Students of the program offered by the Castleton University?develop their own perspectives on the nature of reality, knowledge, and value. The critical thinking skills they acquire through disciplined philosophizing are both invaluable for the reflective life and excellent support for any professional career.

The philosophical questions that students encounter in the writings of the world?s most valued thinkers - and the attempts to answer them - constitute the core of the human drive to understand ourselves and our place in the cosmos. These questions are taken up in courses which focus on what reality is ?really? like; on the nature of knowledge; on ethical or aesthetic values; on the thought of such thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Mill, Nietzsche, Sartre, Wittgenstein, Quine, Rawls, Nussbaum, and others; or on one or more religious traditions (including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism).??