Jeffrey K. McDonough's

COURSES

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Spring 2007: Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, Harvard University
A survey of some perennial philosophical works with special attention given to their implications for religious belief and understanding. Works studied will include Plato's Euthyphro, Augustine's On Free Choice of Will, Anselm's On the Fall of the Devil, Al-Ghazali's The Rescuer from Error, Aquinas's Summa Theologiae, Pascal's "The Wager," Spinoza's Ethics, Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, and Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality. Syllabus

Fall 2006: Early Modern Empiricism, Harvard University
A study of some central topics in the works of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, with primary emphasis on their contributions to metaphysics and epistemology. Topics included: Locke (innate knowledge, theory of ideas, nature of body, primary-secondary quality distinction, language substance, personal identity), Berkeley (abstract ideas, new theory of vision, materialism, idealism, phenomenalism, human agency), Hume (causation, external bodies, personal identity, miracles, memory and imagination). Syllabus.

Fall 2006: Seminar on Leibniz, Harvard University
A focused study of some central topics in Leibniz including contingency, substance, phenomena, his early physics, dynamics, laws of motion, concurrentism, space, time, and teleology. Syllabus.

Spring 2006: Medieval Philosophy, Harvard University
A study of some central topics in the works of Augustine, Aquinas, and Ockham, with primary emphasis on their contributions to metaphysics and epistemology. Topics included: Augustine (skepticism, language, knowledge, freedom), Aquinas (metaphysics, epistemology, divine nature, human nature, human cognition), Ockham (logic of terms, mental language, critique of realism, conceptualism). Syllabus.

Spring 2006: Tutorial on Locke’s Essay, Harvard University
A study of Locke's Essay. Topics included: Theory of ideas, Substance, Body, Language, Epistemology, Liberty, Personal Identity. Syllabus

Fall 2005: Early Modern Rationalism , Harvard University
A study of some central topics in the works of Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, with primary emphasis on their contributions to metaphysics and epistemology. Topics included: Descartes (method, epistemology, eternal truths, mind-body), Spinoza (metaphysics, monism, necessitarianism), Leibniz (substance, dynamics, matter, space and time, teleology). Syllabus.

Fall 2005: Tutorial on Augustine and Anselm , Harvard University
A study of some of the central philosophical works of Augustine and Anslem. Topics included: Free will, Problem of Evil, Skepticism, Knowledge. Syllabus.

Spring 2004: History of Medieval Philosophy, University of California, Irvine
A study of Aquinas's Metaphysics and Epistemology. Topics included: Hylemorphism, Four Causes, Being and Essence, Proofs of God’s Existence, Divine Nature, Human Nature, Human Cognition. Syllabus.