Course Content and Outcomes Guides (CCOG)

CCOG for PHL 211 Winter 2025


Course Number:
PHL 211
Course Title:
Existentialism
Credit Hours:
4
Lecture Hours:
40
Lecture/Lab Hours:
0
Lab Hours:
0

Course Description

Investigates existential philosophy from the 19th Century to the present. Introduces different branches of existentialist thought and the influence existentialism had on philosophy, literature, and culture in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Includes existentialist philosophers such as, but not limited to, some of the following: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Camus and Sartre. Prerequisites: WR 115, RD 115 and MTH 20 or equivalent placement test scores. Audit available.

Intended Outcomes for the course

Upon completion of the course students should be able to:

  • Articulate key philosophical arguments in the field of existentialism.
  • Identify the influence of culturally based perspectives, values and beliefs to examine how diverse philosophical perspectives affect human experience.
  • Construct arguments on issues in existentialism using critical reasoning to identify and investigate philosophical theses and evaluate information and its sources.
  • Respond to arguments on issues in existentialism using critical reasoning to identify and investigate philosophical theses and evaluate information and its sources.

Integrative Learning

Students completing an associate degree at Portland Community College will be able to reflect on one’s work or competencies to make connections between course content and lived experience.

General education philosophy statement

Philosophy courses ask students to use critical thinking and reasoning skills in multiple ways: to identify the content, structure, and influence of beliefs, to examine how diverse philosophical perspectives affect human experience, and to construct and respond to arguments on a variety of philosophical issues. They encourage students to both create and understand their and others’ frameworks of meaning, and to use this new understanding in their own lived experience.

Course Activities and Design

The course will be conducted in both the standard classroom and distance learning settings.  It will involve lectures, discussions, and other assignments such as exams and papers.

Outcome Assessment Strategies

 Assessment strategies will include some of the following:

  • Essays in the form of in-class exams, short papers, and term papers
  • Short-answer exams
  • Student presentations
  • Class and small group discussions
  • Reading Journals
  • Participation

Course Content (Themes, Concepts, Issues and Skills)

 The course content will include some of the following themes:

  • Existential Anxiety
  • Existential Faith
  • Subjectivity
  • Nihilism
  • Existential Affirmation
  • Being and Time
  • Being and Nothingness
  • Existential Freedom and Responsibility