What reasons do we have for thinking that God exists? Why might a good, all-powerful God allow suffering? If God exists, what is God like? If you are interested in exploring these questions further, and are competent in English, then this course is for you. You will learn how to evaluate arguments and how to construct your own rational arguments. You will reflect on your beliefs and will analyse possible objections and responses to a variety of ideas.

In this course we will develop a theoretical and practical grasp of fundamental concepts and techniques of critical thinking and logic as used in contemporary analytic philosophy. The first half of the course is informal. We will learn how to identify and analyse arguments expressed in natural language and we will learn to evaluate those arguments for validity and soundness. We will also learn how to identify invalid arguments and diagnose some familiar fallacies. The second half of the course is about the fundamentals of a basic formal logic: classical propositional logic. We will examine some problems with analysing, evaluating and constructing arguments in natural language. To avoid those problems, we construct a formal language called classical propositional logic. We will learn how to translate natural language arguments into propositional logic and apply formal methods to test them for validity.

This course introduces students to recent and contemporary feminist philosophy. We will ground our study of feminist philosophy in the feminists political activism that paved the way for feminist scholarship to become established in colleges and universities. We will focus on key themes, issues, and problems in feminist theory and philosophy such as social constructions of gender, sex, and sexuality; gendered relations of power; how gender intersects with other aspects of our lives, such as culture and politics; gendered embodiment; and resisting gender oppression.

The aims of this course are: • To explore current debates about the relationship between religion and human rights – including how religious ideas have shaped beliefs about human rights, and how religious communities respond to specific questions about human rights • To reflect critically on the relationship between religion and human rights from a range of perspectives: historical, theological, philosophical and social-scientific • To develop critical responses to specific case studies or issues in religion and human rights If you are interested in exploring these questions further, and are competent in English, then this course is for you. You will learn how to evaluate arguments and how to construct your own rational arguments. You will reflect on your own beliefs and will analyse possible objections and responses to a variety of ideas. The religious texts and ideas studied in detail will be from Christian, Jewish and Muslim sources, but we will also look at wider questions applying to all religious groups (for example, about freedom of religion and the rights of religious minorities). Students will be encouraged to raise their own questions and there is flexibility to shape the course material in line with student interests. Course objectives: By the end of the course, you can expect to be able to: • Understand and be able to discuss key questions about the relationship between religion and human rights • Apply theories about the relationship between religion and human rights to specific case studies or issues • Critically analyse and evaluate texts about religion and human rights