Ģ����Ƶ

The Department of Philosophy offers a major program that serves two different goals:

For students who desire to achieve a general liberal arts education and who do not plan to do graduate work in philosophy, courses are selected to enable the student to become a cultured, liberally-educated person.

For students who plan to do graduate work in philosophy, the department has designated a faculty adviser for preprofessional philosophy. This adviser carefully selects a series of courses and seminars in order to give the students a firm grounding in the discipline and prepare them for acceptance into graduate school.

From matters of law and politics to ethics and medicine, from justice and society to art and literature, the major in philosophy enables students to thoughtfully understand and critically assess the essential dimensions of these pressing issues. In the process, the major helps students to develop crucial cognitive skills in logical thinking, interpretive comprehension, critical evaluation, and argumentative writing.

Program Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of the Philosophy program at St. Bonaventure University graduates will be able to:

• Follow arguments presented in written texts;
• Determine the assumptions and implications of philosophical positions;
• Understand how arguments are related in a developed philosophical text;
• Appreciate the form and content of philosophical texts;
• Produce arguments that form a coherent philosophical position;
• Engage other points of view;
• Respond to constructive criticism;
• Particulate their views clearly and effectively;
• Appreciate divergent perspectives in philosophical debate;
• Appreciate the positive role of criticism in advancing philosophical debate;
• Appreciate the relevance of and weight of reasons in philosophical debate;
• Engage other philosophical perspectives in dialogue;
• Appreciate the values that underlie philosophical discourse;
• Appreciate the above outcomes as they are found in legal argumentation.