Learning Outcomes: Philosophy, BALAS
Learning Outcomes for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences Major in Philosophy
The Philosophy Department aims to produce four main learning outcomes.
- Philosophical Knowledge: Students will be familiar with major figures and movements in the history of western philosophy; familiar with central topics, theories, and debates in epistemology and metaphysics, in ethics and value theory, and in logic; and familiar with current developments in professional philosophy.
- Philosophical Reading: Students will develop the ability to analyze persuasive and argumentative prose: identifying the main claims asserted, the reasons alleged to support those claims, and the logical relations between the claims and the reasons, including identifying any gaps in the arguments.
- Philosophical Inquiry: Students will develop the ability to formulate abstract principles in epistemology and metaphysics, in ethics and value theory, in logic, and in related special topic areas in philosophy; they will develop the ability to identify consequences of the principles they formulate; and they will develop the ability to construct arguments for those principles and compare them to competing principles.
- Philosophical Writing: Students will develop the ability to write clearly and with logical precision on a wide range of important issues, including (but not limited to): civic and social challenges at local, national, and global levels; social and cultural issues related to race, indigeneity, gender, class, sexuality, language, and disability; and the ways that complex, interdependent global systems—natural, environmental, social, cultural, economic, and political—affect and are affected by the local identities and ethical choices of individuals and institutions.