WESTERN INTELLECTUAL TRADITION MINOR  – 2005-07 Catalog
College of Liberal Arts
Faculty Offices East (Bldg. 25), Room 300
805 756-2333

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 12 units in Group A and 16 in Group B must be chosen outside the student's major and from at least two disciplines in each group.

 

Units

Group A
Select 12 units from the following:

12

Great Books World Literature (C1)*:
ENGL 251, 252, 253

 

Western Civilization:
HIST 110 or 111

 

Philosophical Classics (C2)*:
PHIL 230 or 231

 

PHYS 211 Modern Physics I (4)

 

POLS 230 Basic Concepts of Political Thought (4)

 

Group B
Select 16 units from the following:

16

British Literature (C4)*:
ENGL 330, 331, 332, 333, 334, 335

 

Shakespeare (C4)*:
ENGL 338 or 339

 

American Literature (C4)*:
ENGL 340, 341, 342

 

History:
HIST 307 (D5)*, 346, 347, 348, 349, 383

 

MATH 419 Introduction to the History of Mathematics (4)

 

Philosophy (C4)*:
PHIL 311, 312, 313, 314, 315, 332

 

Political Thought:
POLS 330, 337

 

SPAN 416 Don Quixote (4)

 

 

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