Different Philosophy courses

Question

can anyone please give me a description of these so I can know what I'll be studying? I love philosophy and I'm always always thinking, so I'd love to have the best I can have.

1) philosophy: the construction of reality

2) philosophy of art and aesthetics

3)philosophy of communication

Answer 1

I pulled these course descriptions from a university web site:

Philosophy of Language and Communication

This course is an introduction to contemporary theorizing about language, focusing on the relationship language has to the mind. Many linguists believe that the study of language reveals the structure of a certain part of the human mind. Some philosophers of language have held that analysis of language can reveal the structure of thought. The aim of the course is to understand what relationship language has to mind and thought, such that it might show something about their structure. To understand this requires us to abandon many of our commonsense ideas about language. Our commonsense view of language is that it is a cultural innovation, something we have collectively invented and then pass on to our children by teaching it to them. Yet evidence from a variety of sources suggests that this commonsense view of language is fundamentally mistaken. The evidence suggests that language is an innate capacity of the human mind, much like the visual system. On this view, language is not a human invention any more than the visual system is, and children are not taught to speak a language any more than they are taught to see. Adopting this general conception of language as a component of the human mind, we will examine some of the contemporary ideas about the structure of language, with an eye to understanding what this might reveal about the structure of the mind. We will also examine some important ideas about language and meaning, with an eye to understanding what this might reveal about the structure of thought.

Experience and Reality

A rigorous introduction to some central philosophical topics, possibly including possibility, causation, free will, perception, meaning, truth, time travel, and what makes you today the same person as last week.

We will examine three of the most hotly debated topics in contemporary philosophy: the nature and possibility of knowledge, the nature of the mind and its relationship to the body, and the nature of time. If time permits, we may also consider a fourth topic, such as the existence of God or the possibility of free action. Readings will be a mix of contemporary and historical texts, and classroom discussion will be encouraged.

Philosophy of Reality:

An introduction to metaphysics, exploring issues such as the nature of persons, our experience of things, the mind-body relation, appearance vs. reality, space and time, the character of the external world, a deity.

Appearance and Reality

Problems in metaphysics: time, personal identity and persistence through time, causation, necessity and possibility, determinism and freedom, objectivity, realism vs. idealism, and philosophical theology

Reason, Religion, and Reality

Although we know that Copernicus (1473-1543) and Galileo (1564-1642) were correct in theorizing that the Earth orbits the Sun (rather than vice versa), the ways that Copernicus and Galileo argued for their model of the solar system can reveal a great deal about how scientific theories are tested against observations. We will examine their arguments in order to better understand the logic by which scientific theories are tested, confirmed, and ultimately justified. We will consider whether astronomy (and other sciences) can really discover that a theory not only accurately predicts our observations, but also accurately describes what we cannot see. We will consider whether the Catholic Church was justified at the time in regarding Copernicanism as just one among many fairly successful techniques for predicting the night sky’s appearance. We will also investigate whether Galileo could argue for his telescope’s reliability and use mere thought-experiments to defend Copernicanism. To grapple with these issues, we will read not only some history of science (and some of what sixteenth- and seventeenth-century astronomers actually wrote), but also some philosophical accounts of theory testing. We will also look closely at the events surrounding the notorious “trial of Galileo”. Ultimately, we will gain a more nuanced conception of scientific reasoning and of how scientific revolutions occur. No prior background in philosophy or science is presupposed.

Philosophy of Art

This course surveys key topics in (mostly) 20th century analytic aesthetics. Questions include: What is art? How do we evaluate art? Is there an objective standard of taste or is taste relative? How do we interpret pictures? What is realism? What is the role of intention in determining aesthetic meaning? What is the role of emotion in aesthetic response? Is art and aesthetic appraisal an evolved capacity? Many readings focus on fine art, but students can write term papers on music, literature, or other art forms.

These course descriptions come from the online course catalogs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University, and Duke University.