School of Theology Catalog 2021

Anthropology and Theological
Ethics in the Theology curriculum.
PHIL204Metaphysics
3 credits. Metaphysics is the science
of being qua being, it is the
attempt to posit an act by an act,
to judge rightly concerning existence,
and to develop and promote
wisdom in ourselves so that
we may rightly order all things
and teach others to do likewise.
This course is designed to provide
students with some of the foundational
philosophical tools they will
need in order to begin the lifelong
process of acquiring the
habit of wisdom by investigating
the ultimate cause(s) of being.
PHIL205Philosophical Ethics
3 credits. This course treats general
principles of ethical decisionmaking
and moral action. It considers
topics such as conscience,
natural law, freedom, responsibility,
virtue and vice. It treats the
notions of the common good, solidarity,
and subsidiarity which are
central to Catholic social ethics.
Students also will be introduced
to influential ethical theories such
as utilitarianism, deontology, and
emotivism. The moral thought of
St. Thomas Aquinas is emphasized.
PHIL301Ancient and Medieval
Philosophy
3 credits. The first course in the
historical sequence, this course
considers the emergence and
early development of philosophy
among the Greeks; Socrates,
Plato, and Platonism; Aristotle’s
philosophical achievement; the
Church Father’s engagement
with Hellenistic thought; scholasticism;
and culminates with St.
Thomas Aquinas’s synthesis of
faith and philosophy in “sacra
doctrina.” Key concepts of the
course include nature, cosmos,
logos, form, cause, science, wisdom,
prudence, virtue, creation,
and the disciplinary terms “philosophy”
and “theology” themselves.
PHIL302 Modern Philosophy
3 credits. A continuation of the
study of western philosophical
thought begun in PHIL301, this
course introduces students to
the new conceptions of nature
and natural philosophy authored
by Francis Bacon and René
Descartes; the new articulations
of the human person put forth by
Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes,
and John Locke; and the reactions
to these predecessors by
Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
Immanuel Kant, G. W. F. Hegel,
Karl Marx, and Friedrich
Nietzsche. Key concepts for the
course include the state of nature,
the state, rights, compassion,
autonomy, values, and History.
Sustained comparison and contrast
with premodern concepts
during the course is intended to
develop the student’s historical
and systematic understanding.
PHIL305Epistemology
3 credits. Epistemology investigates
the nature of human knowing.
It attempts to answer the
questions: (1) What are we doing
when we know? (2) Why is doing
that knowing? So that it can
explain what constitutes human
knowing through an empirically
grounded analysis of what we are
actually doing when we know and
a critical extrapolation of why
such a process yields a correspondence
with reality, that is, why
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