Introduction to the Christian Liberal Arts

The requirements in this section introduce students early in their time at Westmont to the nature and purpose of a Christian Liberal Arts education. Although each of these requirements introduces students to the Christian liberal arts through a particular disciplinary or methodological lens, they all are intended to draw students explicitly into the questions and the concerns that we hope will pervade their entire education at Westmont. These themes include, among others: an exploration of what it means to be human; what it means to live a good life; and what it means to pursue justice as a citizen of both this world and the Kingdom of God. As a result of having fulfilled these requirements, students will have an appreciation for the development of the Christian Liberal Arts tradition. In addition, they will be on their way to developing categories of critical evaluation, sensitivity to historical context, empathic imagination, and other essential capacities of a liberally educated Christian.

Students must fulfill the following requirements at Westmont:

1.Philosophical Reflections on Truth and Value (4)

Courses satisfying this requirement give significant attention to the nature of reality, our prospects for knowledge, and ethical or aesthetic values. Students in such courses should: understand therole,in alternative worldviews,of metaphysical assumptions about the nature of God, human beings, and the world; appreciate how assumptions about knowledge affect such pursuits as science, mathematics, theology, and self-understanding; recognize the import of competing value claims; practice identifying and assessing arguments when a thesis is proposed; and emerge with a sense of how to think Christianly about various worldviews.

The Philosophy Department will have primary responsibility for this requirement, supplemented by other courses that address a comparable range of philosophical concerns. Ideally such a course would devote roughly equal time to questions of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics (or value theory generally). However, a course that emphasizes one of these may qualify if it is largely philosophical in emphasis and it addresses each of these areas in a substantive way.

For example, a biology course satisfying this requirement might involve a philosophical exploration of the nature of human beings, the cases for and against methodological naturalism, and the question how evolutionary processes could have produced beings that display genuine altruism. A physics course satisfying this requirement might involve a philosophical exploration of whether theism or naturalism fits better with various cosmological theories, the differing ways the study of nature has been practiced over time, and the theological perspective that might lead a Christian to value the study of physics. An economics course satisfying this requirement might involve a philosophical exploration of the extent to which humans can be considered free, rational agents, the ways in which different methodological assumptions shape economic theory, and the question how a culture’s economic policies relate to its political or moral beliefs.

Interpretive Statement

The only course offered by the philosophy department in this area will be PHI-6, with the new title “Philosophical Perspectives” or "Philosophical Reflections on Knowledge, Reality, and Value." In order for a course outside the philosophy department to be eligible to satisfy this requirement, it must, as the catalogue description indicates, “address a comparable range of philosophical concerns.” Ideally, this would involve a course focusing on and devoting roughly equal time to philosophical questions about ultimate reality, knowledge and value. However, a course may qualify if it emphasizes one of these sorts of questions over the others as long as (a) the course is primarily philosophical in emphasis and (b) it addresses each of these sorts of questions to some extent.

Goal

Students who take a course in the “Philosophical Perspectives” Common Context GE area will (at the end of the course) be able to state in basic terms the contribution of philosophical reflection to their Christian liberal arts education

Certification Criteria(Approved by the GE Committee 04/22/2010; revised version approved by the GE Committee ______)

Students will

  • Recognize and articulate foundational questions of philosophy – especially foundational questions of particular interest to Christians – though the emphasis among knowing, being, and value will vary by course.
  • Articulate some of the main components of a Christian liberal arts education and the interrelation of philosophy and other areas of academic study in the liberal arts, both in terms of content and the development and application of transferable skills.
  • Articulate the relationship between philosophical commitments/academic life and their beliefs, feelings, commitments, and practices as components of an integrated life, considered as a whole.

Student Learning Outcome (Provisionally approved by the faculty meeting 04/15/2011)

Students will be able to articulate major philosophical ideas and describe their bearing on the Christian liberal arts.