Below are examples of some of the courses taught in the department. The Past syllabi attached are for informational purposes only. Course content, including required textbooks, varies semester to semester based on faculty. Syllabi are intended to give students a general idea of the course. Students enrolled in courses should use the syllabus they receive from their professor.  

Need a past sylabi? Email history@montana.edu and the department staff will help you locate the syllabi you are looking for. We cannot garantee that we will have the syllabi from the specific class, professor, or year you took the course. 

Sample Undergraduate Philosophy Course Syllabi

This course is about a way of thinking, a way of being in the world, a habit of mind. The goal of the course is to examine questions like why do things exist as they do, whether our lives have meaning, and whether out futures are controlled by fate or free will, with rigor and clarity. Students will draw on the long tradition of Western thinkers who have tackled some of these questions in a systematic way.Ethics is a branch of philosophy that considers questions of right action, moral values, and how one might live responsibly in a world with others. This course will introduce students to some of the major ethical theories from the history of philosophy. We will consider questions like: What does it mean to live a “good” life?An examination of moral problems in medicine such as abortion, euthanasia, human experimentation, and the distribution of scarce medical resources.This course offers a survey of Western philosophical thought from approximately 600 BCE to 1400 CE. It focuses primarily on ways in which selected pre-modern thinkers address questions concerning philosophy itself, the universe (cosmos), the principle of life (psyche, “soul”), & thought (nous, “mind,” “intellect”).

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