Philosophy

SUNY OER Courses

SUNY OER Services offers template courses that can serve as starting points for your own development. You can mix, match, and adapt anything from the courses below quite easily.

These courses are delivered via the Lumen Learning platform, and can be integrated into your LMS (Blackboard, Canvas, Moodle) quite easily.

Philosophy

  • Modern Philosophy – this version from BCcampus Open Textbooks adapts a text originally published out of the University of Virginia. It is an annotated guide to some of the seminal works of philosophy. Includes a mini lesson on Logic, Glossary, and Study Questions.

Religion

  • Introduction to the Study of Religion – developed by the Extended Learning Institute (ELI) at Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA). Includes links to videos that are available by subscription only at that institution; could be replaced or updated with videos or other content from your library’s holdings.

Additional Offerings

Beyond what’s already hosted inside the SUNY OER Services platform, many OER collections contain useful material for Philosophy courses. If you have suggestions of public domain or Creative Commons content to add here, please let us know.

Title Source License  Notes
forallx: An Introduction to Formal Logic P.D. Magnus, University of Albany, SUNY CC BY SA
An Introduction to Philosophy: An Online Textbook  Dr. Philip A. Pecorino CC BY NC ND
  • currently many pages show All Rights Reserved license, but author has confirmed he is updating and will be relicensing all pages as CC BY NC ND. This is appropriate to use now for an OER course.
  • Non-Derivative license is challenging. Might be inspirational for organization and development of your course.
Introduction to Ethical Studies Lee Archie & John G. Archie, Lander University GNU Free Documentation License
An Introduction to Reasoning Cathal Woods, Virginia Wesleyan College CC BY NC SA
  • “An Introduction To Reasoning is a set of three text-books, in critical reasoning, (introductory) logic, and scientific reasoning.”
  • Instructor materials available by contacting author directly
  • published in Google Drive
Fundamental Methods of Logic Matthew Knachel, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee CC BY
  • available as PDF download, full text or by chapter.
Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking Matthew Van Cleave, Lansing Community College CC BY
  • combination of both logic and critical thinking texts for an integrative classroom approach
PHIL 101 OER Textbook Carol Johnson, Northwestern Connecticut Community College CC BY NC SA
  • uses LibGuide as format for delivery of interactive text materials
Critical Thinking: Analysis and Evaluation of Argument Martha Bailey,
Shirlee Geiger,
Hannah Love, and
Martin Wittenberg, Portland Community College		 CC BY
  • Google Drive files make it easily adaptable

If you’d like to utilize any of the above resources in your own classroom, you’re welcome to

  • link directly to them in your learning management system (LMS)
  • copy and paste these materials into any format you’d like (a page in your LMS or a Word document, etc.). Include the copyright information and attribute the source as needed
  • print out materials and distribute them in your classroom. Include the copyright information and attribute the source as needed
  • talk with SUNY OER Services about integrating them into your LMS
  • talk with SUNY OER Services about collecting them in a bound, printed version to provide through your campus bookstore
The timeline for these last two options can vary, and will be discussed as part of your consultation with SUNY OER Services. Get started with consultation services here.