WESTERN INTELLECTUAL TRADITION MINOR -- 2000-01 Catalog
College of Liberal Arts
Faculty Office Bldg. (47), Room 31
805 756-2359

This minor is designed to appeal to a cross-section of students, primarily in the College of Liberal Arts and the College of Science and Mathematics, and complements major programs from throughout the university community. It focuses on the major accomplishments of the Western intellectual tradition through courses that trace the development of literary expression, philosophical and scientific thought, and historical understanding from their beginnings to the modern world. Courses in the minor provide direct experience with significant works of the tradition and expose students to ideas which are of abiding concern and to themes which endure in human affairs. Such exposure cultivates the intellectual skills of analysis and expression, and promotes an understanding of the tradition, including its inherent intellectual diversity.

Prerequisites. Students must have completed one year of calculus (MATH 143) or the second year of a foreign language (FR 122, GER 122 or SPAN 122). The prerequisites reflect the centrality of both mathematics and language to the Western intellectual tradition. Mathematics pervades the modern world and has a particularly close connection with the human capacity for learning. To study a language other than English is to study English as well, and promotes insight into language in general as the articulation of experience and the discourse of reason.

Courses used to satisfy the required 15 units in Group A and Group B must be chosen outside the student's major and from at least two disciplines in each group.

Units

Group A
Select 15 units from the following:

15

ENGL 251 Great Books of World Literature: Classical and Ancient World (3) (C1a)*

ENGL 252 Great Books of World Literature: Middle Ages, Renaissance and Enlightenment (3) (C1a)*

ENGL 253 Great Books of World Literature: Romanticism and the Modern World (3) (C1a)*

HIST 110 Western Civilization: Ancient to Renaissance (4)

HIST 111 Western Civilization: Reformation to Twentieth Century (5)

PHIL 230 Philosophical Classics (3) (C1b)*

PHIL 231 Philosophical Classics (3) (C1b)*

POLS 230 Basic Concepts of Political Thought (4)

Group B
Select 15 units from the following:

15

ENGL 338 Shakespeare in London or ENGL 339 Introduction to Shakespeare (4) (C3)*

ENGL 355 The Bible as Literature (4)

HIST 343 Ancient Greece and Rome (4)

HIST 383 History of American Thought (4)

MATH 419 Introduction to the History of Mathematics (4)

PHIL 311 Greek Philosophy (3) (C3)*

PHIL 332 History of Ethics (3) (C3)*

POLS 330 Modern Political Thought (4)

SPAN 416 Don Quixote (4)

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