimacy while others do not.
RS 4130 - Religion and Law
3 credit hours
Explores the complex and contested relationship between religion and the law by examining how debates over the proper relationship of religion and government as well as the limits of religious freedom have developed and changed over time.
RS 4140 - Religions of Tibet
3 credit hours
Examines magic, ritual, and religion in the context of Tibetan Societies. Religions covered will include Buddhism, Bön, Islam, and indigenous Himalayan tradition.
RS 4201 - Women and Religion
3 credit hours
(Same as WGST 4201.) Examines changing conceptions of women's roles in various religious traditions with particular attention to the ways religious beliefs and practices have influenced and are influenced by feminism and struggles for gender equality both within and outside religious institutions.
RS 4600 - Religion and Public Life Internship
3 credit hours
Prerequisites: RS 2030 and RS 3020 with grade of C or better; junior or senior standing. Practical experience in applying coursework in Religious Studies to actual situations and projects in organizations, both on and off campus, in a supervised internship program.
RS 4700 - Special Topics in Religious Studies
3 credit hours
An in-depth study of a specific topic in Religious Studies. Content will vary from semester to semester and will reflect the research interests and expertise of the instructor. May be taken more than once, as topics change for a maximum of 9 hours.
RS 4800 - Readings in Religious Studies
3 credit hours
Directed study concerning a particular problem or thinker within religious studies.
RS 4900 - Seminar in Religious Studies
3 credit hours
Prerequisite: At least 12 Religious Studies credit hours and junior or senior standing or permission of instructor. Capstone seminar for Religious Studies majors and minors. Students reflect on previous religious studies coursework in the context of their college education, analyze and critique substantial theoretical contributions to the discipline of religious studies, and complete a final product that "caps" their study of religion at MTSU.
