The undergraduate program in philosophy comprises five different kinds of courses:
Core courses (Philosophy and the Ethical Life, Philosophy of Man, and Philosophy of Being). Since
all UD students take these courses, they lay a foundation for cross-disciplinary philosophical
conversation. Philosophy majors will often find themselves discussing philosophical
core texts with other majors. The different perspectives—literary, political, theological,
scientific, aesthetic, etc.—will help to come to a more complete understanding of
these extraordinarily rich texts.
Historical courses. Every philosophy major is required to take the four-course sequence Ancient Philosophy,
Medieval Philosophy, Early Modern Philosophy, and Recent Philosophy. The main goal
of these courses is to enable majors to come to an understanding of the Western philosophical
tradition as a whole. A major should be able to situate a thinker within the tradition,
and therefore have a grasp of significant sources and influences.
Studium philosophiae non est ad hoc quod sciatur quid homines senserint, sed qualiter
se habeat veritas rerum, Thomas Aquinas famously said: the study of philosophy is not about getting to know
the opinions that people have defended, but rather the truth of the things themselves.
Hence the importance of the topical courses, in which you will study some of the central subject areas of philosophy: logic,
epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of religion or philosophy of God.
The Junior and Senior Seminars. Complementing the core courses and the historical courses, which always present
several thinkers together (usually in historical sequence), the Junior Seminar is
devoted to the in-depth study of one thinker and his works. The Senior Seminar, for
its part, focuses on a specific topic. The Senior Seminar’s main goal is to lead the
student from an attitude of (critical and intelligent) absorption of material to the
ability to construct detailed philosophical arguments, and to present these arguments
both orally and in writing in a methodologically sound way. Thus, the Senior Seminar
prepares for the Senior Thesis.
Electives. In the schedule of the philosophy major, there is room for a number of electives,
typically about four. These can be taken either in philosophy itself (the department
offers courses such as Aesthetics, Philosophy of Education, Bioethics, Philosophy
of Language, Philosophy of History, and Philosophy of Technology, among others) or
in other areas that complement your philosophical studies.
