Concentration Requirements
The Concentration in Metaphysics allows students to combine appropriate courses in Philosophy, Theology, Mathematics, and the natural and human sciences. Guided by his or her advisor, the student will create a five-course curriculum which, in addition to PHI 4337, will include at least one course in Theology and one additional course in Philosophy. The remaining two courses may be chosen from any of the lists below; however, some courses in the sciences require specific choices for the second Philosophy course. Courses other than those listed below may be counted with approval of the concentration director.
Note: According to university policy, up to two courses may be counted both toward the concentration and toward the student’s major or another concentration.
Required Courses
Philosophy Courses
Additional philosophy courses consider the human encounter with being in language, art, and so forth. Because phenomenology examines the essential structures of human experience, these courses often have a phenomenological dimension. Choose at least one.
Theology Courses
Theology brings the light of faith to bear on the whole of reality and its origins, the relation of human beings to the whole and its origins, and the study of origins that occurs within natural science. Choose at least one.
Mathematics and Science Courses
Choose up to two courses from any of the following groups. Courses in groups 3 and 4 require specific choices for the second course in Philosophy.
Group 1. Mathematics serves the investigation of being and its causes by awakening and reflecting on the human capacity for precise abstract reasoning, which goes beyond the limits of our senses.
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MAT 3321
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Linear Point Set Theory
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3
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MAT 3322
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History & Philosophy of Mathematics
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3
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Group 2. By investigating the material constituents, historical origins, and causal structure of the natural world, these courses directly prepare the mind to reason about first principles.
Group 3. By presupposing and illuminating the integrity of living beings as self-sustaining, self-regulating wholes, these courses direct the mind from the principles of physics and chemistry to the higher levels of being that these principles serve. Group 3 courses require PHI 4333 as the second course in Philosophy.
Group 4. Through the study of human and animal behavior, its material conditions in the brain, and the science of computation, these courses prepare the mind to appreciate the significance of the human encounter with being. Most Group 4 courses require PHI 4331 or PHI 4335 as the second course in Philosophy. For MCS 3311, PHI 4339 may also be taken.