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Philosophy

students and a professor in a philosophy class
Nipissing consistently ranks high for Student-Faculty Interaction, Class Size and offering a unique campus experience.
four students sitting outside
The Philosophy Program is student-focused: students get to know and work closely with both their professors and their peers.​​​
philosophy professor giving a lecture
The skills students develop in pursuit of a degree in philosophy – careful reading, charitable interpretation and discussion, and rigorous argumentation – have proven themselves to be useful in innumerable fields.
painting of Socrates
​The department is particularly committed to introducing students to the history of philosophy, from the ancient period to the present.
students and a professor in a philosophy class
Nipissing consistently ranks high for Student-Faculty Interaction, Class Size and offering a unique campus experience.
four students sitting outside
The Philosophy Program is student-focused: students get to know and work closely with both their professors and their peers.​​​
philosophy professor giving a lecture
The skills students develop in pursuit of a degree in philosophy – careful reading, charitable interpretation and discussion, and rigorous argumentation – have proven themselves to be useful in innumerable fields.
painting of Socrates
​The department is particularly committed to introducing students to the history of philosophy, from the ancient period to the present.
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Welcome to Philosophy at Nipissing

Thinking about a Major? Why not Major in Thinking? Rather than being concerned with a particular set of questions or a particular period of time, philosophy concerns itself with the nature of inquiry, thought, and argument itself, asking how each of these operates in the various areas of human life, from ethics and politics to the study of nature and reality. This means that philosophy students take up the truly big questions: What is the best life? Why should we be moral? How is knowledge possible? Is the world really as it appears to us? How does the mind work? At the same time, the skills students develop in pursuit of a degree in philosophy – careful reading, charitable interpretation and discussion, and rigorous argumentation – have proven themselves to be useful in innumerable fields within and beyond the university.

The Philosophy Program at Nipissing is small and student-focused: with an average of 35 full-time majors, students get to know and work closely with both their professors and their peers. The department is particularly committed to introducing students to the history of philosophy, from the ancient period to the present. The program is designed to work well either as a stand-alone degree or as a combined degree with other programs, and there are numerous philosophy courses offered each year that do not have prerequisites and that are popular electives for students in other programs.​

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Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Philosophy

Philosophy at Nipissing University

Some especially popular courses include:

PHIL 1116: Introduction to Western Philosophy

Students are introduced to the main concerns in the discipline of Philosophy within the Western tradition. Beginning with the ancient Greeks and ending with the 20th century, students explore some of the most significant issues that have engaged philosophers during each of the main periods of the long and complicated history of Western Philosophy.

PHIL 1117: Values and the Human Condition

Students are introduced to some of the most important themes in the theory of value. While the specific topics and texts will vary each year, students can expect to critically explore fundamental questions about what it means to be a human being, the significance of human diversity, and the role of values in human life.

PHIL 2716: Bio-Ethics

Students will examine bio-ethical issues emerging in therapy, research, public policy, and law. The course will include a brief discussion of perspectives in moral philosophy; however, the bulk of the course will deal with specific debates within bio-ethics. Topics to be discussed may include the role of well-being and care in moral argumentation; the moral significance of biological life; patient autonomy and questions of competence and consent; cultural diversity and medical ethics; end-of-life issues, such as euthanasia and the definition of death; abortion; genetic manipulation, screening, and eugenics; the ethics of medical experimentation and research; the question of a right to healthcare; and the application of principles of distributive justice to scarce medical resources. This course may be credited towards Religions and Cultures.

PHIL 2717: Environmental Ethics

Students examine important historical positions as well as recent developments in moral philosophy as they are applied to questions of environmental practice and the moral status of the environment. Topics to be discussed may include: the moral status of nonhuman nature; duties to respond to climate change, including issues of intergenerational justice and collective responsibility, as well as consideration of the social construction of the natural; economics and sustainability; deep ecology; and environmental activism and eco-terrorism.

PHIL 3476: Existentialism

This course will introduce existentialist philosophy as a reaction to enlightenment reason and nineteenth century idealism. The meaning of individual existence, nihilism, creation, freedom and intersubjectivity will be explored through philosophical and literary texts that may include the work of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Kafka, Camus, Sartre and de Beauvoir.

PHIL 3706: Eastern Philosophy

This course explores the three major Asian philosophical traditions: Confucianism, Taoism and Zen. Although these three traditions are dealt with separately, some time is spent on considering how they intersect in matters of epistemology, metaphysics and socio-political thought. This course may be credited towards Religions and Cultures.

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