Learning Outcomes

The Philosophy Major

1.  Self-discovery and personal development

• Students learn to identify their own values, loyalties, and virtues, as well as those values and loyalties that they can tolerate, and those that they reject.
• Students reflect on their own habits of thought (metacognition).

2.  Critical thinking

• Students can express and evaluate ethical and philosophical arguments, recognize any logical fallacies, and find the pragmatic outcomes of those arguments.
• Students can criticize "conventional wisdom" (including their own) using skills of independent judgment.

3.  Historical awareness of philosophical and religious traditions

• Students demonstrate their ability to read and interpret difficult texts (philosophical, religious, biblical) in their historical context.
• Students demonstrate a basic knowledge of several world traditions (philosophical and/or religious).
• Students can trace the roots of contemporary ideas, as well as the influences that have caused those ideas to change and develop.

4.  Contemporary application

• Students examine ethical issues as "respons-ible" adults, able to respond for themselves without blaming others.

Students grasp religious, philosophical, and ethical traditions deeply enough to be able to express them in new ways in a changing world.