This course provides a general introduction to the big questions of philosophy, including questions of existence, knowledge, freedom and meaning, and introduces students to great thinkers and theories while engaging them in the exploration of the same beginning questions applied to contemporary issues. PHL-210 serves as a genuine broad foundation for further, more specialized philosophy coursework.
The 'big questions' as a genuine organizing structure
The course explicitly organizes itself around philosophy's big questions — existence, knowledge, freedom, meaning — using these as a genuine structural framework for exploring great thinkers and theories, rather than a chronological history-of-philosophy approach.
Ancient questions applied to genuinely contemporary issues
PHL-210 explicitly connects philosophy's foundational questions to contemporary issues, demonstrating that these seemingly ancient philosophical concerns remain genuinely relevant to how students think about current problems.
Key topics in PHL210
- Questions of existence
- Theories of knowledge
- Freedom and determinism
- The meaning of life
- Great philosophical thinkers
- Applying philosophy to contemporary issues
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Worked example: an ancient question, a contemporary application
- Purely historical approach: Studying ancient debates about free will as historical curiosities disconnected from modern life
- PHL-210's approach: Applying that same free-will debate to contemporary issues like criminal justice or personal responsibility
- Lesson: PHL-210 teaches that philosophy's foundational questions remain genuinely relevant tools for thinking through modern problems, not merely historical artifacts
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Frequently asked questions
Organizing by big questions lets students see how different thinkers across different eras have engaged with the SAME fundamental problems, which reveals the genuine throughline of philosophical inquiry more clearly than a purely chronological survey would. PHL-210 uses this thematic structure because it helps students understand philosophy as an ongoing conversation about persistent human questions, not a sequence of disconnected historical facts about who said what.
Questions about knowledge, freedom, and meaning remain genuinely relevant to how people navigate real modern dilemmas — from questions of personal responsibility to the nature of truth in an age of misinformation — and showing this contemporary relevance helps students see philosophy's continuing practical value. PHL-210 makes this connection explicit because philosophy's foundational questions only feel genuinely worth studying when their relevance to present-day life is made clear, not left as abstract historical curiosities.