Fall 2026 Department of Philosophy Course Descriptions

Listed below are the Philosophy courses being offered at Purdue University in Fall 2026. The courses are listed by their five-digit course number and course title, followed by a brief description. The tables below each description also include information on the course type (e.g., lectures = ‘LEC’), the enrolment limit of the course, the day(s)/time of the course or each section of it, the classroom in which the course will be taught, and the instructor(s) for the course. Courses that include a recitation section are marked in the tables below as type ‘LEC/REC.’ Details of the recitation sections are not listed. The type ‘DIST’ indicates a fully asynchronous, online course. ‘Grad’ indicates that a graduate student will be the instructor of record. PHIL courses that are cross-listed with other courses are marked as such (e.g., ‘c/l DEPT 10000’).

Have questions about specific philosophy courses, philosophy major plans of study, or the new BA in AI and Cognitive Science plans of study? You can contact our Academic Program Manager, Samantha Ooley, via email at swalker@purdue.edu, by phone at 765-496-3495 and she is happy to answer any questions you have or to schedule an in-person meeting, or virtual meeting via Zoom.

100 LEVEL COURSES

11000 The Big Questions: Introduction to Philosophy

The purpose of this course is to provide students with a general introduction to some of the major figures in the history of Western philosophy, and the types of philosophical problems that have been addressed by them, including the sources of knowledge; the nature of justice; the relation between the human mind and the human body; the good life, and so on. By the end of the semester, students should be more adept at utilizing basic philosophical skills of reasoning, argumentation, and evaluation, and more familiar with the way some representative philosophers have utilized these skills in attempting to pose some fundamental philosophical questions.  

11005 Introduction to Philosophy Through Video Games

11100 Introduction to Ethics

This course introduces students to classic and contemporary debates in ethics—the systematic study of how we ought to live. We’ll explore questions such as: What makes a life worth living? What is happiness, and how can I reliably achieve it? What is a good person, and how can I reliably become one? Which acts are right, which are wrong, and what makes them so? What are rights, and why would anyone think we have them? Is it OK to violate someone’s rights if it’s necessary to prevent a disaster? We'll then step back to ask deeper questions about morality itself: Is there really any such thing as moral rightness and wrongness at all, or is it all just made up? If moral truths do exist, where do they come from—God, my culture, me, nowhere at all? And why should I care about morality anyway, especially if ignoring it helps me achieve my goals? By the end of the course, students will have acquired some of the tools necessary for grappling with these questions, developing their own views, and defending those views with reasons and arguments.

11400 Global Moral Issues

The aim of this course is to provide a general introduction to the field of global ethics. This actually involves three introductions at once: one to the methods of philosophy in general, a second to ethics, as a subfield within philosophy, and a third to a subset of ethical issues that are specifically global. We’ll begin by discussing the nature of arguments, as the basic methodology of philosophy. We’ll then examine the nature of ethical claims and the scope of ethical obligation, before studying a range of ethical theories. Finally, we’ll consider what we owe to distant strangers from different cultures, the ethical value of patriotism, and the ethics of climate change. 

15000 Principles of Logic

[Note: This course fulfills UCC quantitative reasoning/math requirements.] This course is an introduction to the basic concepts and methods of modern logic, with emphasis on the construction and appraisal of complex patterns of reasoning. Some of the things expected will be the recognition and reconstruction of arguments in ordinary language, the symbolization of propositions and arguments from English into logical notation, the testing of arguments for validity, and understanding and constructing proofs. You will be expected to know the notation and the techniques of propositional and predicate logic. Put less formally, you will learn what it means for a claim to follow from others, and to recognize and construct good arguments of your own.

200 LEVEL COURSES

20700 Ethics for Technology, Engineering, And Design

This course focuses on a specific form of professional ethics, addressing the obligations of engineers and designers in contexts that are increasingly global. By focusing on case studies, students learn to apply a general conceptual framework to the specific facts of new and unique situations. The course first covers what this conceptual framework is, then provides practice in applying it to case studies. There are no exams, but two “short” essay assignments will serve as practice for a final case study, which can be presented either as a “long” essay or as a slide presentation.

20800 Ethics of Data Science

21900 Philosophy and the Meaning of Life

22100 Introduction to Philosophy of Science

TULODZIECKI’S SECTION: An introduction to the scope and methods of science and to theories of its historical development. Topics may include scientific revolutions, theories of scientific method, the nature of scientific discovery, explanation, and the role of values in scientific change. 

MALEY’S SECTION: The practice of science has proven to be one of the best methods for gaining knowledge about the natural world. Understanding what science is, however, is more complicated than just the use of the “scientific method.” In this course, we will carefully examine what makes science interesting and unique, approaching answers from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Some of the questions we will ask, and begin to answer, include the following: What makes something a science, or scientific? What roles do experiment and theory play in science? What kinds of reasoning are involved in science? What is the aim or goal of science? Why should we trust scientific knowledge? 

This course does not assume any prior knowledge in any particular science, but some readings for the course may include technical elements.

22700 Science and Religion

Are science and religion like two ships passing in the night—neither relevant to the other? Or can science support, challenge, explain—or explain away—religion? This course examines how science in general, as well as specific scientific disciplines like evolutionary biology and physical cosmology, are related to religion in general and to particular religious traditions like Christianity. 

24000 Social and Political Philosophy

(c/l POL 22900) This course offers an introduction to and survey in political philosophy. Political philosophy asks abstract questions about government that are typically forgotten in the day-to-day of electoral politics. For instance: the state forces people to follow certain rules of conduct; if you fail to obey, then they lock you up against your will. What makes this morally permissible? Is it morally required to follow the state’s laws? More generally, what should the state do with its coercive authority? How should our economy be structured? What is the permissible level of inequality in society? Should there be any inequality at all? Is democracy the best form of government? We will ask these questions and others over the course of the semester. This section will study of some major social and political philosophers from Plato to contemporary authors. Issues such as

-what theory to use to judge invasion of privacy by artificial intelligence

-what theory to use to judge whether manipulation of buying preference by unknow sources

-what are ‘rights’

-what, if any, institutions should be abolished-prisons? Nation states? Etc.

-in an ethnic and racialize nation state, what are the salient issues? 

25501 Introduction to Cognitive Science: Minds, Brains, and Machines

This course will provide an introduction to foundational topics in the philosophy of mind. We will consider the relationship between the mind and the body, and the mental to the physical more generally. We’ll ask, and look at some candidate answers to, questions like “What is a mind, and what are its component parts? How does a mind work? How are minds related to brains, and to the physical bodies that they seem to animate and control? How do minds represent the world around them? What is a self? What is the nature of consciousness and subjective experience? Could other animals, aliens, computers, robots or other types of entities have minds, or be conscious? How would we know? How can empirical efforts like the cognitive sciences help shed light on these questions? Could scientific theories of the mind supplant our intuitive conceptions of the mind? If so, what would be the implications?” 

27000 Biomedical Ethics

27500 Philosophy of Art

A survey of the principal theories concerning the nature, function, and value of the arts from classical times to the present.

29300 Introduction to Chess as Philosophical Inquiry

Meeting in the VRAI Lab, this course investigates thought, agency, and skilled performance through the practice of chess. Each session begins with active play and study, using over-the-board and online platforms to generate predicaments for philosophical reflection and analysis. Students examine expertise, the distinction between knowing how and knowing that, and the relation between striving play and achievement play. They also learn to notate their games, annotate key positions, and critically analyze their own play. Through the lab’s technology, the course explores the phenomenology of chess by comparing play with and without machine assistance. Graded work includes participation, a reflective journal (including self-annotated games), and three essay exams. Readings include John Dewey, Gilbert Ryle, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Bernard Suits, C. Thi Nguyen, and Thomas Hurka. No previous chess knowledge is assumed; players of all skill levels are encouraged to enroll.

300 LEVEL COURSES

30100 History of Ancient Philosophy

This class will be an exploration of Ancient Metaphysics. It is not for the faint of heart. We will be taking a rather brief look at the pre-Socratics, focusing on Parmenides, Zeno, and the materialists Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and the Atomists. We will then move on to Plato’s theory of the forms as it was presented in the Phaedo and the Republic, and then on to Plato’s own criticisms of his views in Parmenides. We then move on to Aristotle, Categories, Physics I and II, and finally parts of books VII through X of the Metaphysics. We will only be looking small chunks of these works—very specific passages. Our goal is to understand the problems of metaphysics as they were worked through by the ancients.  

30200 History of Medieval Philosophy

A survey of some of the main trends and major figures of medieval philosophy.  Emphasis will be on close reading and analysis of representative texts in medieval metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, but some attention will also be given to broader philosophical traditions that develop during the thousand years separating late antiquity from the Renaissance.  Readings (in English translation) may include Augustine, Boethius, Avicenna, Anselm, Abelard, Maimonides, Aquinas, Scotus, Ockham, and Suarez. 

30300 History of Modern Philosophy

30400 19th Century Philosophy

32200 Philosophy and Technology

A philosophical examination of the nature and history of technology, as well as its complex impact on humans and the world. 

32300 Philosophy and Programming

35000 Philosophy and Probability

400 LEVEL COURSES 

42400 Recent Ethical Theory

A philosophical examination of significant issues in recent ethical theory and metaethics, such as the nature of value, obligation, virtue, rationality, moral knowledge, the status of ethical sentences, practical applications, and the relationship between ethics and science or religion. 

43200 Theory of Knowledge

45501 Studies in Philosophy of Cognitive Science

This semester our study in cognitive science will focus on the Philosophy of Neuroscience: an exploration the conceptual, methodological, and ethical foundations of contemporary brain science.

We will begin by situating neuroscience within the broader history of mind–brain inquiry, from early debates about localization of function to the implications of the current focus on computational modeling. In these discussions, methodological issues will be central: interpreting data from fMRI and lesion studies, the limitations of evidence from animal models, challenges for establishing causality, etc.

Next, we will compare competing models of explanation. What does it mean to explain memory, perception, or decision-making in neural terms? How are levels of explanation—from molecules to behavior—related? These questions will raise further questions about the nature of mind and consciousness. Can neural activity be said to “represent” the world? How do findings from cognitive neuroscience bear on debates about free will and personal identity?

Finally, we examine ethical implications of emerging neurotechnologies, including cognitive enhancement, brain–computer interfaces, and neuromarketing. Students will learn to critically assess claims in popular science and media about “the neural basis” of morality, personality, and individual preferences

By integrating philosophy and neuroscience, this course will equip students to think rigorously about how empirical discoveries inform—and sometimes challenge—our understanding of scientific inquiry and our most fundamental concepts of mind, self, and responsibility.

500 LEVEL COURSES

52400  Contemporary Ethical Theory

54000  Studies in Social and Political Philosophy: Higher Education and the State

This seminar investigates the relationship between colleges and universities and the states that often fund their operations. If the state is justified in taxing citizens to fund such institutions, despite their deep disagreements regarding justice and the good life,  why so? Given that it does fund such institutions, to what extent is it justified in constraining their operations? How do the university's constitutive values of academic freedom, institutional autonomy, and free inquiry impact questions concerning higher education's internal and external governance? We will explore these and related questions by reading contemporary works in political theory, philosophy, legal theory, and classics in the history of ideas.

58000A Rational Choice Theory

Rational choice theory is the collection of mathematical, and philosophical theories of decision making by rational individuals: (i) taken alone; (ii) in competition; and (iii) in groups. This course provides a rigorous conceptual and mildly mathematical introduction to all three. 

58000B Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence

This course will look at some philosophical issues surrounding AI. Some of the questions we will ask, and begin to answer, include the following: What is the nature of computation, and how does it create a basis for AI? What exactly is artificial intelligence, and is there a difference between artificial and natural intelligence? Are there fundamental differences between machine and human intelligence? How does machine learning relate to questions about the nature of AI? Do different approaches to AI result in different kinds of machine intelligence? Do AI systems need bodies in order to be fully intelligent, or can they be completely software-based? What, if anything, does AI tell us about our own mind or brain? 

This course does not assume any prior knowledge in computer science, artificial intelligence, or machine learning, but some readings for the course will include technical elements.