Course Content and Outcome Guide for PHL 211
- Date:
- 25-MAY-2012
- Posted by:
- Curriculum Office
- Course Number:
- PHL 211
- Course Title:
- Existentialism
- Credit Hours:
- 4
- Lecture hours:
- 40
- Lecture/Lab hours:
- 0
- Lab hours:
- 0
- Special Fee:
Course Description
This course will investigate existential philosophy from the 19th Century to the present. Students will become familiar with the different branches of existentialist thought and the influence existentialism had on philosophy, literature, and culture in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Philosophers that will be studied include, but are not limited to, some of the following: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Camus and Sartre. Prerequisite: Placement into WR 121 and placement into RD 90 Audit available.Addendum to Course Description
Prerequisites: Placement into WR 121 and placement into RD 90.
Intended Outcomes for the course
Students completing this course should be able to:
? Recognize and reflect on Existential philosophers' contributions to contemporary intellectual history in order to effectively communicate with others
concerning one’s life goals and meaning.
? Recognize and reflect on one’s own place in existence and society using the frameworks developed by important Existentialist philosophers
in order to define one’s responsibilities within a community.
? Critically read and think about modern existential ideas in order to analyze existential arguments and discussions.
Outcome Assessment Strategies
Assessment strategies will include some of the following:
- Essays in the form of in-class exams, short papers, and term papers
- Short-answer exams
- Student presentations
- Class and small group discussions
- Reading Journals
- Participation
Course Content (Themes, Concepts, Issues and Skills)
The course content will include some of the following themes:
- Existential Anxiety
- Existential Faith
- Subjectivity
- Nihilism
- Existential Affirmation
- Being and Time
- Being and Nothingness
- Existential Freedom and Responsibility