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Philosophy

What will I learn?

After completing courses in Philosophy, you will be able to

  • Understand the various branches of philosophy, philosophy’s historical development as a discipline, and the main problems that have concerned philosophers.
  • Interpret difficult philosophical texts and support those interpretations with reasoned arguments.
  • Examine critically solutions that have been proposed to the main philosophical problems.
  • Discuss philosophical issues and arguments critically and creatively.
  • Write critically and analytically about philosophical issues, supporting opinions with arguments, evidence, and reasoning.

What are my options?

You can take various kinds of Philosophy courses at Heartland Community College: Introduction to Philosophy, Ethics, Logic, History of Philosophy, and Non-Western Philosophy.

You can earn credits in Philosophy at Heartland Community College to transfer to a four-year college or university as general education requirements in the Humanities.

You can take Philosophy courses to improve your reading and interpretive skills, develop your persuasive and argumentative abilities, strengthen your problem-solving capacities, and enhance your writing and communication skills. More generally, philosophy courses broaden one’s understanding, contribute to self-knowledge, and promote an examination of values that benefits both the individual and (through the contributions of that individual as a citizen) the larger society.

What is the occupational outlook?

The skills one cultivates in Philosophy courses and the benefits one gains from them (such as those listed in the paragraph above) are transferable skills and benefits, i.e., they are useful in almost any field of study or academic discipline. Furthermore, they are skills and benefits that contribute to the individual’s ability to educate him or her self. Thus, they enhance any course of study.

Philosophy also is a discipline that can enlighten one’s study of other disciplines. It is concerned with standards of evidence, and thus one can philosophize about other disciplines and the principles that govern those disciplines. For this reason, philosophy can be meaningfully studied in tandem with many other disciplines from the empirical sciences, mathematics, the social sciences, and education to numerous disciplines within the Humanities and Fine Arts, e.g., religion, art, literature, and history. Since, the skills learned in Philosophy can contribute so significantly to the study of other disciplines, Philosophy is particularly beneficial to students who wish to pursue post-graduate education in the above areas or who plan to pursue professional degrees in law, medicine, or business.

Teaching is by far the main occupation open to an individual who wishes to explicitly and directly utilize his or her philosophical education. Philosophical teaching is largely done at the college and university level, and more rarely is available at the High School level. The minimum degree requirement for teaching at a college or university usually is a Ph.D. The minimum degree requirement for teaching at a community college or two-year college usually is an M.A.